M3 battery drains very quickly, dropping by around 2 minutes per use

I'm having the same issue. I have started seeing the battery draining out too fast since day one. It's been just 12 days since I bought it. I thought the stock Mac OS update wasn't optimized or something and did the update to 14.4 as well. And not much improvement. The overall battery backup is about 6 to 8 hours max, with only Google Chrome usage, maybe with 15 tabs open. I was expecting around 12 to 16 hours. Totally disappointed, not sure what is the issue. Looking forward to a solution here.

I noticed the exact same thing! I just bought mine this past Thursday and charged it last night. As I'm in class, it has went from 100 - 88 percent in the last 45 minutes. My M1 lasted nearly all day.

Purchased my MacBook Pro M3 8G, battery draining at 1% every 2-3 minutes. Extremely poor, considering its only Google Chrome and Microsoft outlook running. Got more battery life from my MacBook Air M2.

There is something wrong with this. I bought an M3 1TB around last Christmas when it was released. It worked completely fine. When I closed the lid, it did not lose any battery. I took it to school and worked with it all day, maybe around 1-2 days without charging it.

Now, I believe that after the Sonoma update, it is losing 1-2% battery when closed in sleep mode. From 100%, I wake up to around 80%. I can’t go a whole day without charging. A lot of people are reporting the same thing. I had it checked by Apple support, and the hardware and battery are fine. They tested it outside my OS and couldn’t find any errors. I have factory reset my computer, and it’s the same issue. I believe it’s a bug in the new Sonoma; something in the background is draining the battery without showing in any log.

For more context. My laptop is a baseline M3 Macbook Pro 14" Inch with 8GB RAM & 500Gb Storage. Also, I only use the basic display setting as 1512x982, which I'm sure, is less graphic / performance intensive.

Screenshot: From 80% to 20% battery in around 6 to 7 hours.

PS: Someone help!

I had the same issue. The first few days the battery lasted as advertised, then it suddenly started draining in 6-8 hours.

I noticed that I had Microsoft OneDrive enabled all the time. I set the OneDrive app to not start at login, I quit it and the battery now lasts as advertised, again.

I rarely use OneDrive, and now I keep it running only as I download/upload files.

This also happened with the Facebook app on my iPhone 15. It was using 40% of my battery, even if I used it only 1-2 times a day. I uninstalled it, I started to use Facebook on Safari and now the battery lasts almost twice as much.

I suggest you always keep an eye on what apps you have installed. Some apps coming from the non-Apple world are very bad.

Good morning everyone.

I hope these suggestions can help you optimize battery life, and I have reached 24 hours of autonomy (see attached screenshots) while connected to Wi-Fi.

By working on battery optimization (which is very important to me, more so than performance), I have achieved consumption between 3.5 and 5 watts. What did I do?

• Activated power saving mode whenever I’m not plugged into a power outlet
• Installed Al Dente Pro to increase battery lifespan and monitor instant consumption. Specifically, I set the maximum charge to 75%, enabled sailing mode from 50%, and disabled charging when the battery exceeds 35°C to increase battery duration. I charge the Mac to 100% only if I know I will be out for work and won’t have a power outlet at hand
• Used Activity Monitor to identify what consumed the most
• Removed all energy-hungry applications like Google Drive and Chrome. The only one I can’t eliminate is Edge; Safari is unbearable
• Activated Edge’s power saving mode
• In Edge, I only installed the strictly necessary extensions: Wappalyzer (the one that consumes the most), 1Password, AdBlock, Awesome Screen Recorder
• Avoided installing applications that required Rosetta (make sure in Activity Monitor, under the Kind column, everything is "Apple")
• Disabled Siri
• Replaced Spotlight with Raycast
• Kept screen brightness between 40% and 75%
• Background applications: CleanMyMac, Bartender, AlDentePro, Yoink, 1Password, Mosaic, Raycast
• Static wallpaper and screensaver

My usage is that of an executive dealing with sales and business plan creation: typically, I have thirty Edge tabs open and make extensive use of Google Sheets and Google Docs (I don’t use Microsoft or Apple’s office suites), ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other corporate web apps. Occasionally, I engage in video editing, photo editing, and web programming as needed. Nothing extraordinary.

Notes:

1. Using Safari (without having Edge installed), I can achieve up to 28 hours of autonomy, but since I can't use it well, I preferred to give up a few hours of battery life and install Edge
2. For those using CleanMyMac, it's possible to further reduce battery usage by disabling malware protection, notifications, and any periodic scans to disable the "CleanMyMac X HealthMonitor" process. I haven’t done this myself
3. Unfortunately, very few apps are compatible with "App Nap"; currently, no process on my system supports it, which is quite annoying
4. iCloud and various synchronizations with Apple services remain active, along with Geolocation, Find My, Private Relay, Advanced Data Protection, File Vault, AirDrop

My Mac:

• Model Name: MacBook Pro
• Model Identifier: Mac15,6
• Model Number: MRX33T/A
• Chip: Apple M3 Pro
• Total Number of Cores: 11 (5 performance and 6 efficiency)
• Memory: 18 GB
• macOS Sonoma 14.5

I hope this has been helpful.

Same here. I got the M3 Air (13", 24GB RAM) a few weeks ago and it ploughs through the battery. I get about ¾ of a day if I'm lucky. Considerably shorter battery compared to my old M1 Air. I have lower power mode on and my display set to 'more space' so not sure if that's causing the GPU to do more work perhaps? Very disappointed.

<< any advice is greatly appreciated >>

PLUG IT IN!

That computer is a battery-CAPABLE device. It is not optimized as a battery-operated device. (It is NOT an iPhone.)

Your computer performs best when connected to AC power. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, even with the power adapter connected, the charged state may decline during stressful work.

When used only on battery, your computer has no extra cushion of power, and may perform more slowly. However, for ordinary non-stressful tasks this may not be objectionable (possibly not even noticeable.)

In general, you should ALWAYS connect AC power when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no AC sources are at hand. Your Mac will NEVER over-charge.

Had the same issue, but the software update and restart fixed it for me.

Same issue. What's the resolultion?

Apple no longer recommends manally running your battery low.

The entire rest of your procedure is recommended.

there was an article that essentially said:

power off and charge overnight.

in the morning, reset the SMC. (For Apple-silicon Macs, starting from power off, double-click the power button)

The classic way to brute-force improve battery longevity was to create a hysteresis -- to postpone staring a charge cycle until the charged state had declined to a lower level, such as 92 percent, and when topping off, stop before 99 percent. 

Catalina software 10.15.5 and later for MacBook Pro with T2 chip (2018 models and later) includes a new feature called Battery Health Management. Now, based on your usage patterns, this widens the hysteresis to initiate a charge cycle at a lower level, and stop well before 99 percent. 

About battery health management in Mac notebooks - Apple Support

About battery health management in Mac laptops - Apple Support

Battery Health Management further relaxes the set points around re-charging (based on your usage patterns) and can improve long term battery lifetimes. When active, recharging may stop short of 100 percent charged. Recharging may only begin at a lower level than the previous "normal" threshold of 92 percent or less, typically around 80 percent.

Catalina software 10.15.5 and later for MacBook Pro with T2 chip (2018 models and later) includes a new feature called Battery Health Management. Now, based on your usage patterns, this widens the hysteresis to initiate a charge cycle at a lower level, and stop well before 99 percent. 

About battery health management in Mac notebooks - Apple Support

About battery health management in Mac laptops - Apple Support

It may now be ON by default.

I think this is an absolute overkill, no one should have to do all of these, Apple advertised 16-18hrs, and it should be just that without the need to do all these tinkering