Why doesn't Big Sur provide a low-battery notification?

Question

Why doesn't Big Sur provide a low-battery notification?

Getting pretty frustrated with the MacBook shutting down without notification because I failed to notice the laptop was running on the battery. Happens a few times a week, usually because I did not completely insert or I dislodged the USB-C power cable. When using a 4K monitor, the battery status icon is tiny and easily overlooked. Almost every other battery powered electronic device I own has a low-battery warning. As far as I can tell - there's no preference setting for such a notification in Big Sur.

Posted on Mar 15, 2021 3:58 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

greg_bumgardner Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 15, 2021 4:54 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Ah... there is an Energy Saver section under Notifications in the System Preferences. It appears every option was disabled by default. I enabled all of the options - I will see if that works. Thx.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 16, 2021 9:02 PM in response to greg_bumgardner

Solved. In the Notification preferences, Energy Saver notifications must be enabled and a notification display type selected. These notification settings were not enabled by default after installing Big Sur 11.1 or after updating to 11.2.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 15, 2021 4:07 PM in response to greg_bumgardner

Open System Preferences.
Click Energy Saver.
Enable the "Show battery status in menu bar" check box to display the battery status menu item.

Reply

Answer 4

Mar 15, 2021 4:46 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

There is no "Energy Saver" option in System Preferences in Big Sur (on my mac) - it's now named "Battery". I'm also not asking about battery status indicator - of course there is one, though it is tiny and well outside the working field of view when using a large, high-resolution monitor. I would expect a popup notification that the battery was low - as in previous versions of Mac OS. The laptop runs the battery down to 0% and just stops with no indication that a shutdown is imminent.

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 15, 2021 4:12 PM in response to greg_bumgardner

I get a pop-up notification when my MBP is running on battery and running low. And yes, it's running Big Sur. This happens to me not infrequently because the cats knock the plug out when they are being...cats.

Reply

Answer 6

Mar 15, 2021 4:47 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Huh, weird. I've never seen one. Just instant off.

Reply

Answer 7

Lanny

Level 6

13,225 points

Mar 16, 2021 9:48 PM in response to greg_bumgardner

"These notification settings were not enabled by default after installing Big Sur 11.1 or after updating to 11.2."

Never had that issue on any of my Macs.

Reply

Why doesn't Big Sur provide a low-battery notification?

Similar questions