macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

I managed to fix it by completely reinstalling Big Sur. In recovery mode you can reinstall it and after that, I logged myself out of iCloud on my device and logged back in. before, I saw on my activity monitor that something called secd. was chugging cpu. Now it's all fine. If you try logging out of iCloud, I recommend making sure you're not losing any data, for example on your desktop etc.

after that, I had no more issues whatsoever. It solved the battery, the heat and the fans. Only, the trust in my device is completely gone. Hopefully apple fixes this soon if this doesn't help.

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.

Hi @kayezad & all -

My latest update: after extensive troubleshooting (for 2 weeks) with no tangible results, I physically went to an Apple store. They confirmed that there are no hardware issues (or ANY issues) on my 2018 MPB. They wiped my disk and downgraded me to High Sierra - the only option is to downgrade to the OS that came with the machine when you bought it or install the current OS (Big Sur). I updated back to Catalina when I got home. Here's what I've noticed:

• Major overheating issues with Big Sur - resolved.
• Glitch when I shut down whereby flashes of color would splash across my screen - resolved.
• Battery life: I'm still evaluating but the first try = 3h40 minutes, which is less than pre-Big Sur but more than I got while on Big Sur (barely 2 hours).
• Despite wiping the disk, I still hear the chime upon boot-up (not a big deal - I like it!).
• Despite wiping the disk, I saw two accounts upon boot-up - one was my regular account and the other was a test account that I created ages ago and deleted before the Big Sur upgrade. Not a huge deal - I deleted it again, but found it odd that it showed up.
• MBP wouldn't shut down yesterday so I had to force it - but could be an isolated incident.

Obviously, there's no one size fits all solution but none of my troubleshooting helped, it wasn't an issue with reindexing nor was I experiencing crazy CPU spikes where one particular app was the culprit.

I agree that if Big Sur is only optimized for new machines, then they shouldn't list prior Macs as being compatible with it. Most users who upgraded likely did so because the release notes stated Big Sur was compatible with earlier machines. However, I too saw developer notes where it was noted that there were battery drain issues (obviously not before I upgraded!).

You don’t need to search any farther than the Apple Support Communities, pvmikev1, to find quite similar “complaints” and “issues” about previous upgrades (not just updates).

Just because you, personally, haven’t experienced such, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

(I’ve never experienced such, myself, but, fortunately, I, like many others, understand what is going on.)

Since the problem occurs with «software that [y’all were] running under [a previous version of macOS, such as] Catalina», your protestation that «[you] don't have any software that [you weren’t] running under Catalina» is more of an indictment than anything close to an absolution.

Here’s the sure-fire solution:

1. Backup everything you want to keep! A full backup!
2. A truly clean install of Big Sur: absolutely nothing carried over from your previous Operating System (OS). You will find that your system “settles down” almost immediately! You’ll see that you have at least as good battery life (time to discharge) as you ever did. (Really, if not, then your battery has a problem, or, possibly, you may have other hardware issues: we hope not, but this is a possibility which is included within the “old timers” experience.)
3. Then, once you have found your system to be good with the new OS, you migrate over your data—only your data—absolutely no software! Yet! This will start the various “housekeeping” background processes! Your Energy usage will go back up, while these processes prepare your system and data for your everyday use. Depending upon how much data you “suddenly” “dumped” upon the OS’ “plate”, so to speak, this may take a few days to “settle down”.
   1. There may be issues with certain settings, which may require synchronization with data on iCloud and on other devices (such as synchronization between Safari on multiple devices, for instance). Even this should “settle down”, in time, depending upon how much data and how fast your Internet connection is.
4. Once the system has “caught up” with your data; now you can try to restore your programs, Apps, utilities, and other diverse software. This is the most likely place where y’all will find issues, due to old software, that ran “just fine” on the older OS, but are simply not ready for the new OS.

If you run into problems at stage 4, you’ll have to upgrade your software.

Note: Generally, one should always check software compatibility before any major OS upgrade!

After all, not all software even has upgraded versions that are compatible with such a major OS upgrade. (I know many major developers that, while they plan on having compatible versions, have yet to release such new, compatible versions.)

