For all being more stable, feature-packed, and efficient than its predecessor, macOS Sequoia has carried over many common issues that the previous macOS versions used to face – including the rapid battery drain on MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. If your MacBook has also fallen prey to this problem and is draining a ton of battery, you’ve landed at the right troubleshooting guide as we’ve jotted down the best tips and tricks to resolve it. Keep reading…
Best Tips to Fix Rapid Battery Drain on MacBook Pro/Air in macOS Sequoia 15
From a hidden macOS bug to outdated apps to the lack of proper control over the power-hungry features, there could be more than one wrecker-in-chief for the unexpected power consumption on your MacBook.
1. Perfectly Adjust Display Settings
To get going, make sure to perfectly fine-tune the display settings as they are often the prime cause of the battery drain.
- Keyboard Shortcut: Take advantage of the brightness keys on your keyboard to adjust the brightness on your Mac.
- System Settings: Alternatively, head into the System Settings > Displays and make use of the brightness slider to fine-tune the brightness.
2. Enable Automatic Brightness
macOS’ “Automatic Brightness” feature automatically adjusts the brightness depending on the environment/surrounding condition in order to save battery life and also enhance the viewing experience.
- Dive into System Settings on your Mac > Displays -> Automatically adjust brightness.
3. Turn Off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi When Not in Use
For times when you are not using features like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, turn them off to save some battery on your device.
- Open the Control Center from the top right corner of the screen> disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
4. Take Control of the Login Items
If too many apps and services have the license to launch at the login and continue to run in the background without any restriction at all, it might be one of the major reasons why your Mac is unable to hold its charge longer.
- Jump straight into the System Settings app on your Mac > General -> Login Items & Extensions -> disable all the useless apps and services.
5. Disable Redundant Notifications
If you have allowed a gazillion apps to send notifications without any restriction whatsoever, there is a high chance that the never-ending alerts are making life difficult for your Mac, leaving very little space to breathe in between.
- Launch the System Settings app > Notifications -> turn off notifications for all the redundant apps.
6. Optimize Battery Settings
Battery Health Management feature can play a vital role in extending your battery’s lifespan. What makes it so handy is the ability to learn your charging habits and adjust the charging rate accordingly.
- To get going, launch the System Settings > Battery > Battery Health.
- Now, make sure that the Battery Health Management is active.
7. Use Low Power Mode
“Low Power Mode” is designed to improve the battery life of your Mac by reducing almost all the background processes.
- To bring it into action, open the System Settings app > Battery > turn on Low Power Mode.
8. Turn Off Transparency and Motion Effects
The animations and transparency effects do add a bit of charm to the macOS experience. However, they come at the cost of additional processing power.
- Fire up the System Settings > Accessibility > Display -> turn on the toggles for Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency.
9. Get Rid of Useless Desktop Widgets
Though customizing the desktop with a variety of widgets is cool, you should make sure to use only a few pivotal widgets. As of now, I would suggest you remove them all in order to enhance the battery life on your device.
- Just right-click on a widget on the desktop -> choose Remove Widget in the menu and confirm.
10. Manage App and Background Activity
Activity Monitor provides a better way to track down the apps and services that are consuming high power.
- Launch the Activity Monitor app on your Mac (Via Finder -> Applications > Utilities or Spotlight).
- Click on the Energy tab -> Energy Impact to check which apps are consuming the most battery on your macOS device.
- Having nabbed energy-draining apps, force quit the ones (Apple menu at the top left -> Force Quit) that you are using actively. If there are apps that you hardly use but they eat comparatively more battery, delete them all.
11. Disable Background App Refresh
Background App Refresh is among the most battery-draining features on macOS.
- Dive into the System Settings app on your Mac > General > Background App Refresh -> Now, either turn it off (recommended) or let only your favorite apps refresh in the background.
12. Disable Location Services
It’s no secret that the non-stop location tracking drains a ton of battery. Therefore, make sure to disable the location services as well.
- To do so, go to the System Settings app -> Privacy & Security -> Location Services and turn it off.
13. Review Battery Usage by Apps
macOS provides a native way to keep track of the battery usage of apps and services. Therefore, finding the ones that are eating into a ton of battery is not a big deal.
- Navigate to the System Settings app on your Mac > Battery. Now, check the battery usage of the apps in the last 24 hours or 10 days.
14. Turn Off Keyboard Backlighting
Keyboard backlighting comes in handy in low-light conditions but it does kill a good chunk of battery.
- Navigate to the System Settings app > Keyboard -> lower the brightness or set it to automatically turn off after a specific period of inactivity on your Mac.
15. Disable Power Nap
“Power Nap” is designed to let your Mac perform background tasks even when it’s asleep. While it’s a pretty useful feature, it can eat into plenty of battery.
- Go to System Settings on your Mac > Battery > Power Adapter and turn off Power Nap.
16. Declutter Your Mac
A cluttered Mac has a long history of draining the battery at an unbelievable rate. So, find out if your macOS device has been infested by a plethora of worthless apps and files. If it’s so, take your Mac for a marathon cleanup to eliminate everything that’s clogging it up for nothing.
- To start off, go to the System Settings app > General -> Storage -> Now, inspect the available/used storage and all the apps that have cluttered your Mac and then clean them up for good.
17. Update Applications
Outdated/corrupted apps and annoying issues go hand-in-hand.
- Open the App Store on your Mac -> hit the Updates tab in the left sidebar and update all the apps.
18. Reset the SMC (System Management Controller)]
Note that the issues with the SMC also tend to cause the rapid battery drain on MacBook. But bother not, resetting it often works in fixing the problem.
- Reset SMC on M1 or later Macs: Simply, shut down your Mac and restart after waiting for a few seconds. The SMC will automatically reset with the shutdown.
- For Intel Macs: Just shut down your Mac -> hold down the Shift + Control + Option keys and press the power button for about 10 seconds. After that, release the keys and restart your device.
19. Update Your Mac
Keeping your Mac updated is the one important rule that you must not miss out in order to keep miscellaneous issues at a fair distance.
- Launch the System Settings app > General > Software Update -> check for any pending updates and install it.
20. Monitor Battery Health and Cycle Count
Check if your MacBook’s battery is worn out or has significantly degraded.
- Click on the Apple menu while holding down the Option key > System Information > Select the Power option in the left sidebar.
- Under Health/Battery Information, look for Cycle Count.
- If the battery cycle count is near or above 1000, I would recommend you replace the battery.
21. Use Safari Instead of Chrome or Other Browsers
Google Chrome and other browsers like Firefox gobble up a lot of power due to their nature of using plenty of memory and CPU. Hence, I would recommend you switch to Safari as it’s better optimized for macOS and is well-known for being exceptionally efficient and safe.
Wrapping up…
So, that concludes this in-depth guide about resolving the battery draining issue on Mac. I hope your macOS device has started to hold its charge longer. Now that the problem is behind your back, feel free to share your feedback and the solutions that have rescued your device.
