macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

Going to piggyback on Halliday here, even though I posted just a few days ago. I had the same problems described by others on this forum. Turned out to be a third party app (Malwarebytes) that I had forgotten was even installed on my computer (downloaded it over a year ago, used it only briefly).

The difference in behavior of my computer after complete uninstall and reboot was unmistakable - not just a coincidence. Though I can’t be 100% sure that my battery life is precisely the same as with the prior OS, I personally can’t tell a difference in my MacBook’s behavior from Catalina.

Welcome, david_0908, to Apple Support Communities!

After you did a «clean re-install», did you test to see if you still had the problem, before restoring your files? And before restoring your old software?

Clean Installs of Big Sur have been a “sure fire” “fix”, because there is no problem with only Big Sur. (With the exception of potential hardware issues, with some older systems.)

After restoring files, but before restoring old software, there is a “housekeeping” period as Big Sur—much like previous major Operating System (OS) upgrades—analyze, reindex, and cache files, photos, music, videos, books, etc., in preparation for your daily use and convenience.

Depending upon how much stuff was “suddenly” put on Big Sur’s “plate”, so to speak, and how fast your system is (including how fast your drive is), this “housekeeping” should “settle down”, once it “catches up” with your files, in a day or so of continuous work.

People not using battery capable systems (read MacBooks) usually don’t notice this much at all, unless, like me, they run always with the Activity Monitor running.

Running on batteries, on the other hand, makes this “housekeeping” period far more apparent, and, if the user is not aware of what is going on, hugely worrying!

Finally, once your old software is restored, you introduce a huge new “dimension” of potential issues that can result from third-party software that can be “confused” by the major OS upgrade—a potentially huge change in the system upon which they are running: they may simply not run, or they may “run amuck”.

If the third-party software goes “amuck”, it is possible that no amount of waiting will permit the system to “settle down”!

All one can do is search out the errant software, and take appropriate action: termination, removal, upgrade, etc.

I have been, quite frankly, surprised that we haven’t seen more issues with third-party software, with this major OS upgrade!

Such is usually far more common than we have been seeing, but it has certainly been happening.

Unless you have a hardware issue—we all hope you don’t!—high Energy use can only occur due to high computer resource use (like CPU, GPU, RAM, disk, networking, etc.) by programs!

The typical culprits will not be the applications you, as the user, have chosen to run and interact with, since, if those “misbehave”, you, typically, notice right off.

So, the usual culprits will be background processes that you usually do not see, unless you more specifically look for them!

This is where Activity Monitor (Launchpad -> Other -> Activity Monitor) comes in!

Note that with the default Views, you will only see “My Processes”.

Change the Views to “All Processes” (I usually run with “All Processes, Hierarchically”, so I can see the relationship between processes and their subprocesses), in order to see what is actually going on, “under the hood”, on your computer.

Note: Unfortunately, it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So the processes and their Energy use, as seen in the Energy tab, of Activity Monitor, is, likely, incomplete. However, fortunately, the overall Energy Impact doesn’t require all processes to be so “instrumented”.

Take a good look around. Reorder the views to show the highest CPU, GPU, etc. “users”.

You may be quite surprised to see what is working your computer so hard!

Now, you can be better equipped to take appropriate action, on your own computer!

Have you tried to look at what is actually going on, on your computer, aubeone?

All I’m recommending is for you, and others, to try and see what’s really going on, on your own computers.

Then, you’ll be better equipped to take appropriate action.

(By the way. With laptops, it is entirely possible to get «Draining while plugged in».

It’s a simple matter of greater energy use than what is supplied by the external power source.)

Be thankful for little “blessings”, mateo28.

You may wish to go through the Battery Recalibration procedure.

(Unfortunately, I don’t have a ready reference on the details of the procedure, right now.)

Very good, yozh09!

You used the tools (particularly Activity Monitor) to see what was going on, on your computer, and took care of it (with help from Apple support, in your case).

Unfortunately, what processes are errant seem to vary, greatly!

However, the method for seeing what is going on is close to universal.

By the way: when Activity Monitor reports % CPU, it is reporting the percentage of the utilization of a single CPU core. With multi-threaded code, one can use up to 100% of as many CPU cores as your computer has. So you can have a single process use nearly 100% times the number of CPU cores your computer has.

So, 125% simply means 25% more than a single processing thread.

Unfortunately, vladislav217, that recommendation is nothing close to a universal fix.

That’s why the best course of action is to use tools, like Activity Monitor, to find what the causes of the symptoms are, first.

Then one can take the appropriate action.

You wouldn’t want a doctor to apply leaches to every sick patient. Would you? (Yes. Back in the dark ages of medicine, they did things like that.)

I've been strategically avoiding falling for Apple's planned obsolesce strategy. So, I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB memory). I'm still running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G22010) which is what it came with. My battery has been long-lasting, but I'm just now starting to have trouble running certain apps. What operating system can I upgrade to that won't hurt my battery-life?!

sneakywitch wrote:

What operating system can I upgrade to that won't hurt my battery-life?!

Since that question is, in essence, the question of “which operating system is best for me?”, that’s a question only you can answer, for yourself.

However, I will give you the “assurance”—whether you wish to believe it or not—that Apple engineers keep learning how to best regulate battery usage on their battery capable devices.

So. Each new Operating System (OS) incorporates their latest knowledge, in this area.

Now. I know that high Energy usage reports are worrying to MacBook users! Quite understandably!

However, never, at any time, is there anything done to intentionally abuse your computers!

