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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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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

76 replies

Dec 15, 2020 3:38 PM in response to pvmikev1

I’m most pleased, even relieved, to hear that things are working far more reasonably for you, now, pvmikev1!


(Yes. I did try to express that, apparently, not all background processes are “instrumented” for Energy use. So, using the Energy tab, in Activity Monitor, will be, likely, incomplete, even using an “All Processes” View. However, CPU will still work to see processes that are working your CPUs hard.)

Dec 18, 2020 2:48 PM in response to Petrie1

Petrie1 wrote:

it is the 2020 intel version and came with Catalina and the battery was lasting a long time and I have upgraded to big Sur and the battery has been draining fast

Did you upgrade to Big Sur right away, or only after you had installed software and files?


(Sounds like you had been using your Catalina macOS for a while, before upgrading to Big Sur, as if it were just another update, without any thought about whether your software would be compatible with the brand new Operating System [OS].)


Note: clean installs of Big Sur has never caused anyone any issue: battery or otherwise. (Well. With the exception of some people adding monitors to M1 based Macs.)

Dec 18, 2020 5:56 PM in response to Petrie1

Petrie1 wrote:

It is an intel Based 2020 MacBook Pro 13inch with Big Sur installed by my self because Apple Have stoped Supporting Mac OS Catalina because of the realese of Big Sur and it is 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 with 16GB LPDDR3 Ram and a one 1TB flash storage . and here is the example of the battery drain

Apple has not «stoped Supporting Mac OS Catalina because of the realese of Big Sur».


Even all macOSs back to High Sierra are still supported by Apple, with only High Sierra going on the “no longer supported” list, sometime soon.


I’m sorry if you so misunderstood the nature of the release of the major Operating System (OS) upgrade of Big Sur. Big Sur is certainly not a mere update.


In fact, Apple considers Big Sur to be such a major OS upgrade, that they increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!


The distinction between an update vs. and upgrade is quite important:

  • An update can only include compatible OS changes.
  • An upgrade can include a number of incompatible OS changes. In fact, this is the only time incompatible changes are to be made!


Note: No one should install an OS upgrade without checking the compatibility of their own software, with the new, upgraded OS!


I’m sorry to say this, but since you simply treated this major upgrade as if it were a mere update, you are “reaping” one of the consequences, due to third-party software incompatibilities.


In the case of Big Sur (and some OS upgrades, in the past), rather than having so many third-party programs simply “bombing” or refusing to run, they are running, but are “confused” by the changes in their operating environment: this has caused some to “run amuck”, using a great deal of computer resources (usually CPU) for no productive result!


Please read the Solved comment, in this Discussion, for information on how you, too, can solve this issue on your system.


Please do keep us informed of how things go, or don’t, for you, in this “hunt”.


We are here to continue to support you as best we can, in helping you find and fix the issues you find.

Dec 21, 2020 10:45 PM in response to jonasboor

companies are not held responsible and that's the problem.

I bought my new laptop a couple of months ago and after this slurry Sur upgrade that I really didn't want to take, but felt like being forced by Apple, battery life is even less than any average no name laptop.

And yeah you the customer is wrong, because as the Apple's response foolishly says, every major upgrade has cost and we must be happy about our laptops dragging their feet, because the bloody no 10 is now called 11 and the goal post is changed once again.

Dec 22, 2020 7:12 PM in response to mmabood

Welcome, mmabood, to Apple Support Communities!


If you’ll more carefully read the comment labeled “Solved”, you’ll see that:

  1. This behavior is not an intended behavior, but is due to errant background processes.
  2. There’s recommendations on how to find those errant background processes.


If you have further questions, we, all as fellow users, are here to help you track down the errant background processes.

Jan 8, 2021 3:09 PM in response to Alan Cook2

Well, Alan Cook2, “obviously”, your MacBook Pro (2017) cannot be truly «sleeping!!»—as in having its CPU being in the “sleep” state—unless you have a hardware issue (a short-circuit, somewhere, such as internal to the battery).


However, the MacBook will continue to run background processes (processes without a Graphical User Interface [GUI]) even when “put to sleep” (such as being “clamshelled”).


So. This still fits nicely into the context of the comment marked “Solved”.


Have you tried the recommendations within the “Solved” comment?


We, all as fellow users, are here to help you track down the errant background processes.

Big Sur battery drain

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