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MacBook Air M1 battery drain when sleeping

I recently received my new MacBook Air M1, and it is delightfully fast, and keeping cool, just as expected. I have some issues with the battery however - during use it holds up pretty well and is more or less as expected, burning 10-15% an hour doing Zoom, which would always kill my 2018 MBP I had before. However, I have heard from all reviews that it essentially shouldn't be using any battery when sleeping, mine however is seeing 15-20% drop overnight which even for my old MacBook would be a lot.


I believe it shouldn't be indexing anymore, I have had it for 4 days now.


Does anyone have any experience with this?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Dec 18, 2020 1:28 AM

Reply
132 replies

Feb 27, 2021 10:43 AM in response to Dr. Hazem

To be clear, we do have Thunderbolt 3 ports on the M1. Pro and Air, 2 of them as the connector is identical to USB C! This has been the case on the MacBook Pro since 2018. The point I was making is that it is possible that this USB C issue does not apply to Thunderbolt 3 spec peripherals, such as monitors. I only have one, so this is pure speculation on my part. Perhaps others in this discussion can comment on whether their connected Thunderbolt 3 devices are causing the battery drain problem.

Feb 28, 2021 9:54 AM in response to MikkelGJrgensen

Right. But not all USB C ports (on PCs for example) are Thunderbolt 3 compatible! This was confusing to me as well, as I was replacing a 7-year old MacBook Pro with the M1 air, and looking for external monitor options at the same time. Settled on a monitor from LG that can charge the laptop through that thunderbolt 3 cable, as it has one thunderbolt 3 port. In other words no need to plug the M1 into the wall, and at the same time has a built in hub, on the back, with additional USB ports, including another USB-C that is not thunderbolt 3 compatible. Anyway, my battery drain during sleep problem is most acute when plugging an external USB-C drive directly into the M1, using the 2nd slot. Went last night from close to fully charged to 67% this morning. This is not the case if I leave the monitor plugged in to the laptop via the thunderbolt 3, though I do shut it down at night, rather than put it to sleep. Unfortunately, plugging the external drive directly into the monitor, and leaving it asleep overnight while attached to the M1 via thunderbolt 3 causes the same battery drain problem…

Mar 1, 2021 1:39 AM in response to mlorin

My experience shows Apple support does not help. I had several hours talked with them and they just said it is a software problem and reinstall OS or wait for a new update.

When I asked if the issue is from software why this happens in a few of M1 they had no clear answer.

Finally I got a tips from a professional person outside of Apple that the issue is from LOGIC BOARD and they should change the logic borad.

Mar 4, 2021 3:11 AM in response to MikkelGJrgensen

Same here had mine about a moth. Noticed it drains a lot overnight every time. Sometimes completely dead by the time I pick it back up?!! COME ON APPLE I upgraded from a 2012 MacBook Pro & that battery would last a week this one doesn't last 8 hours! Apple figure it out and send a patch update to fix the problem this is completely unacceptable and not what we agreed we were buying. VERY UNHAPPY.




[Edited by Moderator]

Mar 7, 2021 8:06 AM in response to MikkelGJrgensen

I have a brand new MacBook Air M1 (had it for 5 days now), upgraded to macOS 11.2.2, and just noticed this same issue—battery drained by ~15% overnight while it was sleeping.


Before this, I noticed it periodically seems to 'forget' that it's plugged into the power adapter. When I'm working at my desk, I have the power adapter plugged in via the Apple VGA multiport adapter along with an external monitor. It's happened several times now over the few days I've had it that at some point I happen to notice it 'thinks' it's running on the battery even though it's still plugged in. I haven't observed exactly when the change occurs (maybe following sleep or screen lock?), but I've noticed it a few times now, and I can get it to re-engage the power adapter by either unplugging the power from the multiport adapter and plugging it back in, or unplugging the multiport adapter from the computer and plugging it back in.


But the last time I noticed this yesterday, I thought to myself maybe it's a deliberate battery health feature that prevents the battery from staying at 100% for too long. So I decided to roll with it and leave it plugged in but running on battery, expecting the power adapter to eventually kick in again, maybe when the battery went down below 80% or so. Well, it's now the next day and the battery is down to 42% and the power adapter still hasn't kicked back in on its own despite still being plugged in. And this 'forgetting' issue doesn't appear to be a wholesale problem with the VGA multiport adapter because the external monitor is still being recognized and working fine.


Not only that, but as many on this thread have reported, the battery drained ~15% overnight while the computer was sleeping, still with the power adapter and external monitor connected via the VGA multiport adapter (but nothing else, i.e. no external hard drive, etc.). That is far worse battery performance during sleep than my late-2013 MacBook Pro that this new MacBook Air M1 is replacing.


