Updated MacBook Pro to macOS Sonoma, now battery drains quickly

It seems you may have missed my previous messages where I mentioned that I reverted to macOS Ventura, and the issue was resolved. Therefore, the problem seems to be with Mac os sonoma. Additionally, I have already submitted a complaint letter to Apple. If you're not experiencing this issue or don't have any solutions to offer, I kindly request that you refrain from sharing irrelevant information here.

Furthermore, as you mentioned earlier, your battery usage is approximately 6 to 7 hours, which, for M1 or M2 users like us, is subpar. on ventura, we were accustomed to enjoying an average battery life of at least 12 hours.

It seems that you have a strong inclination to engage in debates, which is evident in your responses asserting that there are no issues. In my case, I'm genuinely interested in this discussion because I'm considering upgrading to Sonoma. However, I'd prefer not to engage in arguments with individuals who appear to be uncooperative or self-centered, some indian guy i think, especially when they lack the relevant knowledge.

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.

Sonoma Battery Drain checked by me :)

But if you close Chrome and Whatsapp before the sleep then it’s reduce battery drain.

open the lid and open Chrome + Whatsapp desktop version then battery drain 20 % in an hour. Additionaly Adobe Sync Services affect Energy Impact so much.

Anyway … Ventura was good for my M2 Max ‘23, completely. (I'm too lazy to go back to Ventura.)

alperevren wrote:

Sonoma Battery Drain checked by me :)

But if you close Chrome and Whatsapp before the sleep then it’s reduce battery drain.

open the lid and open Chrome + Whatsapp desktop version then battery drain 20 % in an hour. Additionaly Adobe Sync Services affect Energy Impact so much.

Why leave your MacBook sleeping on battery power with all those background apps working and eating up energy? Why not plug it in to power adapter, before putting the MacBook to sleep?

MacBook is not an iPhone.

I know quite a few people, who plug in their iPhones for the night. Some who has an Apple Watch also adds that too to electric power at night, every night.

You are very welcome!

An entertaining, but useless discussion...trying to find a hole in MacOS Sonoma.

There's nothing wrong with macOS Sonoma, or the MacBooks, but just an unintelligent/bad usage of them.

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%!!!

Aidenfaru wrote:

Indeed, it can be quite frustrating. I've recently downgraded to macOS Venture, and I don't intend to update it again until the battery issue is resolved.

So, aren't you in the wrong thread?

You don't have Sonoma, only Ventura.

For those, who are really worried about "battery drain" matter in a MacBook, here's an informational video, why the battery drains, when apps are running in the MacBook, upfront and/or in the background. It is always better to leave your MacBook connected power when sleeping.

dkkishor wrote:

After disabling screen time and restarting my laptop, I haven't hooked my laptop to power in 2 days. Tried some suggestions from this site.

Good job! I'm glad to see someone actually do the hard work of proper troubleshooting.

It's definitely an OS problem and nothing to do with Spotlight. I disabled every entry in spotlight and my battery time on Sonoma was between 6-10 hours. On Ventura I got 20+ hours. Both tests used just reading PDFs with screen brightness set 1/4 way

In response to your inquiry, I would have investigated the issue, but I do not use any third-party applications apart from one browser. This effectively rules out the possibility of those apps causing the problem. Furthermore, the browser I use undergoes weekly updates. I even temporarily switched to Safari to test if that would resolve the issue, but unfortunately, it did not. Consequently, I am left with no recourse but to attribute the problem to the Mac OS Sonoma itself. This seems logical, especially when considering that I am not relying on any third-party applications or browsers.

Furthermore, I have exhaustively attempted various troubleshooting methods, diligently watching every available YouTube video to address the issue. Additionally, I took the initiative to provide feedback to Apple in the hopes of finding a solution. It's worth noting that I even viewed a YouTube video discussing battery drain during sleep mode, but I did not experience any issues with battery drainage in sleep mode. Hence, the information in that video was of no practical value to me.

Removed a few more apps last night and left MBA in standby, same battery drain issue. Apps I removed were mostly minor, most notable was an app store install of NordVPN. Night before I shut down 1Password. Again, in both cases I restarted after uninstall. When I restart and check activity monitor nothing is listed as running other than system services.

Absent any clear evidence that third-party apps are running, my gut feel is that iCloud is trying to do something, so tonight I will remove iCloud account from Photos app and see if that has any effect.

I know where you can find the actual values of the battery state and I regularly check this values.

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.

Sure I let the devices some time for background processes to normalize. Then check last_value_MaximumCapacityPercent

On one device my battery lost 12% on another 5%. Just by updating to the latest OS release. Three other devices were not affected.

The lower the battery capacity drops, the faster your device will need to charge.

I see this as a serious Apple OS software issue.

PS. One could think that this is intended. Build in some code that reduces battery life. In the 1920th GE and a German company were the first to…

[Edited by Moderator]

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? 😏