I recently replaced my iPhone battery. While plugged in sometimes it would lose its charge. I made sure the charge icon showed active charging.

I took it back to the repair shop and was told nothing was wrong with the battery but that I should put my brightness on auto, make sure there are no apps running in the background, and turn off wi-fi and bluetooth if I am not using them. I can see that if it was unplugged but anyway...

I looked at my battery info in settings and it shows which apps are using the most energy. The top one was my photos! It said it was using 99%. My photo app wasn't on and is rarely on, so why would it show that? It's like it's sapping my iPhone energy without being opened!

Any app that is graphics heavy, like Photos, will necessarily use plenty of resources in the form of CPU cycles, memory, storage, and therefore battery. The battery use records restart any time you restart your iPhone and therefore, can be very misleading. Look at battery usage after you have been using your iPhone a few days without restarting. You will get a far more realistic picture.

TIP: Cellular data uses a lot of battery energy, mus=ch more than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and unfortunately that use is folded in with the app. Take a long hard look at the apps you allow to use cellular. Disallow cellular data use for any app that can wait until you have a Wi-Fi connection to access the internet. You can always turn cellular data back on, if it is needed in a specific instance. Cellular access is essential for Phone, Message, Maps, and maybe Mail, but you should rigorously justify why any other app should have to justify why it must use cellular data. I limit Photos to Wi-Fi only.

So, I guess it may be misleading to look at the battery usage of the photo app until I wait a few days after using it. I didn't now about that, so now I will wait.

One weird thing though, I have downloaded podcasts that I listen to at night. When I looked at the screen once or twice, I noticed the photo app slide across the bottom of the screen for some reason. That was weird. Anyway, I will give it time. Thanks, Joe.

OK, I'm doing a head slap. I rarely go into the photo app to see pictures, but I DO open it everyday because that's where all my music is that I send from my Mac to my iphone via AirDrop. I don't think I have a choice about that. It just goes there. But no matter where it goes, it will use a lot of battery power because I play the music almost everyday. Now the mystery is solved about why the photo app uses 99% of my energy.

Why are you using Air Drop to send the Music to your phone?

Assuming it started out in Music on your Mac and both your Mac and iPhone are on the same Apple ID, the tunes should automatically be available in Music on your iPhone. Any tunes I add to My entire music Library can be played on any of my Apple devices, including the HomePods and Apple TV, the only requirement being they must be logged onto the same Apple ID. If I don't want to stream the music from iCloud for some reason, I can always physically download it in Music on the other devices when I have a Wi-Fi connection. The Apple Watch is the only device that requires the tunes to be physically downloaded. It sounds as if you are trying to drive nails with a screwdriver. (pun unintended)

Yes, assuming I use the Music app. I don't. I get my music off of YouTube. I find my mac more user friendly for things like that so I download what I want and then transfer it to my iPhone.

If the YouTube music you download can be played on the Mac or iPhone, then it can be imported to the Music library on the Mac, after which it can be automatically transferred to the iPhone as joemikeb suggests above. That would keep it out of your Photo app.

I might guess that the YouTube music is actually a music video, which is why they are going to the Photo app on your phone. But the Music app on the Mac can import music videos too, so give it a try either way.

I drive a plug-in electic car (Volkswagen ID.4) so I have learned a LOT about Lithium ion batteries like those used in my car and iPhones, iPads, PowerBooks, etc. Your battery issues encouraged me to take a serious look at Apple's optimized battery charging and connecting the two threads has explained a lot of things about battery longevity in Apple devices that I would like to share with you.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Charging Lithium-ion batteries to 100% of their capacity reduces battery longevity,
2. Ideally, you woulds only charge Lithium-ion batteries to 80% of their capacity. (Most EVs have built-in circuitry that can limit charging to 80% capacity)
3. If you must charge Lithium-ion batteries to 100% you should immediately start using the battery, thereby reducing the charge level. (Apple's optimized charging works on this principle by attempting to control the charge so that it reaches 100% charge about the time it estimates you will start using the device, thereby minimizing the time it is held at 100% charge.)
4. Over the years there has been a lot written on extending battery longevity based on charging cycles, much of which was not based on lithium-ion technology, and the bulk based on a misunderstanding of the critical factors.