I've read through this entire thread, throughout which various 'workarounds' are suggested to limit the battery drain, but clearly the onus shouldn't be on the user to figure out convoluted 'tricks' to prevent terrible battery life on a brand new laptop that's supposed to have amazing battery life. The most collectively convincing evidence I've seen on this thread is that there appears to be an issue with leaving peripherals connected while the computer is sleeping, so I will test again tonight with the multiport adapter disconnected to see if that proves to be the culprit for me as well.


But either way, this overall sounds to me like something Apple is going to have to sort out with a software fix, which I hope they do sooner than later; not just for my sake, but because otherwise word will increasingly spread that Apple's claims of 'unprecedented' battery life on these new MacBooks is complete baloney.

Mar 8, 2021 3:16 PM in response to jc415

Not sure if Apple will tip their hand on a recall. I have received no satisfaction after working with Apple support for almost two months. They final say everything is within specifications. If so, the spec sucks! They wont respond to me now regarding the issue. I am going to have to call and start over, I guess


Currently, after a full charge and then sleeping for 35 minutes, I lost 6% of the battery charge. I put the computer to sleep and lost 2% overnight (less that 15 hours), with nothing connected. I then tried shut down rather than sleep mode. Lost 2% after a day and a half. Seems like a lot of battery discharge while fully shut down. Has anyone on this thread noted battery loss on during a short shut down?


As I write this, I am updating to the Big Sur 11.2.3, although I am not sure that the issues it is supposed to address are related. The update takes about 25 minutes, with a restart required. Lost another 5%. Putting it to sleep afterwards to see if anything changes. Anyone else see any changes?

Mar 11, 2021 5:52 AM in response to undermedia

(1/2) As a followup to my previous post, I decided to carry out some pseudo-controlled tests over the course of several nights to see if I could gain some insight into what’s causing the battery drain during sleep, primarily aimed at testing whether the ‘connected peripherals’ theory others have reported holds up. Here are my results:


Night 1 - Power adapter + external monitor connected via Apple VGA multiport adapter, but MacBook had ‘forgotten’* that power adapter was connected: battery drained 15% overnight while in sleep (from 86% to 71%).


Night 2 - Nothing connected to either USB-C port: battery drained 1% overnight while in sleep (from 39% to 38%), which seems reasonable.


Night 3 - ***Upgraded to Big Sur 11.2.3***; external monitor connected via Apple VGA multiport adapter (but not power adapter): battery drained 6% overnight while in sleep (from 100% to 94%). Interestingly, the battery did not drain steadily throughout the night, but remained fully charged from 10 PM until ~3 AM and then drained 6% by 7 AM when I woke it up. Evidently Big Sur 11.2.3 has not fixed the issue.


Night 4 - Only the Apple VGA multiport adapter connected (not the external monitor or power adapter): battery drained 9% overnight while in sleep (from 100% to 91%). This time the battery stayed fully charged from 10 PM till ~midnight and then lost the 9% between then and ~8 AM when I woke it up.


Night 5 - Nothing connected to either USB-C port: 0% battery drainage overnight.


Conclusion: Not exactly a scientific-grade sample size, but given that both nights that I left nothing at all connected to the USB-C ports resulted in virtually no battery drainage—whereas there was significant drainage the 3 other nights—it seems reasonable to conclude that there’s indeed an issue with leaving peripherals connected while the computer is sleeping. Even just the Apple VGA multiport adapter on its own, with nothing further connected to it, was associated with significant drainage during sleep.


It seems likely that this isn’t the only thing that causes drainage during sleep—I’ve read some other accounts (including in this thread) indicating that various background processes & software left ‘open’ during sleep could contribute as well. For the record, all of these nights I left a handful of native Apple apps (e.g. Mail, Messages, Safari with a whole bunch of tabs open, etc.) open upon putting the machine to sleep, though I deliberately avoided leaving any third-party apps like MS Office or Chrome open.


It might also be relevant to mention that I didn’t use the Migration Assistant to set up this new MacBook; I simply copied the docs I needed from my home folder on my old MacBook, exported/imported my archived emails, set up my active email & other online accounts from scratch, reinstalled the additional software I need from scratch, etc. So there’s zero superfluous ‘clutter’ accumulated over the years that could have carried over from my old MacBook’s System & Library folders, etc.

Mar 11, 2021 6:00 AM in response to undermedia

(2/2) Finally, I’ll also add that so far I haven’t been particularly blown away with the battery performance during actual usage either (relative to Apple’s claims of unprecedented battery life). It seems to drain at least 10% per hour even when I’m really not doing anything particularly intensive. I’ve now read a lot of discussion threads—on apple.com and beyond—on this battery drain while sleeping issue as well as the battery generally not performing up to expectations on the MacBook Air M1. One suggested solution that I haven’t tried yet is to let it completely drain (i.e. until the computer shuts down), then charge it all the way back up to 100%, and see from there. So I guess I’ll try that. I’ve also come across a few people claiming that the issues simply went away on their own after some time (i.e. a few days to a few weeks)—possibly something to do with the battery needing a certain number of cycles to fully ‘calibrate’ (and might amount to the equivalent of draining it completely and charging it all the way back up). Others still have reported that the issues have come and gone, whereby things were going well for a few days and they thought all was resolved, only for the issues to randomly come back.


