Battery
What's draining my Mac's battery? How to find the app and fix it
Updated · 6 min read
When a MacBook's battery drops faster than usual, one app is almost always responsible. macOS can tell you which one. Here's how to find it and the fixes that make the biggest difference.
1. Check Battery settings first
Open System Settings › Battery. The charts show your battery level and energy usage over the last 24 hours or 10 days. A steep drop at a particular time points you to what you were doing then.
On the same screen, Battery Health (the ⓘ next to it) tells you whether the battery itself has worn. An older battery with reduced capacity will simply run out sooner.
2. Find the app in Activity Monitor's Energy tab
Open Activity Monitor (Applications › Utilities) and choose the Energy tab.
- Energy Impact shows what each app is costing right now.
- 12 hr Power shows the average over the last 12 hours. Sort by this column: it reveals apps that drain the battery all day, not just in bursts.
- Preventing Sleep shows apps keeping the Mac awake.
Apps that rank high in 12 hr Power but that you barely use are the ones to deal with. See what Energy Impact means.
3. The usual suspects
- Browser tabs with video, animations or web apps that refresh constantly. Close what you aren't using.
- Sync apps (cloud storage, photo libraries) working through a large backlog. They calm down once caught up.
- Developer tools such as local servers, Docker and code editors with heavy extensions, which can keep working in the background.
- Video calls and screen sharing, which use the processor, camera and network at once.
- Indexing after an update: Spotlight and Photos analysis (mds_stores, photoanalysisd) are temporary.
4. Settings that save the most battery
- Lower the display brightness. The screen is one of the biggest users of power.
- Turn on Low Power Mode in System Settings › Battery when you need the battery to last.
- Remove login items you don't need in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions.
- Disconnect external devices that draw power from the Mac when you aren't using them.
5. If the battery drains while the lid is closed
A Mac that loses a lot of charge while asleep is usually being woken up or kept awake. In Terminal, pmset -g assertions lists what's preventing sleep. Our guide on why a Mac won't sleep walks through the fixes.
Spot the drain before it costs you
Tempo for Mac shows your battery and the busiest apps in the menu bar, keeps 30 days of history, and can alert you when your battery runs low. Its Processes tab sorts by energy, so the app responsible is one click away.
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