Pixel 9 Battery Drain Traces 23% to Chrome as Google Photos and Google App Dominate Background Use
Updated
Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · Jul 6
Pixel 9 Battery Drain Traces 23% to Chrome as Google Photos and Google App Dominate Background Use
3 articles · Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · Jul 6
Summary
Chrome used 23% of total battery on the tested Pixel 9, while Google Photos logged 2 hours 40 minutes of background activity and the Google app topped 2 hours with almost no screen time.
Battery settings showed the expected culprits—Facebook, Instagram and Netflix—were not major drains, with Slack, Messenger and Pixel Screenshots each staying below 1%.
Android’s battery controls are more layered than a single switch: apps can be Optimized, Unrestricted or fully Restricted, and the system also assigns standby buckets based on how often each app is used.
That means restricting busy apps can break useful functions such as photo backup, Assistant, music playback or message delivery, even if they show heavy background activity.
The only app fully restricted was Geekbench 6, an idle benchmarking app; the change caused no visible issues and underscored that selective limits matter more than blanket app crackdowns.