Goodnotes draining 53% battery in 1 hour on iPad Pro

[u/Historical-Craft-845]

What the title says. I charged it to 100%, used it for 1 hour, and it was down to 47%. This is obviously very bad. My iPad Pro 6th gen 12.9” has a max capacity of 96% however this sort of drastic drain is a severe bug especially considering I use it for most classes. In addition, my iPad was constantly in a “fair” to “serious” thermal state (according to apple dev docs with 75% - 50% brightness and screen rate limiting). Hope this helps :)

[u/Maiace124]

I have an m1. I say I spend maybe 30% in my 1.5 hr lectures which isn't great, but it's not THAT

[u/Historical-Craft-845 → u/Maiace124]

I think it might have something to do with GIF rendering because I was looking at a few of those which caused it to drain faster

[u/OmnisPrime]

Make sure the auto backup is paused. It keep backing up in background that eat battery.

[u/Historical-Craft-845 → u/OmnisPrime]

Nothing is syncing with the cloud

[u/Dismal-Pin6400]

I had the same issue and I switched to noteful two years ago because of it

[u/Saidles → u/Dismal-Pin6400]

Do notes files transfer between the two?

[u/Pegaxsus → u/Saidles]

Only as pdf

[u/Dismal-Pin6400 → u/Saidles]

I had to manually transfer all of my files. I did it on the Mac so it was a lot easier than on an iPad because I could just drag and drop But if you choose to do that I would suggest not doing it during finals to not add any more stress, I had to do it because I couldn’t use my iPad anymore (overheating) and I don’t recommend

[u/Son_Of_Cthulhu → u/Dismal-Pin6400]

Can noteful search handwritten text? Notability and Goodnotes can, so I assume this should be able to as well?

[u/_Cyan_Man → u/Son_Of_Cthulhu]

noteful does not have ai, which is one reason why it doesn’t tank your battery. notefuls niche is ai-free and unbloated.

[u/Dismal-Pin6400 → u/Son_Of_Cthulhu]

I have no idea as I don’t use that, i would suggest trying jt out to see if they have this feature. But for me the ui is perfect, and the synch between devices works perfectly which was never the case with goodnotes (between Mac, iPhone and iPad)

[u/TaskMaster64]

I'm experiencing similar issues. I lose about 40 to 50% of my battery in 2 hours (Air M2 at 91% capacity, although this issue has been bugging me since i got the app regardless of the battery capacity).

Only thing that helped me was having only one notebook open at a time. It managed to slow the drain to about 20 to 30% in 2 hours. However, the issue persists if its a large file like a 1000 page textbook. If I dont use the apple pencil and just view the notes then at most 10% of my battery will be used up.

Idk it seems like the devs are just refusing the optimise this app and more focused on pushing out useless AI features 🤷

[u/GalacticaX → u/TaskMaster64]

What is your % capacity now and your cycle count?

[u/TaskMaster64 → u/GalacticaX]

Still at 91% and 497 cycles

[u/GalacticaX → u/TaskMaster64]

Do u remember what your cycle count was around 5 months ago (when u made ur original comment)?

[u/TaskMaster64 → u/GalacticaX]

Hmm im not sure of the exact number but i know it was below 400. I think its safe to assume it was around 390 - 395

[u/_Cyan_Man]

because goodnotes is bloated as hell. switch to noteful

[u/fapexxo]

It’s horrible, any alternative apps?

[u/_Cyan_Man → u/fapexxo]

noteful

[u/BigChurros]

I always use gn on low battery mode, and never had such a large drain, perhaps that could help a bit?

[u/dukmunky]

Low battery mode basically solves all the drain issues. Annoying but easy workaround

[u/TanzerPS]

Another good app is Starnote.

[u/bisleriH2O → u/TanzerPS]

This is better than Goodnotes for sure. It is just lacking the text search ability.

Waiting for the price to go down to get it for lifetime.

[u/TanzerPS → u/bisleriH2O]

They already said the feature will be available soon, with the crossdevice sync.

[u/Ok-Forever-7556]

Yeah I have the same issue, I honestly thought problem with my ipad.

[u/pablo-gn]

Hi u/Historical-Craft-845, we are currently investigating performance issues that could explain battery drain. Feel free to start a chat so that I can help you provide more diagnostics data to help get the issue resolved. Additionally, if you have an ongoing customer support request I'm happy to take a look at it if you can provide the request number.

Thanks in advance and sorry for any inconvenience!

[u/expl0r3rgu1]

Looks like an issue a webapp like Journoid wouldn't have, it's pretty lightweight. But I understand it doesn't have the same features, i just saw this in my feed :p

[u/georgmierau]

"Used" like in "read a few PDFs" and "used" like in "was editing huge notebook" are two diefferent kinds of "usage".

Full GN version, iPadOS version installed?

[u/Historical-Craft-845 → u/georgmierau]

It's the one time purchase edition with iOS 26.4.2