ADVICE

Based on what I have learned from reading and experience (not formal experiments and testing) my advice is...

1. Don't leave your EV, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc. on charge 24x7.
2. Take your device off charge and use it as soon as possible after it reaches full charge.
3. Never discharge EV, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc. 100%
4. Don't worry about deep discharge cycles or number of cycles, just aim to keep the charge level somewhere near the middle.
5. Charge/discharge the battery to ~80% of capacity before any extended storage.

You and others may be interested in AlDente.

Since I virtually never use my battery, I use AlDente to maintain a 50% charge, in keeping with Apple's guidance for long term storage.

The free version doesn't prevent the battery from charging while your Mac is sleeping or off. (Annual and lifetime licenses for the Pro version are available for $10 and $21, respectively.)

Ira, can you give me steps to do this? What I usually do is download music from YouTube (yes, some is video) via ClipGrab to a desktop folder and then send it to my iPhone via AirDrop. I guess I need another way to do this. Also, the music I already have downloaded, how to I get that to Music? I do have all of it in an album. I've never used Music and I hated iTunes as I didn't find it intuitive, so I just ignored Music.

I guess I'll try to go by the 80% rule. I never unplug my Mac and probably won't change that habit.

I'm confused. If the free version doesn't prevent charging while sleeping or off, what does it do, just prevent it while it's in use? I guess I could d/l that and just disable it at night.

Like many apps, that is why the free version is free. It is primarily intended as a teaser to get you to buy the "Pro" version, and is only marginally useful at best. Outside open-source projects, I have found few free apps that are truly worthwhile, and make it a point to “contribute” to the developer when I do find one.

I did that with a MacBook until the battery swelled and warped the case enough to lock up the keyboard. Fortunately, it was still under AppleCare.

Wow. I guess I've been lucky then because I've always done this and way past AppleCare coverage.

I don't think I've ever paid for an App but got just when I wanted out of them. ClickGrab is the only YouTube grabbing app that worked for me. I use SuperDuper to back up my hard drive and it works just fine. I used to use OnYx but I don't like it. It has messed with my settings. There are a few more. Malware bytes works for me too.

It should be fairly straightforward. You will have to determine where your downloaded YouTube music is located on your Mac. Once you know that, open the Music app, go to File>Import… and navigate to that location, select the music (you can select multiple items) and choose Open. You will then find the tracks or albums or videos in the Music app. As previously shared by joemikeb, they should transfer to your iPhone "automatically".

As an afterthought, I know videos of the format ".m4v" and music tracks of the format ".m4a" will load into Apple's Music app, but other formats like ".mp3" might also. Check the endings of the file names for your music. If they are different, try importing them anyhow and if they fail to import, try changing the file name.

It isn't because I am a goody-goody ordained Presbyterian elder, married to a Minister of Word and Sacrament that I take this position, I have always believed “a worker is worthy of their hire” and pay for any software I continue to use. Both SuperDuper and MalwareBytes offer additional features for a price, and in both cases the paid license enables valuable additional functionality. Even OnyX, when faced with the reality of what it costs to develop and maintain widely used software, has moved to a “Donationware” model. If I find a product useful, I want it to stay current and adapt which requires a significant investment in time and money, so I am willing to pay for it; otherwise I will delete it from my system. In the last few years, the financial realities of the market forced some developers to move to a “subscription” model. I resisted as long as I could, but I finally gave in and “subscribed” to some applications, and in most cases it has been worth the cost. I have also cancelled more than a few subscriptions and deleted apps that did not “pan out” or the subscription cost exceeded the product's value to me. But, that is just me.

I would remind you that software developers have to eat too, so examine your conscience carefully before you choose not to donate, contribute, pay for, or subscribe to software you use regularly or rely on. (NOTE: Open-Source developers are often willing to accept a donation of your time writing code, or user documentation, in lieu of cash.)

Second!

If it's on my Mac, I've either made a donation or paid except for some apps that are specifically posted as FREE.

Don't forget that for the automatic sync to happen on the iPhone Settings > Music must be set ON and on your Mac: Music > Settings > General must have "Sync Library" checked.

