• Nov 05, 2019  You can easily see what apps are using battery & energy on your Mac. To do that, click the battery menu bar icon, find the “Apps Using Significant Energy” section. You can also use Activity Monitor to figure out energy-consuming apps and processes. Open the Activity Monitor app (Applications / Utilities) and then click the Energy tab.
  • In the Battery Usage by App section, you can see which apps use the most power on your device. In the above screenshot, you can see that my iPhone had the most battery usage for Twitterrific, followed by Safari, then by Flipboard – a news app – which issued 12% of my battery.
How to Increase Your Laptop Battery LifeUse the Windows Battery Performance Slider

Close your apps when you're not using them. Never prop up your notebook on a pillow. These and six more easy tips will help you squeeze longer battery life out of your Windows 10 or Mac laptop.

Who wants to make an urgent dash to a power outlet to rescue their laptop battery? That's no fun, especially if you're working a crowded convention center, tapping away at an airport gate, or even lounging on a tropical beach. Luckily, modern laptops are much more efficient than their predecessors. Nowadays, even inexpensive desktop-replacement laptops and some gaming behemoths can last for more than eight hours on a single charge. Some ultraportables can endure for 14 hours or more.

View battery status. It will show charge level of battery. In main screen it is also possible to see graph of battery level. Settings have background update interval and how many days battery information is stored. On Chart screen you can look battery data two different form (battery charge graph and daily usage/charge). Dec 12, 2018  3: Check for Energy Consuming Apps. You can see what Mac apps are using battery energy quickly by using the battery menu. If you see something in the list that is drawing significant power and you’re not using the app, quit it, or address the behavior that is causing notable energy consumption. From anywhere on the Mac, pull down the battery menu.

Still, the inconvenient truth is that the battery in your PC or Mac laptop won't last as long as the manufacturer advertises unless you pay attention to some key factors: your power settings, how many apps you're running, even the temperature of the room in which you're working. The good news is that none of this requires very much work to sort out, once you know which settings to adjust. Let's take a look at the highest-yield ways to get the most out of your laptop's battery.

Use the Windows Battery Performance Slider

The first stop on our battery-life betterment tour is the Windows battery performance slider, a recent addition to Windows 10. It aims to group all of the settings that affect battery life into a few easy-to-understand categories. The company that made your PC determines exactly which settings the battery slider controls. But in general, keep these guidelines in mind:

  • The Best Performance mode is for people willing to trade off battery runtime to gain performance and responsiveness. In this mode, Windows won't stop apps running in the background from consuming a lot of power.
  • The Better Performance setting limits resources for background apps, but it otherwise prioritizes power over efficiency.
  • Better Battery mode delivers longer battery life than the default settings on previous versions of Windows. (It's actually labeled 'Recommended' on many PCs.)
  • Battery Saver mode, a slider choice that will appear only when your PC is unplugged, reduces the display brightness by 30 percent, prevents Windows update downloads, stops the Mail app from syncing, and suspends most background apps.

Use Battery Settings on macOS

Apple's MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro laptops don't have a battery slider, although many of the same settings described above are present in the Energy Saver preferences.

To open it, click on the Spotlight magnifying-glass icon in the upper right corner of the screen, search for Energy Saver, and then click on the Battery tab. If you want to approximate the Windows Better Battery or Battery Saver modes, make sure that the options 'Put hard disks to sleep when possible' and 'Slightly dim the display while on battery power' are checked, and the option 'Enable Power Nap while on battery power' is unchecked. (With Power Nap enabled and your MacBook asleep, the machine will wake up now and then to check for updates. Disabling it keeps your MacBook fully asleep when it is asleep—until you choose wake it up.) On recent MacBook Pro laptops, the display brightness adjusts to 75 percent when you unplug the computer from power if you have 'Slightly dim the display while on battery power' enabled.

So, if you want the best battery life, should you use Battery Saver all the time? Not exactly. Because Battery Saver mode disables some useful features, you might want to use it only when your battery is below 20 percent and a power outlet isn't near. Likewise, turning off Power Nap can mean it will take longer to catch up on notifications you've missed while you're away from your MacBook. That's why most users should use the Better Battery setting and enable Power Nap most of the time.

Simplify Your Workflow: Closing Apps, and Using Airplane Mode

On the other hand, if you're writing a novel or playing a local video file and don't need to be distracted by notifications, it's fine to enable Battery Saver. It's a good habit to adjust your laptop use in more battery-conserving ways, such as by sticking to one app at a time and closing everything else when you're not using it. It's a bit like turning off the lights when a room is vacant. If you're going back and forth between the kitchen and the pantry all the time, or between Firefox and Word, by all means keep both sets of lights and apps on and open. But if you're just cooking or watching a YouTube video, you'll be best served by turning off and closing everything else.

