iPad How-To Series. Your Guide to iPad Troubleshooting. Part 1.

iPad Charging and Battery problems.

In this “How-to Guide” series Part 1, we are going to cover some of your most asked questions about trouble shooting on the iPad and we are going to throw in some Pro Tips 💡 along the way, so be sure to keep reading till the end. 

1.iPad is not charging?

If your iPad is not charging, the first thing you must check are your charging accessories. Let’s look at a few of the basic issues first before we get to the more advanced tips in Point 3.

1. Check your charging cable for visible wear and tear. (Never compress the bend of a charging cable, you will weaken the internal wires).  
2. If you cannot see any obvious signs of damage or wear on your charging cable, there still may be an issue with the cable itself, try and use a different charging cable (one that you know works). The internals may be damaged.
3. Check that the power brick/ charging adaptor is working, if you are not sure, try another charging adapter or borrow one if needs be.  
4. Make sure you are not trying to charge an iPad with an iPhone charger. This may work on older iPads, however newer, larger iPads may not accept such a low charge from certain chargers.
5. Check the accessory you are charging from. “This accessory is not supported” could be a message that appears on your iPad, due to an unsupported charging accessory. This has happened to me before using an iPhone stand charger to charge my iPad 🤷‍♂️. 
6. Lastly double check the wall voltage if you are traveling, check your travel plug and your charger and make sure they are all supported in the region you are currently in.

If your charging adaptor and cable are working but you are still having issues, it’s time to check your iPad.

1. Inspect the charging port 🔎, it is possible dirt, dust or other debris have made their way into your charging port and are preventing contact of the charging connectors.
2. Use your phones camera or a flashlight 🔦 to look into the charging port. You can use a toothpick, toothbrush or another non metallic pin to remove lint or an obstructions, just be careful not to damage the port or connectors. Even a piece of a tissue can cause a problem if it makes its way into the charging port. Pro Tip💡, use a can of compressed air, commonly used for removing dust from computers, components, keyboards, etc, this will dislodge any debris that you may struggle to get to and it’s handy for other cleaning applications too.

If you are still not winning, you may have a software issue but don’t panic, it can be fixed 👍.

1. You could have a bug in your software that is preventing your iPad from accepting charge from a certain accessory. Even an unsupported or outdated operating system can cause a problem with charging. 
2. Make sure your software is updated to the latest version. Simply go to Settings > General > Software Update. 
3. Close all your apps and “Power off your iPad”. Wait a few minutes, then try again. 
4. If you are still not winning, scroll down👇 and read point 3 – how to check your battery heath and why it is important.
5. Pro Tip 💡, if you ever have a frozen iPad that wont even turn off. Try this in order; Press the Volume Up button once, then quickly press the Volume Down button once then Press and hold the Power Off Button until you see the Apple logo. The speed at which you do this should be fairly quick.

2. iPad battery draining fast?

There are few things in this world more annoying than having your iPad battery draining abnormally quickly, leaving you in a tricky situation when you were relying on your iPad for some or other task.  Lucky the causes of excessive battery drain, can be remedied and are pretty straight forward to understand. 

1. First, check your Display & Brightness settings. It’s dead simple, if your Screen Brightness is very high, your battery will drain faster, no explanation needed here.  
2. Turn on “True Tone”, which is similar to “auto-brightness” but with the added benefits for your eyes, i.e reducing blue light and matching your screen colour temperature with your environment. This will help save battery too, by automatically reducing your iPads screen brightness in lower lighting situations, so don’t have to. But be aware, if you are in a bright area it will similarly increase your screens brightness automatically too which as mentioned above will drain your battery, just be aware of how it works and you can take advantage of the benefits. This setting can also improve your sleep, studies show blue light from screens affects your sleep.
3. Turn on Auto-Lock, this is a great way to save battery when you are not using your iPad. How it works is, your iPad will automatically lock when it detects you are no longer using it over a certain amount of time. Of course, when your iPad locks, your screen switches off and your iPad uses minimal battery. You can set your Auto-Lock function to lock automatically after, 2 mins,5 mins,10 mins, 15mins. Pro Tip 💡, we recommend doing this from a security point of view, for a few reasons. Firstly many people who have their devices stolen, afford criminals easy access as their device is often left in an unlocked state because people don’t use Auto-Lock. Secondly Auto-Lock gives you peace of mind that if you step away from your desk, couch or room and your iPad is left behind, nobody can see what was on your screen or use your device after your pre-selected lock time.  