You're right, I should donate something when I am happy with an app. Thanks for the reminder. When it's "free" it's just so easy not to pay and not knowing what goes into the development of an app, I haven't even thought about it (until now). I did offer to donate something to Malwarebytes because it helped me so much once. They said they didn't have that option. Now they do, so I will rethink and donate something.

Thank you. I wouldn't have known and then wondered by it didn't work.

There is no sync in Music General on my Mac. Music Settings on Mac

I actually visit my FREE apps' dev's websites periodically to see if they've changed to donation or shareware.

On occasion, I've wanted to make a second donation, but the app had changed to shareware which cost more than I intended to donate, so...

This discussion has gotten me thinking...

I've got around 180 GB of music, none of which either came from the iTunes Store or is in a format recognizable by by the Store, and I've been wondering if I can access it on my iPhone without uploading it to the Cloud?

What can I say? It has probably been 10 or 15 years since I last changed that setting. It is there in Monterey (the screenshot is Monterey) and Ventura (I just double-checked) so it must be somewhere else in Catalina. I vaguely remember Music as one of the Apps listed under System Preferences > iCloud for synchronization? Hopefully, someone else, who is still running Catalina or has better recall than I do, will chime in.

My iTunes > Prefs > General in Monterey is the same as Rita's in Catalina. Your pref is apparently a "holdover" from a previous incarnation of OS X/macOS.

But... If Rita were to click on the "?" in the lower left corner of her pref pane she'd probably find this:

I wonder if it impacts on the question I asked in my last post?

But... If Rita were to click on the "?" in the lower left corner of her pref pane she'd probably find this:

I tried what you said above. I think we have to pay to subscribe to Apple Music (which I won't). I have to update to use iTunes Match (not ready to do that). I will just keep doing what I am doing until I have no choice but to update.

Thanks, Ira. I tried, but it didn't work. I don't want to pay to use Apple Music and nothing would sync. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Thanks for your response.

More likely I have the preference because I AM subscribed to Apple+ which includes Apple Music and iTunes Match and all my systems are either on the same Apple ID or a Family account. I would have never thought about that. Thanks for suggesting the explanation.

The two pref panes are really different. Seems like much new functionality.

I guess the syncing has something to do with why your pane doesn't include the "Show Apple Music" option? (I've lost track of whether your music is in the cloud, on your Mac, or some combination of both.)

Are you talking to me or Joe? My icloud is filled up and I don't use it. My music is on my desktop and in the Photo App on my iPhone. My iPhone 7 only has iTunes, not Apple Music.

My post was addressed to joemike.

OK, thanks.

I am sticking to my premise, the difference is iTunes match or Apple Music related. I have the same Music > Preferences panel I posted the screenshot an M1 Mac mini and an Intel Mac mini both running Music 4.2.4.3 under Monterey 12.4. The only difference in Music 1.3.0.90 on the Studio running macOS 13.0 (Ventura). is the panel is call Settings rather than Preferences, but it is otherwise identical. The Studio and Intel Mac mini are on the same Apple ID and the M1 Mac mini is on a family account, so all have Apple+.

It was also interesting to note the correspondence between the Music and OS version numbers. Music 1.2.4.x on macOS 12.4 and Music 1.3.0.x on macOS 13.0. It suggests that Music, or at least some elements of Music, are more deeply embedded in macOS than I had previously realized.

As to the location of the tunes in my Music Library, there are physical copies of some on my Mac, others on my iPad, and few on my iPhone, and a very few on my Apple Watch, but all are are available in the cloud or the Music store Library. CDs and other tunes I have copied and placed in the Music Library were automatically to the cloud or if the same version of the tune is available in the Music store that copy was linked to my Library rather than using disk space to store another, probably inferior copy. Tunes purchased from the iTunes store are always linked to the iTunes store rather then creating a physical copy in iCloud, but can easily and quickly be downloaded and stored on my device, if I wish.

Yep, it prevents charging only when the Mac is in use, which works fine for me, because I never turn my MBP off and pretty much never even sleep it. Even when I'm not using it I've got either music or white noise running more or less 24/7/365.

