Rolling back to an older version of the software doesn’t seem to help.
If a Pixel phone is your daily driver, you may want to keep a charger nearby. An Engadget reader contacted us on Sunday to report that their Pixel 6 Pro has recently been overheating and excessively draining its battery. They suspect the culprit is the Google app and an update that began rolling out on May 12th.
“I haven’t touched my phone in the past hour. It’s just been on a standard wireless charger,” the reader says of a screenshot (seen below) they sent of their phone’s settings menu, showing the Google app burning through the 6 Pro’s battery in the background. “Still very hot, and if I didn’t roll back to a different version, I wouldn’t have a net increase on my phone’s battery.”
Courtesy of Engadget reader
A visit to Reddit and the Google support forums shows other Pixel users are experiencing the same issue. “It just started yesterday. Massive battery usage from Google app and to a lesser degree Android System Intelligence. I just went through and did a factory reset, reinstalled most things and it’s still happening,” one Reddit user wrote. “Beyond the battery not lasting the phone is getting really warm so I know it’s harming the battery and potentially the CPU.”
Those who have tried contacting Google report the company’s support staff haven’t been very helpful. Some users say rolling back to an older version of the Google app hasn’t fixed the problem for them. “Actually ended up with an even older version from May 10, still draining the battery,” writes one Redditor. The reader who contacted us suspects the problem may be server-side. “Google app keeps wrecking the battery regardless of version, and I’ve rolled all the way back to May 1st,” they write. “I don’t know how to see if the app is trying to call home or on a loop with something like that, but the symptoms remain the same.”
Google did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. If the Google app is at fault here, it wouldn’t be the first time a software update has caused headaches for Pixel users. Last May, Google had to patch the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro after an earlier update caused the phones to produce much weaker haptic feedback. The year before the company paused the rollout of its December Pixel update after users found it was making their phones drop calls.