12 Ways to Fix iPhone Brightness Keeps Changing

Picture this: you are reading or watching something on your iPhone, and suddenly, its brightness changes. It goes up or down randomly. Now, things would have been fine if the brightness had matched the surroundings, but that doesn’t happen often. Also, some people, like me, don’t like the auto-changing feature of brightness. We don’t want to be surprised by our phones. In such situations, it becomes annoying when the brightness keeps changing. But don’t worry. This post will help you.

The main reason for brightness going up or down randomly is the auto-brightness feature. But for many users, brightness keeps changing even when auto brightness is off. Let’s learn how to stop the brightness from changing on iPhone.

1. Turn off the Auto Brightness Feature

Auto brightness is the most common reason for brightness changing automatically on iPhone. Follow these steps to turn it off.

Step 1: Open Settings on your iPhone.

Step 2: Go to Accessibility, followed by ‘Display & Text Size’.

Step 3: Scroll down and turn off the toggle next to Auto-Brightness. If it is off, turn it on and then off again.

Step 4: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness. Then, adjust the brightness manually once using the Brightness slider.

That’s it. Now, your iPhone will not go dim or bright automatically. If you feel auto brightness is not working, learn how to fix it.

2. Turn off True Tone

There’s another auto-brightness feature known as True Tone in the regular display settings of your iPhone that could also be responsible for the brightness changing issue.

To turn it off, go to iPhone Settings > Display & Brightness. Turn off the toggle next to True Tone.

3. Turn off the Night Shift Schedule

If your iPhone keeps switching to a warmer color at any particular time of the day, there are chances that the Night Shift scheduling feature is enabled. To turn it off, follow these steps:

Step 1: On your iPhone, open Settings.

Step 2: Go to Display & Brightness, followed by Night Shift.

Step 3: Turn off the toggle for Scheduled.

If your iPhone appears dim at full brightness or vice versa, try the following methods.

4. Restart Phone

Sometimes, the brightness keeps changing due to a minor bug. All you need to do is restart your iPhone to fix the issue. You can even try force restarting the iPhone to fix the problem.

5. Update Software

The brightness keeps changing issue can happen due to a bug in your iPhone’s software, too. To fix it, update the software of your phone. For that, go to Settings > General > Software Update.

6. Turn off Low Power Mode

Another setting that could be making your iPhone brightness go dim is Low Power mode. When enabled, the brightness of your iPhone will go dim even if Auto-Brightness is turned off.

To turn off Low Power mode, go to Settings > Battery. Turn off the toggle for Low Power Mode.

Fun Fact: When Low Power mode is enabled, the battery icon will be yellow.

7. Turn off White Balance and Reduce Transparency

If the bright colors appear washed out on your iPhone, disable the Reduce White Point setting. For that, go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size. Turn off Reduce White Point.

Similarly, another setting that you should turn off is Reduce Transparency. You will find it on the same screen of ‘Display & Text Size’ in Accessibility settings.

8. Disable Dim Flashing Lights

If your iPhone screen is dimming when watching videos, disable the Dim Flashing Lights setting in the accessibility setting.

Step 1: Go to Settings, followed by Accessibility > Motion.

Step 2: Turn off the toggle next to Dim Flashing Lights.

9. Disable Attention Awareness Feature

You should also try turning off the Attention Awareness feature, as it could also be responsible for changing the brightness on your iPhone. Your phone will dim automatically when it detects that you aren’t looking at it. To turn off this feature, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Settings and go to Accessibility, followed by ‘Face ID and Attention’.

Step 2: Turn off the toggle for Attention-Aware Features.

10. Check Active Focus Mode

An active Focus mode could also be the culprit for brightness changing issues, especially on your iPhone’s lock screen. There’s a setting within each focus known as Dim the screen, which, if enabled, will dim your iPhone’s lock screen when that particular focus mode is active. Try disabling any active focus mode. Additionally, check the schedule of focus modes and turn it off to prevent them from activating automatically at certain times.

To turn off a Focus mode, open Control Center on your iPhone. If a name appears on the Focus tile, it means that a particular Focus is active. Tap on it to turn it off.

A few points to note regarding Focus modes:

• To check the schedule of Focus modes, go to Settings > Focus. Tap on Do Not Disturb and tap on any active schedule, followed by turning it off on the next screen. Similarly, you can disable the schedule for other modes.
• If you want to turn off the screen dimming feature only, go to Settings > Focus and open the focus mode. Tap on Options. Turn off the toggle next to the Dim Lock Screen.

11. Other Reasons for Brightness Keeps Changing on iPhone

• In older iPhones, disable the screen zoom, aka magnifier feature, as it also contains a separate auto-brightness setting. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Magnifier and turn off Magnifier.
• Your iPhone’s display intensity might change if your phone is overheating. To lower the device’s temperature, try using fewer apps, remove the cover from the iPhone, or keep it away from direct sunlight.
• When you scan a QR code from your iPhone, its brightness might increase automatically when scanning the QR code. It will go back to the regular brightness after scanning the QR code. If it doesn’t, restart your iPhone.

12. Reset All Settings

If nothing helps and your iPhone still keeps changing brightness automatically, try resetting your iPhone settings. Doing so will restore all the settings, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other customizations, to their original values. You will need to set them up again.

To reset all settings on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone >  Reset >  Reset All Settings.

Protect iPhone’s Battery

Hope you solved the issue of brightness increasing or decreasing on the iPhone. Often auto brightness can affect the battery life of an iPhone. Check out other ways to protect battery health on iPhone.