Disabling AlDente won't accomplish anything, because your battery will charge if it's disabled.

The free version works for me only because of my habits.

Both Apple Music and iTunes Match are paid services...a deal breaker for me.

You know you hear difference scenarios all the time about the batteries. I remember reading that it's not good to never turn it off or sleep. You do it and don't seems to have problems. I guess it's what we want to believe works and do that. Like you said, it's because of your habits. I want to do what's best, but there are too many choices.

Me, too. There's too much free stuff out there.

Both Apple Music and iTunes Match are paid services...a deal breaker for me. [/quote]

A major cause of confusion is the battery technology continues to evolve, and best practices for one battery technology may be counter-productive on another. Since we are all too human and not battery engineers, it is easy to lose track of what is best for the batteries we have now. Apple's “optimized charging” is an attempt on their part to apply some AI to the process, but it is dependent on the user keeping a regular, but not particular, charging cycle.

To take full advantage of “optimized charging”…

1. DON'T LEAVE THE DEVICE ON CHARGE ALL DAY
2. Charge your device on a regular cycle, starting and ending about the same time each day.

That's all there is to it. No third-party apps, no regular “exercising” the battery – just a good habit to cultivate.

I'm curious what format is not recognizable by iTunes. But to answer your question, you should be able to transfer music to your iPhone by connecting it to your Mac, open the Music app and it will appear in the sidebar. You can then drag and drop tracks into the iPhone. Ahh, but this presumes that the tracks are in the Music app to begin with, which may not be true in your situation. In that case, there are numerous applications (not free) that can perform the transfer independently of the Music app.

1. I think it would be helpful if Apple would make a chart showing the different products and which rules applied to those products as far as protecting the battery.

2. I wish I could have a regular schedule in recharging my battery, but it won't work that way for me. I left it off all night last night and wasn't using it, and in the morning it still had a good enough charge to wait to recharge. But it's not always that way, so I have to recharge at different times depending on my usage and how much battery power I still have.

That would be quite an undertaking and likely require frequent updates and perhaps unnecessary, at least in iPhone 11 and later — see PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS below.


The idea is to recharge regularly, REGARDLESS OF THE STATE OF CHARGE. My state of charge seldom goes below 60 or 70% by the time I put it on the charger at night. By the same token it seldom held at 100% of charge over a few minutes before it is removed from the charger and begins discharging.

PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS

The Battery panel iOS 16 Settings offers a far more complete picture of batter use over the last 24 hours or the last 10 days information about overall battery health, and more information on how Apple manages battery health. While that doesn't help you now, it is reassuring to know Apple is working on strategies to extend battery longevity, so maybe you won't need to worry about it as much in the future. I have never been fixated on battery life or longevity, but every time I have installed an iOS beta in the past, I have noticed significantly shorter battery life until the second or even third public beta. This is the first public beta of iOS 16 and, if anything, my battery life is as good as I if not better than I was getting with the last releases of iOS 15. NOTE: that is based on my impression and I cannot prove it with experimental facts.

The idea is to recharge regularly, REGARDLESS OF THE STATE OF CHARGE. My state of charge seldom goes below 60 or 70% by the time I put it on the charger at night. By the same token it seldom held at 100% of charge over a few minutes before it is removed from the charger and begins discharging.

That simplifies it.

PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS

This is the first public beta of iOS 16 and, if anything, my battery life is as good as I if not better than I was getting with the last releases of iOS 15. NOTE: that is based on my impression and I cannot prove it with experimental facts. [/quote]


Good to hear if I ever get up that high in iPhones. I'm always several years behind as I get my family's hand-me-downs, so I've happily never had to pay for an iPhone!

I don't need a laptop for travel or even just moving around my house. I've got one strictly because of space considerations, and it just sits in its spot and runs on adaptor power 100% of the time.

For years, Apple's guidance for never used batteries was to run them down once a month, but that guidance disappeared a few years back and was ever replaced. (I've asked a coupl'a Apple techs for guidance, and their response has been "I run my battery down once a month," but when I ask what Apple says to do, they've been at a loss.) I have had one battery swell up on me while following that guidance, but it was only one of six and encompassed many years of use.