I had the same problem on my 2019 MacBook Pro 16". Everything was working fine until Big Our turned into Big Battery Hog.

Spent a lot of time with Apple support. End result is I ended up deleting my SSD contents and installing OS Catalina on it on advice of Apple. It was indicated to me that it is usually not wise to be a first to upgrade OS person. I was advised that Big Sur was not yet a mature OS.

This ended up as a huge make work project as all content disappeared and I had to go into the latest Big Sur time machine back up and physically move folders over after diving into the back up itself. I did not have a recent enough back up with Catalina...my bad. In any event battery life has returned to normal and I won't touch Big Sur until I see an update with fixes for this issue.

Adding to this. I was experiencing the Battery Drain issue as well as having to "weirdness" with lots and lots of EFI processes building up. My system would become most unresponsive each morning and needed to be restarted to restore functionality. I reviewed the 'Crash' and 'System' logs in Console.app and found that Xcode Simulators were causing numerous 'faults' and crashes. I uninstalled Xcode and removed any Xcode remnants. I also had a few old 3rd party kexts that I removed. My system is now much more responsive and my Battery Life has been extended to about 4 hours on a 2020 16" fully loaded MBP.

Halliday,

You've seemed to imply in the past replies that a "Clean Install" would be a panacea and solve the battery drainage issues.

It is clear now, that a "clean install" is not a requirement to solving the battery drainage issue.

It is clear that 3rd party software is the culprit whether you clean install or not.

I didn't clean install and my battery drainage issue was resolved by upgrading all my 3rd party software and drivers and getting

rid of 3rd party software that stayed problematic like Chrome.

I'm currently getting 4.5 to 5 hours of battery life that is the same as I got with Catalina only after I attacked the 3rd party software issues.

The change I made to syncing my iphone automatically (I turned this feature off because it was causing the os component ampdeviceagent to hang) seems to have worked (or made a huge difference) for me. It's worth checking.

Another thing worth checking (how I found this problem) is in activity monitor. I kept looking at the energy tab to see what was sucking up all the energy from the battery. There was never an obvious culprit, some activity but nothing big. When I checked the CPU tab, this os component was using 98% of the CPU and had been running for hours (even when my computer was asleep, plugged in, etc.).

Just a thought. I'm concerned everyone's solution will be slightly different but this is an easy place to check.

Welcome, ByronBorja, to Apple Support Communities!

That’s interesting that «log[ging] out [of] your apple ID, restart[ing] your computer and log[ging back] in [to] your apple ID again» worked for you.

I hadn’t heard of that one, before.

However, I have seen cases where the principle “errant” background processes seemed to be Apple processes involved in various communications and syncing services.

Your solution sounds like it would likely fit such cases!

Welcome, Kourkoubas, to Apple Support Communities!

You say you «have already tried everything that was recommended here».

Let’s start with what was recommended in the article drji41 linked to:

1. Reboot? (I’m sure you tried that, and I’m not at all surprised if this didn’t solve your issue.)
2. Check Activity Monitor: I notice that they didn’t emphasize that one should change the Views to “All Processes”, rather than the default of “My Processes”, when looking at the CPU tab they do recommend. Did you set the View to “All Processes”, and order the processes so the processes taking the most CPU % are at the top?
3. Spotlight Search Indexing? Doing the above, I take it that you didn’t see spotlight.app taking up much CPU %. Correct? (I would only expect to see it taking a large amount of CPU %, except in the early stages.)
4. Other Processes? This is where using the “All Processes” View is important! This is where the majority of people find the “culprits”: unless one has a hardware problem (we hope you do not), the only way for a computer to use a lot of Energy, having its «fan … going super crazy», or get hot (three symptoms of the same issue), is to have software using the power of your computer (possibly, for no good purpose, for you).
5. Reset NVRAM and PRAM? (I categorize this with Rebooting.)
6. Reset the SMC? (Similarly.)
7. Boot into Safe Mode? This will repair issues on your drive, and will prevent many third-party system and kernel extensions from running: If this helps decrease your Energy use, and helps quiet your fans, and helps your computer to not get so hot—when not running other programs—then you know that something was running, which was causing your issues, that no longer runs under Safe Mode. This can get you going on tracking down what is causing your issues.
8. MacBook Battery Help? I would have listed this near the top, since this is one of the simplest and most direct methods for tracking down the cause of your issues.

