Battery charges only to 78%

sudo777

Hi,

I have been using a Pixel 9a since July 2025. The battery has around 70 cycles.

Since about a week or so the phone does not charge to 80% anymore. It just always stops 78%, but on the screen it says 'Charging rapidly'. No matter how long the phone keeps charging, it won't get past 78%.
I always have Charging Optimization enabled, so it should charge to 80% and then stop. This worked flawlessly in the past.
With Charging Optimization disabled, it charges to 100%.

Do you guys have any idea what I could do with this? Does this sound like a hardware or software issue?

One thing I should mention is that I use the official Google case which is a dust magnet. So after a while the charging connector wouldn't fit snug anymore. It would switch from charging to not charging and when fiddling around with the connector a bit it would charge. A couple of days ago I cleaned the port, so its just charging steady. Could this maybe damaged the connector in some sort of way? And thus also be related to the issue mentioned above?

Thanks a lot. If you need more info, please let me know.

Novalissoide

sudo777 it's also a recent upstream change behind this. When approaching 80%, the charging goes very gentle and slow. This is a good thing since it dampens two of the biggest factors for prematurely wearing down the lipo battery; High temperature, and high current.

The-Man

sudo777 With Charging Optimization disabled, it charges to 100%.

Then I would stop using it, and charge the phone always to 100%.

My opinion, is that by charging to 80% your battery is depleated quicker making it a necessity to charge it more frequently.
We all know charging incorrectly is a major factor in damaging batteries.
Then charging too quickly and/or charging too powerfully damages batteries, but now you are in a faster cycle of charge and depleat because of the 80% limit you set for yourself.
I turn off my phone to charge it, that way the battery can get to its saturation point.
A far more important point, my phone NEVER leaves my sight when charging.

Semiconductor

sudo777

Since about a week or so the phone does not charge to 80% anymore. It just always stops 78%, but on the screen it says 'Charging rapidly'. No matter how long the phone keeps charging, it won't get past 78%.

Hi all. I also noticed a recent change on my Pixel 9 Pro XL: Fast Charge still seems to work flawlessly, but at some certain point it now takes significantly longer until the battery percentage increases. With charge limit set to 80% it takes almost forever to get the last few percent up to 80%.
Is my Battery degrading, or was there some recent change in the charging strategy of the software that I am not aware of? Any further information is appreciated. I use some aftermarked Power Supply which is capable to deliver USB PD21Volt as required for these devices. I am not sure if there is some compatibility issue with the PSU though, as fast Charge apparently still ist working, but only to a certain point.

charles25565

Pixel phones have relatively sub-par batteries and it could be that your battery gained some resistance in some way, and that charging optimization shows it.

Datasapiens

try disable and enable the toggle again

sudo777

Datasapiens Thanks for the reply. I already toggled it off and on, and also restarted the phone, but this didn't help.

sudo777

Novalissoide Thanks for your reply. Do you have more information about this recent change I can read about? Another user in this thread describes the same issue that also started appearing recently.

sudo777

I found this article:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/march-feature-drop-breaks-pixel-charge-limit-feature_id178798

Seems like a recent update intentionally makes charging the last 2-3% to 80% very slow. So nothing to worry about, it works as it should.