In fact, in all cases for Big Sur, and before!, where there have been reports of high Energy usage; with the exception of hardware issues (and there have been such cases that have been verified), the culprit is always some software that is working incorrectly. (Usually, it is third-party software that, simply, wasn’t ready for a brand new OS.)

Please be assured that we, your fellow users, are here to protect “your back”, so to speak! Whichever way you choose to proceed.

I have the same problem. I have a MacBook Pro early 2015, 13". Big Sur drains my battery in just 3 hours.

Earlier, I had been using the MacOS (High Sierra) that came with my machine when I had bought it from the Grand Central station store in NY, in September 2016. My laptop used to run for almost nine hours with a single battery charge. It was smooth and fast.

Big Sur spoiled everything for me. It has been two weeks since the upgrade and my machine has become slower. Worst; from 9 hours earlier, my battery now drains out completely in just under three hours. The fan whirs loudly. Performance of the laptop has dropped significantly and very visibly.

Apple is most unfair. Why should an MacOS upgrade slow down the battery so visibly? What's the point of upgrading then? It has been a known murmur that Apple does this deliberately to force us to upgrade our laptops and spend more money. But this is very anti-customer. If Big Sur is not suitable for old machines, then Apple shouldn't allow older machines for MacOs upgrades.

Apple has clearly mis-sold Big Sur. Shame!

Thank you Ann for your detailed response. The option to go back to my old MacOS was there with me as well, but I was told that the back-up I took post Big Sur, would be available to me again in Big Sur format. So if I remove Big Sur from my Macbook, go back to High Sierra and then transfer my files via Time Machine (through an earlier taken back-up) back on my laptop, I'll again get Big Sur. It's complicated, and I was so afraid after my Big Sur experience, that I didn't take that option.

I am just hoping against hope that Apple would release an update to Big Sur that would address some of these key battery drain and overheating issues.

Also, I agree there are no hardware issues, even in my case. My Macbook Pro was working perfectly fine before Big Sur; nearly 8-9 hours battery life, can you believe it? Big Sur dropped that down to just under three hours.

I have always been against upgrading my MacOS, as Apple's track record is well-known. The only reason i went for an upgrade is that Microsoft stopped servicing Ms OFFICE 2015 which I have. The new MS OFFICE 2019 does not work on High Sierra. So, to get the new MS OFFICE, i upgraded. The irony now is that after my Big Sur experience, i have decided against buying the new MS OFFICE. I feel like an idiot!

@Kayezad

Oops, I forgot to mention that I dumped everything on an external hard drive sans Time Machine. This way, I didn't have any issues - just copied everything over to the MBP after I reinstalled Catalina. The only issue I had was forgetting to back up iTunes! Perhaps you could copy your files over to another external HD and then copy them to the Mac after updating the OS? Just remember to copy the iTunes library file as well ;-)

Yes, I do believe it! I had run diagnostics (with no issues found) but Apple did a more through check, which is how I finally "officially" confirmed no HW issues. Personally, I haven't had any issues with OS upgrades in the past (yes, I know, they weren't as 'major' as Big Sur but still, one has the reasonable expectation that enough regression testing will be done to prevent major issues from coming up) - which is why I wasn't concerned about upgrading. Oops.

You bring up an interesting point - this morning, II discovered that I Cana't load the web version of Teams anymore. No matter if I try to do this in Firefox or Safari, it keeps telling me I need to refresh the tab (?!) yet doing that does F-all. Even clearing the cache doesn't help. I'm wondering if it's related to my downgrade.

Welcome, Kayezad, to Apple Support Communities!

The «slow down» and the «battery» drain issues (and heating of your computer) are all symptoms of the same underlying problem: you have programs running, using a large amount of your computer resources (probably mostly CPU), without you being aware of these processes.

The solution is to use Activity Monitor, as I have recommended, and as others have done, to see what is actually going on, “under the hood”, so to speak, on your computer.

Then you can take appropriate action.

(In the vast majority of cases, the culprit or culprits is/are third-party programs that were simply not ready for such a major change in the Operating System [OS] they are running on.)

The Energy Impact you are showing there, david_0908, doesn’t appear all that bad, except for the short spike near the beginning of the plot.

Unfortunately, as I’ve expressed, before, not all background software is “instrumented” for Energy use.

I also notice that your View is not set to “All Processes”. (That won’t make a difference in the Energy Impact plot.)

When not running CPU and/or GPU intensive Apps, the mist likely “errant” software will be background tasks, that will not show up under “My Processes”.

The fact that downgrading to Catalina didn’t drastically change things, simply backs up the fact that the Operating System (OS), itself, is not the determining factor.

All macOSs perform the analysis/indexing/caching operations, of your various files. They all “settle down” once they “catch up” to your files.

Additionally, all macOSs are susceptible to errant, third-party software, that can “misbehave”.

(Hopefully, you don’t have a hardware issue, since that, once initiated, will remain independent of OS.)

Hi Halliday, Thanks for your detailed response. I got intrigued after your response and decided to check out my Activity Monitor. I have pasted a screenshot of the Activity Monitor that I just ran on my own Macbook Pro. I just don't know how to really interpret it. There is a CalanderAgent and sharingD and sugdestD process that I can see at the top. But can you interpret this data and guide me if Im meant to do something here?

Thanks

Kayezad

Also note that battery health management features may be turned on that prevents the device from getting a 100% charge, hence leading to a shorter battery life (in hopes to extend the lifespan). I personally disabled this as I need all the battery life I can get.