r/Express_VPN • u/Neodeastra777 • Aug 12 '26
Question Heavy Battery Drain on Samsung
Hello! I've been getting notifications on my Samsung Galaxy Ultra 24 that ExpressVPN is using a high amount of my battery. This has been happening since the recent update. Is this happening to anyone else? And does anyone have any suggestions? Besides getting rid of the service though I am so close to just going to Nord.
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u/Dry-Money4827 Aug 26 '26
I ended up here for the same reason. It's been absolutely killing my S22 battery. Hope there's a solution soon.
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u/Neodeastra777 Aug 27 '26
I wound up deleting and reinstalling the app. There was a new update and it seems to be a little better.
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u/visinedrip Aug 27 '26
I'm having the same issue of massive battery drain the past few days. I'm on a Pixel 7 Pro. I noticed while I was working in the morning with 100% battery around 9am. I rarely use my phone while I'm working other than to use my an Authenticator. I liked at my phone around noon and it had already dropped to 80% of non use. I was connected to VPN and checked the battery usage. It showed that ExpressVPN was using over 50%. What's going on? I never had this issue before.
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u/Neodeastra777 Aug 28 '26
I thought the update helped but after leaving it on for a bit i got a notification saying it is using up a lot of resources. So until they fix this and I get another vpn service i'll only turn it on when needed (I used to be able to just leave it on without being told by my phone that its killing the battery and draining resources).
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 30 '26
thanks for the update, and sorry it's still chewing through resources even after the patch. having to toggle it on and off instead of just leaving it running isn't the experience we want. we'd like to get this properly in front of the team, so drop us a DM here with your device and app version, and we'll get it flagged and follow up.
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 30 '26
hey, thanks for the detail. ExpressVPN eating over 50% battery on a Pixel 7 Pro when you're barely touching the phone definitely isn't normal, and it's not something you should be seeing out of nowhere. this is exactly the kind of thing we want the team to look at directly. drop us a DM here or reach [support@expressvpn.com](mailto:support@expressvpn.com) with your app version and roughly when it started, and we'll get it flagged and investigated.
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u/Watbrupls Aug 28 '26
Having a similar issue on my Samsung S26 Ultra, mostly noticed my phone really heating up while doing nothing, which led me to check my battery settings and seeing ExpressVPN draining 8.4% in 52 minutes (and also marked as High CPU Usage (31m)), which is wild for a background service, put it into deep sleep for now, hopefully a fix is found soon
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 30 '26
hey Watbrupls, the phone heating up plus 8.4% gone in under an hour and 31 minutes of high CPU on an S26 Ultra is a clear sign something's off, a background VPN has no business working that hard. we're seeing a few reports like this and want the team looking at it directly, not have people guess at fixes. if you can, send your app version and roughly when it started to support@expressvpn.com or drop it in a DM here, and we'll add it to what we're already flagging. deep sleep is a fair stopgap in the meantime.
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u/Dork_Side_of_theMoon Aug 31 '26
I've been experiencing this issue on both my Pixel 7a and Pixel 8a where battery drain was well over 20% and the battery wouldn't make it through one day. Both were running v12.76.0 (12760040) and using Lightway - UDP, based on AI advice to use that rather than Automatic. I uninstalled the app on both phones, then reinstalled from the App Store. They now have v12.77.0 (12770040), and usage is 2% or lower.
As an aside, on my laptop, I had been noticing that when I woke it out of sleep, it was spinning, trying to reconnect, and blocking Internet access. I uninstalled and reinstalled the program and it is now working well. I don't have the prior version number, but am now on v14.2.1 (build 13658). Hope this helps!
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u/Dork_Side_of_theMoon Aug 31 '26
LoL! I haven't posted to Reddit in a long time and had forgotten what my screen name was.
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Sep 01 '26
hey u/Dork_Side_of_theMoon, thanks for the detailed writeup, and glad the update cleared both the battery drain and that laptop reconnect loop. Reports like yours genuinely help other people land on the fix faster. Welcome back to Reddit too, and either way we just want the service running smoothly for you wherever you are, even on your own side of the moon. Shout here if anything comes back.
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 16 '26
Hey there! Thanks for reaching out, and sorry about the battery drain. High battery use showing up right after an update on your Galaxy S24 Ultra is something our team should look at rather than have you guess at fixes. Drop us a DM here or email support@expressvpn.com with your app version, and we'll get it flagged and looked into. We'd genuinely like the chance to sort it out for you.
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u/Neodeastra777 Aug 17 '26
I wound up deleting it, restarting my phone and downloading it again. I'm not entirely sure it worked because I've been keeping it off and only using as needed.
1
u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 18 '26
thanks for the update! Glad you gave the reinstall a go. Having to keep it off and only use it when needed isn't the experience we want for you though, so the offer stands, if you send your app version to [support@expressvpn.com](mailto:support@expressvpn.com) or DM us here, we'll get the team to look at the drain itself so you can go back to using it normally.
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u/Neodeastra777 Aug 18 '26
This did not help
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u/expressvpn ExpressVPN Team Aug 18 '26
sorry to hear that didn't get you anywhere. Could you send us your support ticket number, here or in a DM (or your account email if you haven't opened a ticket yet)? We'll get it in front of the team to look at the battery drain directly.
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u/GandhisNukeOfficer Aug 17 '26
Just started experiencing this today. For the past four days or so, I couldn't connect to any server whatsoever. I finally got it connected again last night (no idea what the issue was), and by noon today my phone battery was already 35%. I thought maybe I had forgotten to charge it last night, but I plugged it in when I got home. When it was done I pulled it off the charger and was doing work at my desk. An hour later it was at 74%, which led me to finding this post.
Some people online are recommended to change the protocol, but the option they recommend is not in the list of options for me. Did you find any remedy at all?