So I’m going to stay calm for now, try draining the battery completely, and then just see how things go over the next few weeks. Based on my own tests and everything I’ve read, I suspect this isn’t a hardware issue (e.g. the logic board or the batteries themselves being faulty), because if that were the case I don’t think there would be all this inconsistency, such as people reporting that their battery performance was amazing for a few days, then not so good, then good again, etc. I’ve also come across a couple of people who reported that they managed to get their machines fully replaced because of this, only to have the replacement machine do the same thing.


Rather, if anything this sounds to me like Apple has some work left to do via software tweaks to optimize energy consumption on these machines. While I don’t doubt that Apple’s own tests under perfect, controlled conditions produced the battery life they claim, now that these new machines are in the hands of the masses and people are using them in endless slightly different ways, inevitably this is revealing a number energy-efficiency weak points that Apple now has to get to work on ironing out. And with these being the first Apple Silicon Macs on the market and Big Sur being the most major macOS revamp in 20 years, it’s probably not terribly surprising that there seem to be more issues than usual for a ‘new’ product.


*The MacBook still periodically forgets that the power adapter is connected; and also seems to periodically forget that the external monitor is connected. This seems to occur upon waking the computer from sleep either after it idled for so long while connected to the power adapter that it automatically went to sleep (currently set to 30 minutes), or after I manually put it to sleep. But it doesn’t happen consistently (i.e. sometimes it still recognizes the power and/or monitor upon waking up), nor does it necessarily forget both at once (i.e. it often forgets one but still recognizes the other). Overall quite odd, and another thing Apple will hopefully be able to fix with a software update.

Mar 11, 2021 7:58 AM in response to undermedia

Thank you so much for your sharing, your findings goes along with the explanation I proposed in my comment above, whenever anything is connected to USBC, battery drains drastically while sleep, at an average of 2% per hour, if nothing connected, there is either no drain or less drain (about 2% over night)


And you said, this might be expected from an new device (M1), and a new software (Bigsur), Nevertheless, this isn't accepted, and totally disappointing.


I really wish that it isn't a hardware problem, and I hope that Apple software developers fix it ASAP


I strongly recommend you all to report this issue to Apple (I did), to draw their attention to the size of the problem

Mar 12, 2021 6:12 AM in response to Neda59

Yeah, sounds like you've got something else going on. Frustrating.


I just had a second consecutive night of 0% battery drain with nothing connected to the computer, but several Apple apps left open during sleep, including a ton of Safari tabs.


I'm now going to let it run on battery until it drains completely, charge it all the way back up, and see how the battery performs during regular usage after that.

Mar 14, 2021 4:09 PM in response to MikkelGJrgensen

I have a MacBook Air M1 as well. I, too, had the same issue with significant battery drain while the laptop was in sleep mode. I RESOLVED THE PROBLEM by disconnecting my Apple USB-C to USB adapter, which I had left connected to the USB-C port of the MacBook Air M1 while the MacBook was asleep. After which, I charged my laptop to 100%, put the MacBook Air to sleep at 10:30PM, the at 6PM the next day when I open the laptop and awoke it, the MacBook Air was still at 100%. Clearly, the sleeping MacBook was "looking" for something connected to the Apple USB-C to USB adapter, continuously using energy.


My suggestion is to have nothing connected to the MacBook Air M1 while it is asleep (other than a charging cable, of course). I hope this helps.

Mar 16, 2021 4:26 PM in response to undermedia

I have been monitoring my usage for months. The latest test is to see how much drain occurs when I shut the computer down. The longest time was 5 days between uses. A 3-4% drain was noted. I am not sure I find that acceptable. Regardless, the 3% plus drain overnight while in sleep mode (with no programs open and nothing plugged in) is unacceptable, particularly compared to prior MacBook Air products. I have seen noting to verify Apple';s claim of longer battery life on the MBA M1.

Apr 16, 2021 6:07 AM in response to MikkelGJrgensen

I left Apple Music on an album I was streaming last night and it went from 100% to 45% overnight with the lid closed I suspect that Apple Music was pinging on the network all night even with the lid closed. I can go through the weekend listening to music and never charge. But this is the first time I streamed and downloaded an album. I am going to try again and check the power meter. I do have network application interrupts/updating on while sleeping, may turn it off.

MacBook Air M1 battery drain when sleeping

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