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.

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!

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 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.

New Macs use more battery on day 1 for setup. Give it a full charge cycle and see if it improves in a day or two.

In the meantime:

Check Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities) for power-hungry apps and quit them.

Review Battery Settings (System Preferences > Battery) and enable power-saving features.

Check for macOS updates (the latest version might have battery optimizations).

Try disabling Chrome extensions temporarily.

Learn here How to keep your Mac running at its best for years on end?

Many suggest restart and it helped me as well. In fact it was the first restart of the Air since I got it... I don't think I can squeeze advertised 18 hrs from that, but now it's 1-2 % every 10 minutes or so.

I'm having this issue too! Do you have the 8tb ssd as well? I have that and 36gb RAM (yourself?)

Same, brand new M3 Air 13" 16/512. Drains 1-2 % every minute using just browser for pages - not even videos, webgl etc. Optimized performance for battery and low power mode enabled. Ridiculous!

Same issue. What's the resolultion?