Help! iPhone 6s swollen battery!

[HandyMac]

I've just noticed that the battery in my iPhone 6s seems to have swollen. I tried to take a photo of it; it's a little hard to see, but if you look at the upper edge it's curved. It looks like the screen might pop off the phone.

I don't know when or how this happened. I just noticed it, don't think it was like this earlier today. I don't use the iPhone a lot, but I was on hold with it for over an hour earlier today (a government agency). But I've had occasional long calls before, with no problem.

I had a similar problem with my MacBook Pro a while back, and realized it was because I'd kept it plugged in all the time. The battery needed to be cycled, and once I did that aggressively a few times the swelling went away. The iPhone is not usually connected to power, only when it needs recharging. Sometimes it gets down to 20% and complains, runs slow, so then I plug it in to charge. So it's been getting cycled pretty regularly.

In Settings > Battery, it says Maximum Capacity 100%. And "Your battery is currently supporting peak performance." I connected the phone to my MacBook Pro and checked it with coconutBattery, which said it still has 100% design capacity. iMazing says "Your battery health is excellent."

Anybody have any idea what's happening here, and what I can do about it? Will discharging the battery fix it? Is there a way to prevent the phone sleeping so the battery will discharge?

Or do I need to replace the battery? Even though it seems to be in excellent health?

 

[arw]

I'd immediately shut the iPhone off and remove the battery before your display cracks. Happened to me.
At least unscrew/lift off the display. Then look for a replacement battery.
Or, get it replaced by Apple asap for $69. But I'd contact them before. You probably shouldn't ship it in this condition.

EDIT: In any case, if you don't have iCloud backup enabled, create a local backup via USB as long as the iPhone still works.

 

[JPack]

The capacity % in iOS is a very rough estimate - don't rely on it. When you have a catastrophic battery failure like this, it's not going to detect it.

There is no way to reverse this - you need to replace the battery.

 

[HandyMac]

Thanks, all, for your prompt replies and suggestions. I don't really need a new phone; this one does all I need. At 79, I'm kind of obsolete myself; I get along okay with a 2014 MacBook Pro and High Sierra. So I took it to a local shop who replaced the battery for $60. They said they could do it in 45 minutes, but I left it overnight, picked it up today, it works fine.

 

[rambo47]

At 79, I'm kind of obsolete myself

You're not obsolete - you're "vintage."

 

[HandyMac]

You're not obsolete - you're "vintage."

😂 Thanks, I needed that. (Actually, it was folks at Apple Discussions who told me the iPhone was too old to fix; this was my response to them that I just copied and pasted here without thinking.)