Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

This leads to nothing, because the standby draining is only a side effect. The main issue is, that when i use my macbook for programming the battery drains from 100% to 8% within three hours. That's the main issue!!! Before Sonoma i could use it at least for one whole day, most of the time even longer, before using a charger.

I think we are on a good way: Using my macbook without wifi leads to a normal battery usage like before Sonoma. But that cannot be the solution to use it without wifi.

Macbook Pro 14" (2023) M2 Max's Battery Maximum Capacity is decreasing faster after Sonoma update. Like iphone 13 Pro Max's Battery Health after the iOS 17 update.

Macbook Pro Maximum Capacity decreased from 99% to 98% in a week. I have no new software on my Mac except Sonoma :)

Looks battery goin' to die so fast.

HWTech wrote:

I am probably one of the few people who have really performed detailed observations of the Apple batteries because I am responsible for supporting thousands of my organization's Apple laptops.

@HWTech

I've been reading this thread here about battery draining of M1 MBA started on Jun 7, 2021, so the OP must've been running Big Sur. That thread has 12 pages, going all the way to Feb 1, 2023.

Except those, who had older MacBooks, the owners of M1 MacBooks were complaining that their batteries were draining and with very small cycle count, so through Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura. So, could this battery draining problem a M1 MacBook problem rather than an OS problem, or that the M1 MacBook and the OS cannot work well in the power management area?

Please read that old thread. That was through Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura regarding the battery drain of M1 MacBooks. This problem is not just a Sonoma matter.

(My Intel i7 2018 Touch Bar, by the way, is compatible with Sonoma and ran 7 hours on battery and still had 25% of battery power with normal daily work with wifi, bluetooth on.)

In that earlier thread, the concern was focused on battery health rather than battery drain. It's crucial to differentiate between these two aspects since battery drain pertains to a software issue, whereas battery health is related to hardware concerns.

Additionally, with the introduction of the new M1 processors, we used to consistently experience 12 to 13 hours of battery life, which is a significant contrast to the 5 to 6 hours we currently observe in Mac os sonoma. This discrepancy represents a substantial difference in battery performance.

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

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.

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!

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.

abeagler wrote:

Another update: uninstalled Chrome, restarted my 2020 Intel MBA, put it in standby overnight, still 30% battery drain by the morning.

It looks like you have to take your MBA for repairs, as there are no background apps running and the battery is draining that much.

I think we all have a bigger issue here. Switching to Sonoma reduced my battery drastically.

My iPad lost 12% battery capacity!!!

Apple has to do something.

I monitor the battery strength/capacity regularly on all my devices. Updating to Sonoma reduced my battery capacity by over 1.200 mA. That is about 12% of the battery capacity.

I own an iPad Pro M2 12.9inch (iPad 14,6).

Before the update to Sonoma the iPad had 10.707mA battery capacity. That is about 99,5% of the default of a new and healthy battery.

My iPad lost 12%!!!

dino7777 wrote:

I have several Apple devices and on two I recognized that the value of the battery capacity significantly decreased after updating to Sonoma, iOS and iPadOS 17.

I see this as a serious Apple OS software issue.

Well, how did you install 3 OSs in two devices? 😏

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).

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