There is more, if none of the above give any clues.

(There’s even a sure-fire solution, but it is a bit “drastic”, and most don’t actually go through the entire process, since they really just want a “quick fix” [they try to “jump” to the “end”].)

Let me share my experience. I have been one of the firsts who upgraded to Big Sur on both of my mid-2014 MBPs. Experienced immediate battery drain on both. One is mainly working as a docked station, and is permanently plugged in. Waited couple of days as advised for the spotlight to calm down with no result. Downgraded the other one to Catalina, 5-6 hours battery life returned immediately. Was monitoring this thread for a solution. The other MBP, working in docked mode, seemed to gain back the normal battery life without my intervention. So I finally dared to upgrade the other MBP again. Happy with it. The energy usage is normally below 10 Watts and 1000 mA. Battery lasts for 5-6 hours (443 cycles). Did a clean install from a USB, erasing the hard drives.

Welcome, Pishi from NYC, to Apple Support Communities!

Unfortunately, Apple is not here (generally speaking).

It’s just us, your fellow users!

Please read the comment marked “Solved” at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252045241?answerId=254006415022#254006415022. (That’s on another Discussion of this same issue.)

Furthermore, since clean (“virgin”) installs of Big Sur—before installing or restoring third-party software (Apps, system or kernel extensions, boot-scripts, user extensions, etc.)—have never exhibited this issue (except, perhaps, in rare cases of hardware failures); it is already proven that Big Sur, itself, is not the cause.

Note: The distinction between upgrades vs. updates is important:

• Updates cannot introduce incompatible Operating System (OS) changes.
• Upgrades can, and usually do, introduce incompatible OS changes. In fact, this is the principle reason for creating upgrades!

Big Sur is a major OS upgrade.

As such, it is to be expected that, at least some, old software will not be compatible, and may “act up”.

Upgraded to Big Sur - machine hot battery loss +24%/hr

Took PC back to factory settings and installed BIg Sur with no other data - same result re battery loss

Contacted Apple and went through the erase process but this time went to OS Yosemite (original) then High Sierra then Catalina and battery loss 9% per hour i.e. circa 10 hours plus

Re installed data and have screen shots to prove the above but at least my PC is back to normal but disappointed to have to go through this process

In Australia on 4-Feb-2021 at 08:24 I upgraded to Big Sur 11.2 with fear and trepidation. My previous 2 installations of Big Sur (11.0 & 11.1) resulted in the rapid battery consumption everyone has been talking about and the recoveries were not that much fun even with Time Machine Backups.

I am still running on the charge from that day and it's now 6-Feb-2021 07:21. I think the battery problem has finally been resolved.

Incidentally, for those who don't know, if you wish to restore to Catalina from Big Sur you need to restore from your TMB twice. Once to restore the Catalina Recovery partition and once more to perform the actual system restore. Big Sur's Recovery of your last Catalina backup produces an unbootable system, but correctly restores the Catalina Recovery partition. The two Recovery menus are obviously different from each other.

(MacBook Air, mid 2013)

MacBookAir 6,2 2013-07-29

Directly after upgrading to BigSur the battery lasted for a bit more than an hour with some luck.

After days, indexing settled down and most of the software has been updated but the battery still didn't last for more than 2h unplugged - if I was using my MBA as usual ...

(I was pretty disappointed about what Apple did to my most important working tool although I was in home office almost all the time, so was working plugged in and had access to other devices)

Now after updating to 11.2.1 and less than 12h for spotlight indexing, I suddenly regained unplugged freedom of approx 6-7h actual working time with an 82% healthy battery, so like it was before BigSur, although there was no further update for 3rd party software.

I wonder how that is possible even though 3rd party software was blamed as the root cause since the very first day.

How bizarre, how bizarre, how bizarre ...