For a while, I was running my battery down 20% or so each day, which was just burning up battery life for no particularly good reason, so when I found AlDente I decided to take the position - don't know if it's a correct one, but it seems reasonable - that my NEVER using my battery was akin to long term storage (even though my MBP is always plugged in), and keep a perpetual 50% charge as per Apple's guidance.

Am I doing what's best for my MBP? I dunno, nor do I think there's any way to find out definitively other than "the hard way," and whatever may actually happen won't even necessarily be definitive.

Actually, I've got zero experience with the iTunes Store. I'm extrapolating from my experience with the source Music.app uses to populate the details/metadata of imported CDs.

In order for music to be recognizable by that source, and, accordingly, I believe, by the iTunes Store, it must be in CD format, including whatever metadata relates to the disc itself, but virtually none of my music is from ripped CDs. It's all recorded from the radio and Internet and is unrecognizable by on-line databases.

My music is all in Music, so I could drag it to my iPhone, but I've got 180 GB of music and only 5 or so GB of space on my phone, hence my question about syncing.

OK, then.

Music will accept, store, and play anything that is supported by QuickTime Player. QuickTime is reputed to be one of the most universal players, but within the supported formats you may find a given tune that is incompatible, commonly due to DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. For reasons besides DRM, the recommended solution is converting the tune to another format using a third-party converter app.

The formats and codecs supported by QuickTime are:

• [b]Video file formats: QuickTime Movie (.mov), MPEG-4(.mp4, .m4v), MPEG-2 (OS X Lion or later), MPEG-1, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AVCHD (OS X Mountain Lion or later), AVI (Motion JPEG only), DV
• Video codecs: MPEG-2 (OS X Lion or later), MPEG-4 (Part 2), H.264, H.263, H.261
• Audio file formats: iTunes Audio (.m4a, .m4b, .m4p), MP3, Core Audio (.caf), AIFF, AU, SD2, WAV, SND, AMR
• Audio Codecs: AAC (MPEG-4 Audio), HE-AAC, Apple Lossless, MP3

Submissions to the Apple Music store must meet these requirements

Tunes on the Apple Music Store (nee. iTunes Store) I believe are MP4 or in some cases Apple Lossless with variations specific to the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

Unless you selectively drag and drop 5 GB of music onto your iPhone, all 180 GB has to be somewhere that is shared by phone and Mac. That would be some sort of Cloud storage. If you did sync your iPhone and Music Library via iCloud for example, all 180 GB should show on your iPhone as being available, but not downloaded. You can still play any of it or download (up to 5 GB) what you want.

Thanks, but syncing has already been discussed and discarded as an option earlier in this thread, and my remaining option, i.e., to upload my entire 180 GB to the Cloud is a non-starter for various reasons.

There's no issue with my music being in an unPLAYable format, the issue is with its being in a format that's unrecognizable by either the iTunes Store or the on-line database from which metadata is d/l'ed.

So, the only issue is the metadata? I am not sure if it is stilled called a store, but the fact a format is not recognized by Apple's Music Library, does not prevent you from entering a tune in your Music Library and sharing it with other devices or making a CD with that content. But you will have to enter the metadata manually.

And I have, indeed, spent MANY hours entering metadata by hand.

But I was also referring to (if I understand you) some of your music not being stored in the cloud, but being linked to the iTunes Store instead, which is an impossibility in my case, because the hand-entered metadata is obviously lacking some sort of identifying info.

My Music Library is on my iCloud disk which is mirrored on my Mac, my iPhone, iPad, server, and two Apple TVs. The bulk of consists primarily of links to “tunes” that are physically stored in Apple's Music Library (and are not counted against my iCloud Drive space allocation) but there are tunes, mostly transcriptions of out of print Dave Brubeck's work, that are not found in Apple's Music Library which are stored as part of my Music Library on iCloud (and count against my iCloud Drive limit). I mostly stream the tunes from iCloud, but for various reasons I may download and store selected playlists, albums, tunes to one or more of my devices, so they can be played without an internet connection. EXCEPTION: any tune I play on my Apple Watch must be physically downloaded first to my iPhone and then copied to the Apple Watch for playing.