You should also check the Apps you often leave open, as certain apps are more power-hungry⚡️than others. 

1. Graphics intensive games or processor hungry Apps like video editing apps, such as LumaFusion (Which we LOVE), use considerably more power. Even video confrencing apps like Microsoft Teams, FaceTime or Zoom, will use allot of battery because they are using much of the iPads hardware at the same time, i.e Speakers, Microphone, Wifi/Cellular and Camera all simultaneously. 
2. Apps that use “Location Services” in the background such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, etc, can drain your battery quickly too. A Pro Tip 💡 we recommend is setting your Location Services setting, to allow apps to ONLY access your location “While Using the App”.  This serves as a privacy feature too because doing this will stop apps surreptitiously obtaining data without you knowing.
3. Notifications, can also contribute to battery drain, by waking the screen and playing a sound every time a “Push Notification” comes through all uses precious battery. Turn off Notifications on Apps you don’t really need.
4. We wouldn’t recommend disabling “Background App Refresh” in Settings because certain apps require this feature to function properly, this should really be a last resort.

Connectivity and Signal Strength.

• Blue Tooth, WiFi and Cellular all use your battery to function, obviously, but it’s easy to forget. So if you don’t need them switch them off. If you leave them on, then they will constantly hunt for better signal, or search for other accessories to connect you with and if you move around, or your location doesn’t have great signal, your BlueTooth, Wifi and Cellular may boost their signal strength to get a connection, draining your battery even faster.

3. How to Check battery health on iPad?

This is an interesting topic because checking your iPads battery health is different than on iPhone. Older iPad models don’t have a “Battery Health” option under “Battery” in Settings. But don’t fret we will show you just how to get around this 😀.

1. To check if you have this “Battery Health” feature, go to Settings > Battery and see if you have the “Battery Health” option to tap on.
2. If you have a battery Maximum Capacity of lower than 80%, your battery may need to be replaced. Also keep in mind that your trade in value with Apple will be significantly lower if your battery is under 80%..
3. If you cant see the Maximum Capacity percentage follow our Pro Tip💡 below to find it, it’s pretty cool, we are going to dive into the Analytics logs. It sounds scary but it isn’t, It’s a bit more involved, but a stay with us, it does work 👍.

Pro Tip 💡- Finding “Maximum Capacity Percentage” on Non M2 or M4 iPads.

1. Go to the Settings App
2. Scroll down the side bar & Tap “Privacy & Security”
3. Scroll down and tap on “Analytics & Improvements”
4. Check that “Share iPad Analytics” is toggled on, if it isn’t you will need to wait 24 hours for your iPad to gain this data.
5. Under “Share iPad Analytics” tap on “Analytics Data”
6. Tap the file starting with the wording “Analytics-(and the latest date)… i.e “Analytics-2025-08-12…” if you are reading this on that date.  Should look like the video below 👇

7. Select all the text in the file and copy it.
8. Then paste the text in a new note in Apple Notes. (We found it may take a few seconds to paste, it’s a large file.) 😴
9. Either using “cmd”+”F” or by taping the “three dots” menu on the top right and choosing “Find in Note”, search for “maximumcapacity” no spaces.
10. You should see your battery Maximum Capacity percentage highlighted 😀.

Check for this physical clue 🔎

If you notice the back or sides of your iPad showing any slight signs of swelling, then that’s a good indication your battery urgently needs to be replaced. Get your iPad checked out in your closest Apple Store.

Contact Apple Support

If you would prefer, you can get your iPad’s battery health checked by Apple themselves, either by:

1. Contacting Apple Support for remote diagnostics. Contact them here, your welcome 😀
2. Booking an in store Appointment at your nearest Apple Store through the Genius Bar and they will run a test on your battery and give you a report.  

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Chat soon,

Matt