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Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

I updated my MacBook Pro this morning to macOS Sonoma. Everything was good at first and I really like the look and feel. But as soon as I took it off my charger to go to some meetings the battery dropped from 74% to 44% in about 5 minutes. Then as soon as I turned on WebEx the battery dropped from 44% to 7%.


Anyone else having battery drain issues with macOS Sonoma? Is it maybe just temporary from all the background activity similar to the phones?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Sep 27, 2023 12:36 PM

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Posted on Oct 31, 2023 6:55 AM

There are too many people complaining about this issue all over the world on many websites. What was mentioned is true about what causes the drain but for us who reinstalled and reinstalled both Ventura and Sonoma, we are not dumb to not know the difference. 20+ hours reading PDFs on Ventura to 6-10 hours on Sonoma doing the same is too significant to ignore. I think it's an insult to our intelligence thinking that many of us do not know what we're talking about when apple techs keep making suggestions about this and that without addressing the issue. the problem is common out there across the internet and a simple google search of "Sonoma battery drain" will show that.

266 replies

Dec 17, 2023 1:28 AM in response to VectorX

VectorX wrote:

I further made another update to 14.2 , and WOW, Battery from 100% plugged went to 80% in less than 30min, yes you saw this right, I lost 20% of my battery while its plugged already while I'm just coding using two monitors.

That's exactly what it is, optimised charging mode. You should be happy that that mode is working in your Mac. Your Mac/macOS is doing its best. to save your battery while plugged in all the time. 👌

Have read, About Optimized Battery Charging - Apple Support


Jan 19, 2024 4:36 AM in response to AppleAnswerDude

UPDATE!

So I had issued with Sonoma and it would drain my batter ridiculously quick, like 5 minutes and power off after a full charge, notification to say I had to go to get an Apple service repair.


I rang up support and they advised me to reset my SMC by:

  1. Hold the LEFT control, LEFT option and RIGHT shift keys for 7 seconds
  2. Then press the power key while still holding the above keys, for 7 seconds
  3. Release and wait a few seconds before turning on (mine automatically turned on)


This worked and I have had no issues with my battery since. Hope this helps everyone out.

Oct 20, 2023 8:45 AM in response to kriista

Finder is a file manager. It will open in a new window (or a new tab) in the way you've set it in a given Mac computer, whether you use the fixed screen or more external screens. For example, Finder in my MBP will open in the Desktop and in any new window. The Desktop is the place I work on.


Any other Mac computer will have its own Finder, and will open the way it is configured there.

Oct 24, 2023 1:03 PM in response to AppleAnswerDude

A further update. Last night I restarted my (2020 Intel) MBA right before bed, took a screenshot from the Activity Monitor network tab, and then left wi-fi on overnight. This morning I took another screenshot when I opened the computer and before I did anything with it. Top of this photo is last night, bottom is this morning. Assuming this reflects overall activity through the night (I'm not 100% sure it does, I'm a rookie at all this), it seems the corespeechd process was busy receiving packets overnight (it appears to be related to Siri, which I have turned off), but mDNSResponder seems to have been very busy both sending and receiving overnight. Of note, all of these, I think, are system processes. This is not listing, say, a Chrome updater:



FWIW, I have "Wake for Network Access" and Power Nap set as "Only on Power Adapter"

Oct 25, 2023 1:12 AM in response to chdsl

I had previously updated my MacBook M1 to Sonoma, and I started experiencing a frustrating decrease in battery life, only getting around 4 to 5 hours on a single charge. Subsequently, I decided to downgrade to macOS Ventura, and now I consistently achieve 12 to 13 hours of battery life on a single charge, as evidenced in the screenshot above.


Additionally, it's worth noting that I typically charge my device up to around 90% and use it until it drops to 20-15%. This practice consistently provides me with 12 hours of battery life on the remaining 80-85% of the battery capacity.

Nov 21, 2023 5:26 AM in response to kevramuk

I think I may have solved the battery drain issue on my two Intel based MacBook Pros. Both MacBooks are no longer warm when sleeping which was never observed with previous OS versions. The sleep battery drain seems to be acceptable now as well.


Here is what I did:


1 - updated to Sonoma 14.1.1

2 - disable Bluetooth

3 - disable power nap

4 - disable Wake for network access

5 - in terminal use: pmset -g | grep -w sleep

This command will let you know if any processes are running that prevents sleep. In activity monitor I stopped the suspicious looking ones. There was one in particular that was always running even after reboot. If you just turned the power on, you will need to wait for the startup processes to finish.

6 - By repeating the pmset -g | grep -w sleep command you will see that eventually there will be no processes blocking sleep.

7 - To test if it is working, go to Apple and click on sleep. Come back a couple of hours later and check your battery level status chart in the System settings. It should show a very shallow slope on the discharge curve:




Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

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