In addition to aiming to single-task, consider enabling Airplane mode in Windows, or turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in macOS if you know you'll be editing a document with no need for web access. In addition to eliminating distractions, Airplane mode eliminates a significant source of battery drain: not only the wireless radios themselves, but also the background apps and processes that constantly use them, such as updaters and push notifications.

Close Specific Apps That Use Lots of Power

Multiple apps and processes running on your system will chew through battery life more quickly, and chances are you probably aren't actively using everything that's currently running on your PC. In Windows 10, the Settings App is the first step to find energy-hogging programs.

Type 'see which apps are affecting your battery life' into the Windows search bar for a list of apps that are consuming the most power. If you see an app that you rarely use hogging a lot of power, make sure you close it. Often, these are apps you've opened in the background and forgot about, such as Spotify or Adobe Reader.

Next, type 'See which processes start up automatically when you start Windows' into the search bar. This will open the Task Manager's Startup tab, which lists every utility that runs as soon as you start your PC. Anything with a name like 'Download Assistant' or 'Helper' is usually safe to disable. For example, unless you frequently open Spotify playlists, tracks, or albums from links in a web browser, you can disable the Spotify Web Helper.

To perform similar app purging in macOS, search for Users & Groups, then click the Login Items tab, where you'll find a list of apps that run in the background when you start up your Mac.

Adjust Graphics and Display Settings

You'll want to make sure that apps aren't using the discrete GPU (if your laptop has one) when they don't need to.

If you have a powerful graphics processor in your laptop (in essence, anything whose name starts with 'Nvidia GeForce GTX' or, much less commonly, 'AMD Radeon RX'), you can ensure that only games or other graphics-intensive apps need to use it, while everything else can get by using the more efficient on-CPU silicon for graphics processing. Assuming your system makes use of Nvidia GeForce graphics, open the GeForce control panel (typically found in the Windows notification area on the right side of the taskbar), then click on the Program Settings tab to assign each app to a specific graphics-processing chip. Allocate the GeForce discrete chip to games and photo- and video-editing apps like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, while assigning everything else to the integrated chip.

To perform a similar assignment on a MacBook, search for Energy Saver and make sure the 'Automatic graphics switching' option is checked. You don't have the same kind of fine-tuned control over each program like you do in the GeForce panel, so you'll have to trust macOS's judgment when it comes to which app should use which graphics accelerator.

Take Heed of Airflow

Most laptops now come with lithium-polymer batteries that require much less maintenance than batteries of a decade ago, thanks as much to software and firmware improvements as innovation in the battery technology itself. You no longer have to perform a full battery discharge on a regular basis to calibrate it, nor do you have to worry that draining the battery completely will damage your laptop.

You do have to be careful about heat, however, which will hasten a battery's demise. The biggest problems come from physical obstruction of the ventilation ports. Dust buildup is one problem, which you can take care of by cleaning the laptop's vents and fan. (Periodically, use a can of compressed air to blow out some of the dust.) A more frequent issue that crops up, though, is using the laptop on a pillow or blanket, which can both obstruct the ventilation fan and retain the heat coming off of the system. Avoid this by using your laptop only on firm surfaces such as a table or a desk, which won't flex and block airflow or cooling.

Keep an Eye on Your Battery's Health

See Which Apps Use Battery Mac Mouse

All batteries lose charging capacity over time and will eventually need to be replaced. Taking stock of a battery's health now and then is always a good idea.

To see if your MacBook battery is nearing the end of its lifespan, hold the Option key and click the battery icon in the menu bar to reveal the battery status. If you see a 'Replace Now' or 'Service Battery' message, your battery is likely functioning far below its original capacity.

You can find more detailed information on how many charging cycles your battery has endured by opening the System Information app and navigating to the Power tab. Check the cycle count value against the rated maximums in Apple's list to know how many more cycles you've got left.

For an equivalent battery-health indicator in Windows 10, you'll need to roll up your sleeves and delve into world of the command prompts. First, type cmd into the Windows Search Bar in the lower left of the screen to summon the Command Prompt in Windows 10. Right-click on its search item and choose to run Command Prompt at an administrator level. Then, type powercfg /batteryreport at the prompt. Your PC will generate an HTML file whose location is displayed in the command prompt window. Open it, and check near the top for your battery's design capacity, full charge capacity, and cycle count.

