OS Catalina, short battery life on MacBook Pro 15" - 2016

Well, I'm restoring from my TimeMachine 10.14.6 backup as I'm typing this.. Mine is an early 2015 MacBook Air 8gb-512gb i5. I've been on 10.15, 10.15.1, 10.5.2 both on update and load from scratch. Same draining in all scenarios. If you weren't having these draining issues on Mojave, I would suggest going back as well. You've got a non-Apple drive in that(that's why I paid the extra $ for my 512gb Apple SSD when I upgraded mine from 128gb), so not sure what other things Catalina won't do right, but if you were ok on Mojave with it, I would load it back up. I don't like going backwards, or suggesting others do so, as I'm all for security updates, if for a good reason. But when usability and functionality is compromised, I don't like that. Not unless it's an immediate threat.. I'm hoping Apple admits this issue, and issues a published fix/update for it. Hopefully you have a backup from before you updated or have all your data backed up somehow. I'm not sure that you can load a Catalina backup with Mojave. I've submitted feedback to Apple on this draining issue but of course, haven't heard or seen anything back. I'm an impatient man so I want my machine to work as well as it used to, so I'm reloading Mojave once again. I had NO issues with this machine from Sierra-High Sierra-Mojave. Now I really wish I had another Air to play with this, cuz I can't keep doing this with my daily driver.. don't have the money for another one. Oh well, only 2.5 hrs left on the restore. Good luck to you.

Same here. I have a 2019 MBP and same issue happens. Doesn't really happen when idle. For me it happens really with light usage of the MacBook Pro like basic web browsing, checking email, using NetBeans IDE here and there, etc. Mojave didn't have this issue. Cycle Count currently at 109. They also chose to blame Chrome, except when I took it to the store. They store themselves blamed Catalina. Its pretty bad when it even happens on their latest models. The store did tests and said its not any of my information causing it, and the battery passed tests. 10.15.2 shows the same. A fresh, empty copy of Catalina shows the same issue. If any of you guys get a senior advisor, I would refer them here to show it's not a unique issue. SMC and NVRAM resets do not help sadly.

Normally, I'd have 10 hours, now its 2-5 hours, activity monitor would show as if it had another 6 hours left, but it just drops much too quick. You might lose the first 10% normal, but goes down hill after that. Though it does seem it happens more on MacBook Pros from about 2015+, especially the newest design generation. I cant go back to Mojave since sadly, my backups are all overwritten with Catalina stuff which you cant do on a Mojave system. Even sometimes when it is idle you'll here its fan being super loud and it gets warm.

I keep seeing a message saying that upgrading to Catalina 10.15.2 fixes the problem. Maybe it was worse before, but in my case it's not at all true. The only way to preserve battery is to close all types of wireless networks and shut down browsers. Then, battery life becomes... livable. but not OK.

I finally found a solution after a call to Apple, I have had to delete all files in ~library\LaunchAgents and ~Library\LaunchDaemons. This has had some unwanted side effects, but at least my machine now lasts a little longer on battery

Issue remains in 10.15.5. I can confirm this too. Can someone help with using pmset commands to kill scheduled tasks. The task com.apple.alarm.user-visible-com.apple.remindd.time-alarm seems to be waking up my Mac every few seconds. Apparently this is related to the reminds app.

The drain is significantly reduced if I turn WIFI off and sleep. If someone can please help with how to kill scheduled tasks that would be super helpful.

I'm running 10.15.2 on a mid 2012 MB Pro with a 1TB Samsung SSD (860 EVO). Excessive battery drain during sleep is still a significant problem. So much so I'm considering returning to Mojave.

I put my MacBook to sleep at 100%, just opened it & it was at 51%. In the 3 mins to open browser & type this comment its down to 46%. Thats Catalina! This is ridiculous! How can i got back to Mojave??

Just looked into downgrading & Apple makes it nearly impossible since I didnt have time machine set up.

Same problem with similar age MacBook pro, except that my problem started with Mojave. See the following thread (and similar ones) for reports of the same issue, a whole OS version earlier. No response from Apple at all. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8553128

Hello,

Same problem here.

While before my macbook Pro would just work for (many) hours, I can now see the charge indicator counting down like a bomb in a bad movie. What I did not yet try is to see whether cutting off all networking reduces this battery drain to acceptable levels. Have you tried this?

Best,

Dumitru

This worked for me too. Once my desktop was cleared, battery usage turned back to normal. I had however, before reading this post/solution, also reset my MacBook Pro to factory settings and reinstalled Catalina...

Thank you, shramona02.

Sure would like to know how you are fairing with what you did.. I'm actually doing a backup right now and will bite the bullet again and load Catalina 10.15.2 from scratch and see if I can get Office loaded somehow, and not use a backup restore.. I believe I had first upgraded from 10.14.6 to 10.15, and then upgraded again to 10.15.1 when it came out.. I then loaded 10.15.1 from scratch, but was still having draining issues. Then upgraded to 10.15.2 and still having draining issues. That's why I downgraded to 10.14.6. Since I haven't loaded 10.15.2 from scratch I'll try that before I give up on it.. I still don't like the drive separation, but if I can get it to not kill my battery, I'll probably keep it. If not, back to Mojave, most likely for good if this doesn't work, or unless Apple specifically admits to this issue and issues a published fix...

Thanks for the info. I have a 2015 MB Air. I now crank through a battery very quickly (2-5 hours). I posted earlier in this thread.

I have found that shutting down Chrome completely before I put the MB to sleep seems to help with the battery drain during sleep problem. So there may be something to the Chrome stuff. I'm still looking into it.

Unfortunately, I also run Microsoft Outlook and typically leave it open too. So I have to test each application.

However, when the laptop is awake it loses a percent every couple minutes. That problem is still there big time.

2018 Macbook Pro with Touch Bar and i9, 16 GB of RAM...battery was lasting 8-9 hours using normal apps and 5-6 using high intensive apps like FCPX, Photoshop, and BlackMagic Media Express before update. Now only lasting about 3 hours using normal apps, and about a 1.5 hours using high intensive apps after updating. Currently running Catalina 10.15.2. Battery is normal condition. Very upset with this right now, especially with how many Apple products I have and how many my family has owned over the years...

I've gone up and down several times.. I went ahead and upgraded to 10.15.3 anyway, as now I have excessive drainage on Mojave as well... This is nuts.. Still there of course. I went back down to Mojave. Still doing it.. I'm starting to wonder if either they did some firmware update on a chip with Catalina(if that's even possible) and didn't tell anyone, or I have an unusual battery issue. Only has 353 cycles on it too, out of the 1000 they claim it's good for.. Maybe I'll spring for a new battery for this 2015 Air and see what happens.. Wish I had one already so I could let everyone know right away if it helps.. I'll let you all know if I go that route. This thing was flawless until I did the Catalina update...