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

I recently purchased a MacBook M3 16/512, 14-inch model. However, I've noticed that the battery drains very quickly, dropping by around 2 minutes per use. This results in a total battery life of only about 4 hours, which is significantly less than the advertised 18 hours claimed by Apple.

I primarily use Chrome with only 4 tabs open, and the brightness is set to less than 50%. Despite these measures, the battery life is still unacceptably short. As it's my first day of using the MacBook, I'm concerned about this issue. Could you please advise me on what steps I can take to improve the battery life?

Thank you for your assistance.



MacBook Pro 13″

Posted on Mar 4, 2024 12:56 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 3, 2024 4:37 AM

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.



Similar questions

53 replies

Aug 1, 2024 6:24 PM in response to 72dpi

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.

Aug 8, 2024 3:52 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hello, I understand what you said "In general, you should ALWAYS connect AC power" but my M3 Pro Macbook drains the battery even when plugged in. Sometimes it drains down to 70%-80% and then I have to force a full charge. But most of the time, the battery status says "Charging on Hold". I suppose in this status, the Mac is using the charger to operate, but I see the battery draining and not charging. I don't think this is the expected behavior.


I am using the original cable and power adapter (78w), there is no apps running or the only one is safari, my M3 is updated to the last SO version, and I already contacted apple and the guy said that is fine, and I think is not, I pretty concerned about this.

Aug 30, 2024 2:00 PM in response to Nedskruvatsnille

Hey! I did the same! They checked my new Mac 13-inch, M3, ran all the diagnostics for a week and it passed all their tests. I wonder why. My battery keeps on dropping every less than 10mins.


"Based on our system, your Macbook battery is working as expected and all diagnostic and functionality tests are all passed. Based on our previous experience if the device has a battery issue, this will be identified on Apple’s diagnostic testing."


But when I got it back it still has the same issue! Maybe it's because of Sonoma. I'm really disappointed.


Sep 9, 2024 8:33 PM in response to AhsanCheema

I also don't turn off my air m3 when I'm not using it, just put it in a sleep mode as per advice people are saying online and what I also did in my previous Macs and it worked fine. I don't know if this has something to do with the battery draining fast though. when I opened it today it has 20% battery left, it only took like 10-15 minutes and my Mac died. it's pretty fast. something not happening to my almost 4 year old air. just watched a 12minute vid and 4-6 min one. Also I don't use this Mac that often. I also don't have games nor I play one. disappointing

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

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