Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

I submitted feedback a month ago, but it appears that it won't capture their attention unless there's a substantial amount of feedback. Additionally, to submit feedback, one needs to join the developer program. To garner their attention, YouTubers and articles need to start discussing it. Consequently, I've contacted several YouTubers and news outlets to draw attention to this issue. Also I contacted apple support regarding this, they don't know anything about it.

Aidenfaru wrote:

I submitted feedback a month ago, but it appears that it won't capture their attention unless there's a substantial amount of feedback. Additionally, to submit feedback, one needs to join the developer program. ...

Launchpad > Feedback Assistance > MacOS > New Feedback

You don't need to join any developer program. You have that in your Mac

You've written:

"but could be a M chip matter with MacOS generally"

"You'd also find very rarely someone with an Intel chip complains about this sort of thing"

As I've noted, mine is a 2020 Intel MBA.

I've been reading whole lot of posts in this forum on this battery problems, generally the owners of the M chip MacBooks are complaining. The question arises, why can't they send a feedback to Apple? Apple won't reply, but the developers surely read the feedback. Apple needs those feedback. With the feedback certain reports also are attached. So, the developers know, if these are genuine feedback, and take action.

M1 is history, even though they are still sold, M2 will also be. Some users would send feedback. There are sure to be people at Apple, whose job is to read known web journals and filter the data. Some might even read the forums here. But this is not feedback.

My MBP is older than yours, 2018.

Aidenfaru wrote:

I submitted my feedback on September 21st, but I have not received any response yet.

They won't reply. The feedbacks are collected, but they'd not write replies and get into arguments.

who told you they don't reply?

After installing macOS Sonoma, I encountered some issues with certain apps. I promptly submitted feedback to Apple, along with a detailed report. After a few days, I received a response from them, which included instructions to follow and an inquiry about whether I was still experiencing the issues.

The 17.1 update has not changed anything. Please do not write that you need to turn something off, etc. This is not Windows and Apple hardware does not cost 1 USD. It's supposed to work out of the box. If the equipment works correctly one day and the other does not, it is not the user's fault. Unless we have to replace the MacBook every year? And when I read this and newer versions also have a problem. So please finish writing this kind of thing. On Ventura it was ok on Sonoma is bad and so much in the subject.

MacBook Pro

13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports

2,4 GHz Intel Core i5

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 1536 MB

8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

macOS 14.1 (23B74)

rafal118 wrote:

The 17.1 update has not changed anything. Please do not write that you need to turn something off, etc.

Sure, keep all those background apps on, and then complain that the battery is draining.

Keep your vehicle's engine running all night, and then complain there's not enough gas in the tank.

Exactly!

You should either keep all your background apps working and let the energy drain, or disable those uneccessary apps working in the background and save that energy. You can't have both. You have to put your vehicle off to save gas. It is that simple!

I have been using Macs for more than 10 years and this is the first time I see battery drainage. And my older Mac which cannot get Sonoma update didn’t have this problem. But both my work m1 Mac and my personal m1 Mac which I bought last year have the same issue - with lid closed battery percentage is at 1% by the morning. This started happening after Sonoma. If I go to System->Battery, Battery Level graph shows drain overnight and Screen on usage doesn’t show anything being used(empty graph). In the activity monitor, I enabled preventing sleep column and monitoring what apps are preventing sleep. Yesterday night I restarted my personal Mac after I disabled web and app activity under screen time and closed the lid without opening the apps. Today it woke up with 100% battery remaining. It could be Google chrome helper or WhatsApp helper or screen time or may be something else. For now I opened Google chrome with my tabs and closed the lid and testing it out to see if battery drain happens after few hours.

Posting after one month of update again. There is no such thing as indexing anymore. But still the battery drain remains consistent. It is very bad. I can literally feel my battery going in half of the time as compared to the previous version. I think they should start rolling out an update or something. I am going to the service centre tomorrow.

dkkishor wrote:

It could be Google chrome helper or WhatsApp helper or screen time or may be something else. For now I opened Google chrome with my tabs and closed the lid and testing it out to see if battery drain happens after few hours.

Oh, these "helpers" are the culprits. They help to drain the battery working in the background.

It's amazing the coincidence of so many people randomly enabling tons of background processes exactly when they upgraded to Sonoma to completely drain a battery in a few hours.

On a more positive note, have things improved for anyone with the 14.1 update?

kriista wrote:

It's amazing the coincidence of so many people randomly enabling tons of background processes exactly when they upgraded to Sonoma to completely drain a battery in a few hours.

It's simply bad usage...if you leave unchecked backgrounds apps on, the battery will surely lose energy, whatever the OS.

On a more positive note, have things improved for anyone with the 14.1 update?

I never had any such problems, in Sonoma 14 and 14.1. Mine is an Intel MBP, so it is Sonoma for Intel. Apple had ~17 years experience writing MacOS for Intel. And, it is a simple OS, only closed source.

So, you want to argue?

Battery is a consumable product. Apple doesn't fit bad batteries. It is just the bad usage that kills the battery.

Just saying that there was no battery drain with Ventura, but there is with Sonoma is just nonsense. Check the difference between the two OSs. Nothing much except the eye-candy. The power management system had not been changed. You are just shouting. Why not go back to Ventura and be happy, with your no-battery-drain-on-Ventura claim?

If you are so keen to complain, why not send that complaining letter to Apple?