Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

Sorry for mentioning Sonoma in context with an iPad.

Same time Sonoma was released, iOS and iPadOS were updated to version 17.

I see this battery drain issue in connection with this updates, i.e. Sonoma, iOS 17 and iPadOS 17.

Please compare the value of

last_value_MaximumCapacityPercent

in analytics files, before and after the update to Sonoma, iOS 17 or iPadOS 17.

On some devices I saw a huge drop, while other devices were not affected.

MacBook is neither an iPhone nor an iPad. The last two are mobile devices and have mobile OSs. MacBook is a compact desktop, which has a portable battery in it, fixed to it. And, that battery's energy can deplete the way the user users it, or misuses it.

When using a MacBook on a desk, connect it to power. When sleeping connect it to power. When used on battery power, outside, on the deck, on the sofa, at school etc, when you come back home connect it to power.

Everyone I know, who has Windows laptops, Linux laptops and MacBooks use them connected to electrical power at home, at office and put them to sleep connected to power. Yes, Windows laptops and Linux Laptops go to sleep too.

Since i updated to 14.1 the battery doesn't drain anymore overnight with wifi on and a lot apps not closed. That's a good thing.

But the battery still gets empty by using chrome and programming within three hours (10 Hours before Sonoma).

Update:

Did Apple disable images? Or they need to be unlocked by an apple employee?

Ok, what you should see is a graph from 6 pm to 11am with nearly no battery usage. Perhaps one percent, but you can't see it on the graph.

So the update to MacOS 14.1 did something good for the battery.

damianrobinson wrote:

1. For anyone still having this problem, this fixed it for me after speaking with Apple Support:

Back up your computer. (If you want to, or not if you don't mind the low chance of losing your info.

2. Restart your Mac and hold the power button until you get the boot options.

3. Click Options.

4. Click Reinstall macOS Sonoma.

5. Let it reinstall, and it'll bring you to the normal setup process.

This was done AFTER updating to Sonoma and experiencing the same battery drain problems. Simply reinstalling it AGAIN is what the Apple Support staff recommended, and that's what worked for me. I now get the all-day battery life I grew accustomed on my M1 Air. I hope that works for all of you. If not, I suggest calling Apple Support to see if they have any other options. Best of luck! 😁

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately this did not fix the problem for me, but I'm glad some people are finding solutions that work for them.

Same here. I know there are battery drain threads after every single OS, but it's the first time for me. After upgrading my MBP (16", the last Intel based) battery is draining quickly. The worst is: it's draining during sleep. I used to leave my MBP on sleep and even after a couple of days, the battery sank only a little. Now? I left it at 40% yesterday at 10PM. I opened it now at 8PM today (22 hours later) and I'm at 10%. That's 30% over 22 hours.

Please fix this

I just created a USB boot drive, wiped my internal SSD, and re-installed Sonoma - battery life is still terrible on MacBook Air M2. Battery life went from 8 hours (doing web development) to about 5 hours

So far, I'm not impressed with Sonoma

After the situation seems to be being ignored by Apple, I tried the reinstal sonoma 'fix' it appears to have worked for me but only been able to check after 12 hours.

This situation is totally unacceptable, the number of people who have had major battery drain and overheating cannot be ignored by Apple. They may not like the fact that there is an issue but to do nothing to reassure customers is deplorable.

If nothing else Apple, think of your reputation.

Not a happy customer.

What I did was to unplug everything from the laptop ( external screens and even the power cable…everything) and there is NO battery drain. If I leave it with the external screen plugged in, even though it’s off and unplugged, the laptop goes from 100% to zero overnight.

I'm having the exact same issue. The MacBook Air 2021 heats up fast, the battery drains so fast during the day, during normal use. It's been one month after the update so all the "background stuff" should be done by now. I haven't had time to go to Genius Bar. Has anyone had any success/or not going to Apple Store for them to see what's wrong?

Ouch ... that must be quite painful, what MacBook are you on? I'm on M2, I definitely don't have battery drain issues ... but I'm just interested to know what do you have on your device for it to put such a strain on battery life? Are you sure there aren't any HUGE background tasks that wreck havoc? I'm on the opinion that people with Intel based MacBooks should not update to Sonoma (Sorry) unless you really need the development features that came with Sonoma (you need Sonoma to install GPTK), almost all individuals I met with an intel based MacBook faced madornal issues when updating to Sonoma.

Fire up "Activity Monitor" (you can spotlight it or look for it in ~/Applications/Utilities) and take a look at what's requiring that amount of power, then gently but swiftly swiftly terminate all processes (make sure they aren't system utilities, you could consider downgrading if that's the case).

As a safety precaution I always deactivate any update helper of any software whatsoever and use almost exclusively open source software, as their limited resources push them to include "only what's strictly necessary" for the project to work well so they don't build huge additional programs that manage your installation and that end up being huge background battery suckers in the background. Or I build the programs myself.

Hope this helps, Cheers

Your issue might be that you unplugged your power coord AFTER you closed your laptop.

There is this thing that your machine will take its time while its charging (since power is abundant to the system) to run tons of heavy background tasks, but funnily enough (and this is a thing that ****** me off a little bit) the laptop won't stop working when you unplug it, because the process that checks wether or not it should stop will wake up only if you open your laptop, causing your computer to drain battery.

Tho if you say "losing only 1% overnight with everything unplugged, power coord too" then I don't see your problem ... ?

There isn’t a problem my friend! As I said, if you simply UNPLUG all external cables, your battery will not drain. If you leave cables in overnight, even if what they are connected to is powered down and unplugged, the battery will drain! There’s no problem, no big deal, not complaining, just giving a solution to a problem everyone is having.

Without wishing to get into a discussion about this major issue. Even with no cables plugged in and in sleep mode battery was going from 100% to 1% with a few hours, plus battery was overheating.

Reinsitalling Sonoma cured issue for 3 days but has now drained battery overnight yet again in sleep mode.

This is a major issue that Apple need to be addressing urgently.

My laptop isn't connected to anything overnight when the battery is draining. It's almost never connected to any peripherals in daily usage (just the occasional external drive).

Callmeishmael3321 wrote:

There isn’t a problem my friend! As I said, if you simply UNPLUG all external cables, your battery will not drain. If you leave cables in overnight, even if what they are connected to is powered down and unplugged, the battery will drain! There’s no problem, no big deal, not complaining, just giving a solution to a problem everyone is having.