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Big Sur battery drain

Hi everyone! After upgrading my MBP 16" 2019 to Big Sur, I am facing shorter battery life than on Catalina. It's worse about 30%. My battery is in a pretty good shape - 58 cycles. Any idea what to do? Will the next update fix the problem? Thanks!

PS: I saw people having same problem at reddit.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 15, 2020 10:19 AM

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Question marked as Best answer

Welcome, jonasboor and @All, to Apple Support Communities!


Many of us “old timers” have been trying to inform those that are “panicking” about this, but few are listening, and many simply seem to “listen” to each other “complain”, and “call” for Apple to “take action”.


This is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:

  • Unless a computer has a hardware fault (such as a short-circuit, including an internal short in a battery), there is no way for a computer to use a great deal of energy without running programs being the cause! (CPU or GPU intensive processes, usually.) Of course, we all hope your computer’s hardware is and keeps running well!
  • Big Sur is a major Operating System (OS) upgrade. It is not a mere update! In fact, Apple considers it to be such a major upgrade that they actually increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!
  • With any major OS upgrade, there are a number of “housekeeping” processes that run in the background (you won’t see them in Activity Monitor unless you change the View from the default of “My Processes” to “All Processes”): these are indexing all the files on your Data drive, analyzing and indexing all your photos/videos/music/books/etc., and any number of other “housekeeping” tasks to get the system ready for your daily use and convenience. (The results help make your system more responsive to your needs.) These will “settle down” when they have completed their “housekeeping” to the point that they are “caught up” with your files and such. (After that, just as with the previous OSs, they simply work as needed to keep up with what you change and add.)
  • There are third party programs, utilities, extensions, etc., that simply may not be ready for such a major OS upgrade: they can get “confused”, and can “run amuck”, on your system, until you upgrade these third party programs! Please be aware of this potential issue.


From Andrey Threat’s experience, it appears that there may be a possibility for issues in interactions, through iCloud, with other systems. However, this is still quite preliminary!


You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)


The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.


Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.


(Unfortunately, if your computer has hardware faults, Activity Monitor is not the best tool for recognizing such issues.)

Posted on Nov 29, 2020 4:00 PM

3 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Nov 15, 2020 10:31 AM in response to jonasboor

Same here. With a 2017 13" MacBook Pro with 4 Thunderbolt ports, when using screen mirroring, the Mac gets really hot, and the battery is drained after about 2 hours. I am concerned about the safety of this, and I did not have this problem before updating to Big Sur. Is there any setting that can be changed to help? I found several settings had to be changed from the default for Airplay by screen mirroring to work with a 13" screen already. For example, until I changed some settings, screen sharing options did not appear in the menu bar. And as soon as I clicked on "screen mirroring" in the drop down box, all open windows and, the drop down box and, most importantly, the cursor were shown in greatly reduced sizes, making it nearly impossible to find the cursor. Plus, the drop down box and (now that I added it) the screen mirroring in the menu bar do not even have the option to exit screen mirroring. You have to click on "display preferences" to open another box that gives you the option to turn off Airplay Display. As a default, this is not acceptable. The only way I could stop Airplay and get a screen I could actually work with was to shut the lid on the laptop and wait for that to exit Airplay. Only then could I even find the settings I needed to change. And having no way to turn off Airplay without clicking on 2 or 3 things to find it? Not good. This new OS is not ready for release. Sorry. But battery draining in 2 hours and no user friendly way to turn off Airplay? Not good.

Question marked as Helpful

Nov 15, 2020 11:31 AM in response to hildegard47

Here's a screenshot: From last night and again this morning, you can see the battery drain from 100% to red within 2 hours or so. Last night, I was watching a symphony performance on Airplay and this morning another video streaming through Airplay, same trajectory both times, and it caught me by surprise that my battery almost went dead during the performance. I'm looking at "Battery" in System Preferences but don't see any setting changes that would help with this.


Question marked as Helpful

Nov 17, 2020 12:15 AM in response to hildegard47

My MacBook Air 2017 gave me 8-10 hours of battery life with no extended screen and at least 15 applications (at minimum) operating simultaneously. Even with Catalina it gave me a very decent back up... but no sooner I got the Big Sur update... my machine has turned into a power guzzler! I didn't to a Time Machine back up and can't go back to the previous version. I am terribly disappointed that Apple would release an OS with such obvious issues!!


I do hope they fix this very, very soon!!! I can't be roaming around with my power cord all the time!

76 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Nov 15, 2020 10:31 AM in response to jonasboor

Same here. With a 2017 13" MacBook Pro with 4 Thunderbolt ports, when using screen mirroring, the Mac gets really hot, and the battery is drained after about 2 hours. I am concerned about the safety of this, and I did not have this problem before updating to Big Sur. Is there any setting that can be changed to help? I found several settings had to be changed from the default for Airplay by screen mirroring to work with a 13" screen already. For example, until I changed some settings, screen sharing options did not appear in the menu bar. And as soon as I clicked on "screen mirroring" in the drop down box, all open windows and, the drop down box and, most importantly, the cursor were shown in greatly reduced sizes, making it nearly impossible to find the cursor. Plus, the drop down box and (now that I added it) the screen mirroring in the menu bar do not even have the option to exit screen mirroring. You have to click on "display preferences" to open another box that gives you the option to turn off Airplay Display. As a default, this is not acceptable. The only way I could stop Airplay and get a screen I could actually work with was to shut the lid on the laptop and wait for that to exit Airplay. Only then could I even find the settings I needed to change. And having no way to turn off Airplay without clicking on 2 or 3 things to find it? Not good. This new OS is not ready for release. Sorry. But battery draining in 2 hours and no user friendly way to turn off Airplay? Not good.