Carry a Battery Backup

Finally, the easiest way to ensure that you always have enough battery power is to bring along an external battery pack.

These external power sources plug in to your laptop the same way your charger does. They generally cost between $100 and $200, but come with adapters for use with many different laptop models. They can be used on more than one system, and even for other devices, such as your phone or tablet.

These strategies will help you make the most of the battery you have. If you're in the market for a new laptop, however, and battery runtime is one of your key concerns, check out our roundup of the laptops we've tested with the best battery life.

Want More Battery-Saving Tips?

For a tour of these strategies we've discussed (as well as some further ones), hit the play button above, and we'll brief you on the best ways to increase your laptop's battery life.

With macOS 10.12.2 Apple has removed the 'time remaining' readout from the Mac menubar, the one that told you you had 3:14 — or whatever — left on your battery. That leaves only the percentage indicator to help you guess how much power is left on your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro battery. Needless to say, not everyone is happy about the loss. If you wish you could get it back, the bad news is you can't. The good news is, there are a couple of alternatives.

Why you may not really want 'time remaining' back

I'm not going to miss 'time remaining', and I'm not going to replace. In my experience it was often inaccurate to the point of being farcical, especially when load changed frequently, which is what load does on a laptop.

Oh 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, you tease…
(3 hours into using it on airplane Wi-Fi, primarily Notes + Safari.) pic.twitter.com/cT6WAjDvMe

— Rene Ritchie 🖇 (@reneritchie) November 30, 2016

Here's what I wrote in my MacBook battery life troubleshooting tip:

The Mac's menubar shows the percentage of battery life left, just like iOS. When you click on it, though, you get an estimate of how much time is left — 4:35 remaining, for example. Ignore that.

It's almost impossible to correctly guestimate how much time is left on a battery in a highly dynamic environment but, worse, Apple's battery API has been wonky for a while. You'll see it go from an impossible 14:21 to a stress-inducing 1:35 and back with the launch or closing of an app or the start or completion of a task.

You might think it's useful to have a rough idea of how much work time you have left, but that's not what you're getting. What you're getting is a constant source of stress. Pretend it doesn't exist and stick with the percentage. After a week or so, you'll figure out what that means just like iPhone and iPad.

If your experience has been different or you simply really, truly, want to see 'time remaining' on your MacBook, read on.

Activity Monitor

When Apple introduced battery shaming — sorry, 'apps using significant energy' — on the Mac, they set it up so that it could take you to Activity Monitor, where more specific information was available. Though 'time remaining' is gone from the Menubar, it remains in Activity Monitor.

To get to it, you can:

  1. Click on the on the Battery icon on the right of the Menubar.
  2. Click on the name of an app using significant energy.

  3. Look at Time Remaining at the bottom of Activity Monitor, once it launches.

Alternatively, you can:

See Which Apps Use Battery Machine

  1. Launch Activity Monitor with Spotlight, LaunchPad, or Finder.
  2. Click on the Energy tab at the top.
  3. Look at Time Remaining at the bottom.

FruitJuice and iStat

In addition to its own 'time remaining' metric, Apple provides an application developer interface (API) for developers so they can pull a 'time remaining' number as well and use it in their own apps. The numbers third party apps get from the API doesn't always match the number Apple shows, but if you're this far down already you skipped my advice about ignoring this lunacy and really want a readout. So, here are your options.

FruitJuice is a an app that tries to help you optimize battery life on your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro by keeping detailed records, analyzing them, and recommending best practices based on them. For me, it's more trouble and stress than it's worth, but if you love to micromanage that stuff, FruitJuice is awesome at it. It even includes — wait for it! — a 'time remaining' indicator all it's own.

  • $9.99 - See on Mac App Store

iStat Menu is more of a multitasked that tracks and displays everything about your Mac, including time remaining on battery. It's like having Activity Monitor available, in highly polished form, at the click of a menu item.

News app mac os mojave. Full disclosure: The developer of iStat is a friend of mine, but I used the app for years before we met. I still use it to see if my chips are really being pegged by video coding, especially when it seems slow.

  • $8.00 - See at Bjango

See Which Apps Use Battery Macbook

Will you be adding your time remaining back?

I'm fine with percentage but what about you? Will you be using Activity Monitor? FruitJuice or iStat? Something else? Let me know!

MacBook Pro

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Closed for 2020

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According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple is planning for its office and many of its retail workers to remain remote for the rest of the year.

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