Fix: Android battery suddenly drops to zero

If your phone turns off on itself, you already know something really bad is happening. Is it a battery? A system failure? A temporary bug? It’s hard to tell unless you see that the Android battery suddenly drops to zero, in which case you can almost always point toward the critical battery failure. But, before you go looking for a replacement, check the instructions we provided below and, hopefully, you won’t need to replace it for some time.

Table of contents:

1. Try recalibrating the battery
2. Go for the factory reset
3. Replace the battery

What to do if your phone suddenly drops to 0% and then shuts down

In most cases, we are looking at a critical battery failure and you should probably consider replacing the battery. Especially if your phone is 2+ years old and has many charge/discharge cycles. But, before doing that, you can also try to:

• Turn off your phone or keep it off and charge it until it’s fully charged.
• Download AccuBattery (Play Store link, not affiliated but I use it personally) or any similar app so you can have it analyze the charging/discharging cycles and provide you with detailed information on the battery health.
• Watch out for overheating. Make sure to keep your phone away from extremely cold or hot surroundings. Phones will turn off automatically if they got too hot or too cold. Don’t game while your phone is charging.
• Re-calibrate the battery.
• Try resetting your Android to factory settings.

Also, check our tips on how to reduce battery drainage and improve battery life in this article where we wrote about it in detail.

1. Try recalibrating the battery

We already talked about the importance of recalibrating the battery, even if that’s something that users shouldn’t do by default. Still, faulty updates and the lack of optimization, failing DOZE implementation, and many other OEM shortcomings sometimes require for you to take matters into your own hands. In this case, your battery might not be properly calibrated, showing the wrong readings. So, your phone might be at 2% and the readings might show, say, 40%. Have in mind that the recalibration process is a bit tedious.

Here’s how to recalibrate the battery on your Android:

1. Discharge your phone fully until the phone turns off.
2. Turn it on again and wait until it turns off.
3. Plug your phone into a wall socket, and without turning it on, charge it until the on-screen indicator says ”100 percent”.
4. Unplug your device.
5. Turn your device on. If the battery percentage is not at 100%, plug the charger again until the UI shows that the battery is 100% full.
6. Unplug your phone and restart it. If the battery is still not at 100%, plug in the charger and charge it until the battery is 100% full.
7. Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent.
8. Now, discharge your battery until the phone turns off by itself.
9. Fully charge the battery one more time. Don’t turn on the device or disrupt charging.

2. Go for the factory reset

Now, smartphones are complex devices and they rely on hardware and software synergy. In this case, the problem of sudden shuts downs doesn’t necessarily have to mean that the battery is the culprit. Over the years, we saw updates that break the essential functionality or caused boot loops and sudden power-offs.

To ensure that the software is not the culprit here, we implore you to go for the factory reset. Of course, before doing anything in that direction, make sure to back up your data because this action will delete everything on your phone.

Once you’ve dealt with that, follow these instructions to perform a factory reset on your Android:

1. Open Settings.
2. Choose System or General Management.
3. Expand Advanced options.
4. Select Reset options.
5. Choose Erase all (factory reset).
6. Tap Erase all.
7. Your device will restart and you’ll get to the initial setup screen.
8. From there, sign in to Google and/or to OEMs account and restore everything that’s backed up.

3. Replace the battery

Finally, if the previous steps did nothing and your Android battery still suddenly drops to zero, the only remaining action you can take is to replace the battery. Thanks to a lack of OEM effort, many devices require you to remove the display before removing the battery, so this is not really simple task because you risk breaking the most expensive part of any phone. That’s why we suggest taking your phone to a professional service. Unless you are certain that you can do it on your own and have the right tools.

Phones are definitely getting better in all price categories and there’s no urge to upgrade on yearly basis. Especially thanks to longer software support by many OEMs. But, the one thing that’s still a problem is definitely the nature of Lithium-ion batteries. Over time they degrade significantly and hold much less power.

More so if you use your phone extensively and charge it frequently. So, if you like your phone but have battery issues, it’s better to replace the battery than buy a new one.

With that said, we can conclude this article. Hopefully, the instructions and tips provided here were of use. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to tell us about your experience with this problem. You can do that in the comments section below.