Question marked as Helpful

Nov 15, 2020 11:31 AM in response to hildegard47

Here's a screenshot: From last night and again this morning, you can see the battery drain from 100% to red within 2 hours or so. Last night, I was watching a symphony performance on Airplay and this morning another video streaming through Airplay, same trajectory both times, and it caught me by surprise that my battery almost went dead during the performance. I'm looking at "Battery" in System Preferences but don't see any setting changes that would help with this.


Question marked as Helpful

Nov 17, 2020 12:15 AM in response to hildegard47

My MacBook Air 2017 gave me 8-10 hours of battery life with no extended screen and at least 15 applications (at minimum) operating simultaneously. Even with Catalina it gave me a very decent back up... but no sooner I got the Big Sur update... my machine has turned into a power guzzler! I didn't to a Time Machine back up and can't go back to the previous version. I am terribly disappointed that Apple would release an OS with such obvious issues!!


I do hope they fix this very, very soon!!! I can't be roaming around with my power cord all the time!

Nov 17, 2020 2:44 AM in response to pearljan

Please pass the word to turn everything off, as in everything, shut it down, closed, connect to recharge the battery to full.

Leave it closed and wait 24 hours if possible, 12 to 16 hours should be enough for full battery and for codes to work in the background. Leave manicuring and personalizing alone until OSBS is running properly. I have noticed things working in the background that are not my doing, yet are to the benefit of my MacBook Pro retina 2019. I reopened a couple of hours ago to see what would happen if I opened and read my FB, and Yahoo news, checked mail ( it is all Apple Support Community ). Apple is obviously doing their thing. Mine is holding strong while plugged in. Next is the unplug and shut down for 6 hours minimum to let the background code do it’s job, for things I have done to do their repairs. Slowly start using the essentials only, do not run anything other than essential, Music is not essential, .FB is not essential. do only in small batches. Wait for background to tinker around and fixes take place. I was ready to go haywire until I calmed down and studied what had to be done.


Good luck. Be patient. Leave your Mac alone. Wait for it to fully recharge and background code to do the work. Do not tinker. Do not run virus programs, Do NOT open any banking sites or sensitive materials. Wait and be patient. I have already seen good things happening on my laptop. NOW, I am leaving my desktop iMac alone. Not even looking at it for fear of strange juju happening. I forgot to unplug my back up drives, so praying thinking waiting to meditate in order to avoid opening up my desktop. Patience. Good luck, you all! Remember : : BE PATIENT and LEAVE IT ALONE.

Nov 22, 2020 7:11 AM in response to H. Lamar Thomas

What basis do you have for these suggestions? Not much code (apart from Intel ME stuff) should be running if you shutdown your computer.


After new OS installs Spotlight does some reindexing which can impact performance/battery life for a short time (it needs to be turned on to do it). But I don't believe the best option is to leave it turned off for a day!


Nov 25, 2020 7:38 PM in response to jonasboor

I am experiencing the similar issue, with a 2019 15-inch MacBook Pro with an intel i9 chip on macOS 11.0.1. According to iStats Menu, even if I am doing nothing, the temperature of my CPU never gets below 50 and sometimes spikes to 70 degrees celsius . If I use screen mirroring, it will get super hot and drains battery quickly. If not on AC power, the battery life when I am just editing files in Pages also shows a notable decline. Tried several ways to solve it including boot into safe mode or a hard restart but did not work. Will go to Apple Store tomorrow.

Nov 28, 2020 5:43 PM in response to jonasboor

Hi everyone. I'm having the same issue. My 2017 13" MBP went from 5h battery time down to less than 2h.

So today I started diagnosing my system to figure out what's wrong. I remember back with Catalina update there was a similar issue with Safari iCloud synchronising, draining batteries, so I turned it off. Then in Activity Monitor I noticed com.apple.Safary.History process had 9 days of CPU usage, which is exactly when I upgraded to Big Sur... So I killed the process.

After that, I charged MBP to 50% and left it playing Youtube video for about 90mins. In the screenshot below, you can see the results.

So it is 100% Safari issue. Maybe it has something to do with iCloud sync, but most likely it is a com.apple.Safari.History process.

Can somebody try to kill the process to confirm?


Edit: also noticed my CPU temperature went down from 60C to 39C.

Nov 28, 2020 6:47 PM in response to Andrey Threat

Well, Andrey Threat, com.apple.Safari.History is certainly not a universal culprit!


In my case, it is running at 0.0 % CPU, with 0.53 CPU Time. (I did reboot about an hour and a half ago, for certain testing purposes. Having nothing to do with any Big Sur misbehaviors.)


It may be active, in your case, due to something in your Safari History.


Unfortunately, I don’t know what that might be.


Have you tried clearing your Safari History?

Big Sur battery drain

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