MacBook battery draining fast? What to check first

MacBook battery draining fast? See which apps use significant energy, dim the screen, try Low Power Mode, check battery health and stop drain while asleep.

28 October 20266 min read

If your MacBook battery is draining fast, click the battery in the menu bar to see which apps are using significant energy, quit the worst one, and turn the screen brightness down. If it still drains quickly with nothing heavy open, check Battery Health in System Settings, because a worn battery simply holds less.

A fast drain usually comes down to an app working harder than it should, a setting that keeps the Mac busy or bright, or a battery that has aged. The checks below tell you which, and where the line falls between changing a setting and getting the Mac looked at.

Find out what is using the battery

Start with the quickest check and work down.

Click the battery status in the menu bar. Under Using Significant Energy macOS lists any app that is draining the battery noticeably right now. If it says No Apps Using Significant Energy, the drain is probably coming from somewhere else, such as the screen.

Activity Monitor's Energy tab

Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities) and click Energy. Sort by Energy Impact to see what is drawing power now, and look at 12 hr Power for what has been drawing it over the last half day. The Preventing Sleep column shows any app that is keeping the Mac awake. A browser with many tabs, a video call app left running after the call, or a sync tool stuck in a loop are the usual names near the top.

The Battery settings graphs

Open System Settings > Battery. The graphs show Last 24 Hours and Last 10 Days, with your battery level above and Screen On Usage below. A steep fall in battery level while the screen was off points to something running in the background or a Mac that didn't really sleep. A steady fall that matches screen time is ordinary use.

Is it the apps or the battery?

A quick way to separate the two: quit everything you can, set brightness to about the middle, and leave the Mac on a simple page for half an hour. If the charge still falls quickly, the battery or the hardware is the likely cause. If it holds up well, the drain was coming from what you normally run.

To see the battery's own condition, go to System Settings > Battery and look at Battery Health. Normal means the battery is fine for its age. Service Recommended means it holds noticeably less charge than it did when new, or isn't working normally, so a fast drain is partly just a smaller tank. Click the i beside it to see Maximum Capacity on Macs that show it. MacBook battery health explained covers what the numbers mean, and what Service Recommended means covers what to do if you see that label.

The usual drains, and what to do about each

Drain	Why it drains the battery	What to do
Screen brightness	The display is one of the biggest power users in a laptop	Lower it a few steps; turn on automatic brightness
Browser tabs and video	Pages keep running scripts and playing media in the background	Close tabs you have finished with; pause videos you aren't watching
Video calls	Camera, microphone, network and processor all work at once	Plug in for long calls; close the call app when it ends
External display	The Mac drives a second screen as well as its own	Plug in when you use one
Keyboard backlight	Lights every key, all the time	Let it switch off when idle
Indexing after an update	Spotlight and Photos rebuild their data in the background	Leave the Mac plugged in for a few hours to finish
Heat and cold	Batteries work less well outside a comfortable temperature	Keep the Mac off cushions, out of sun and out of a cold car

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi get blamed a lot, but on their own they rarely explain a fast drain. Switching Bluetooth off helps a bit if you have no accessories connected; it is seldom the whole fix.

Settings that make a charge last longer

These are all built in. Paths are from recent versions of macOS; older ones put some of them in a different place.

Low Power Mode. In System Settings > Battery, set Low Power Mode to Only on Battery. In Apple's words, the Mac then reduces energy usage to increase battery life. Heavy jobs such as exports can take longer, but for email, documents and the web you may not notice the difference.
Dim the display on battery. In System Settings > Battery > Options, turn on Slightly dim the display while on battery power.
Streaming video. In the same Options panel, Optimize video streaming while on battery lets the Mac play video in a more efficient way.
Automatic brightness. In System Settings > Displays, turn on Automatically adjust brightness, if your Mac shows it.
Keyboard backlight. In System Settings > Keyboard, set the backlight to turn off after a short time of inactivity.

Why does a MacBook battery drain while it's asleep?

A MacBook asleep with its lid closed should lose very little charge overnight. If you open it in the morning to a much emptier battery, something kept it awake or woke it up.

An app preventing sleep. Check Activity Monitor's Preventing Sleep column before you close the lid.
Wake for network access. In System Settings > Battery > Options, this lets the Mac wake for network traffic. Set it to Only on Power Adapter, or Never, if you see overnight drain.
Power Nap. Intel-based MacBooks have a Power Nap setting that checks mail and iCloud updates while asleep. Turning it off on battery saves a little.
Connected accessories. A drive, dock or phone charging from the Mac keeps drawing power.

If you are comfortable with Terminal, pmset -g assertions lists what is currently asking the Mac to stay awake. It only reads; it changes nothing.

Keeping an eye on it through the day

Even with everything above sorted out, the charge runs down at some point, and the trouble is usually not noticing until the Mac is nearly flat. The menu bar percentage is easy to miss when you are busy. Notchpals helps with that part by giving the battery a face in your notch. It doesn't tell you which app is draining the battery or change any settings; its Tech care characters only notice the charge level. If Juice, a battery with a weakness for drama, is in your crew, it drops down from the notch when your MacBook falls below 20 percent and isn't charging.

Juice, Tech care: **Battery low**, when the battery drops below 20% and isn't charging

Below 8, Juice is back with more urgency, and when you plug in after a warning it makes a grateful recovery. Plugged in or full, the Mac gets no low battery visits at all. If Juice starts visiting much earlier in the day than it used to, that is a fair sign something on this page applies to you. For what to do once you see it, here is when to plug in a MacBook.

When to get it checked

Most drains trace back to the apps and settings above. A few signs point to something they can't reach:

the battery drains fast with nothing running and Battery Health reads Normal;
the Mac switches off without warning while the battery says it has plenty left;
the Mac gets hot while idle and the fans run with nothing open;
the case rocks on a flat table, the trackpad sits higher than it used to or stops clicking properly, or a seam opens along the bottom.

The last one can mean the battery is swelling. Stop using the Mac, shut it down without pressing on the case, and get it to an Apple Store or an authorized repair shop soon. For the others, back up, run Apple Diagnostics (on Apple silicon, keep the power button held while the Mac starts up and press Command and D when the startup options appear; on Intel, hold D during startup), and contact Apple Support with any reference code it gives.