MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4 Pro) Battery Drain with minimal usage

Hello everyone,

Similar to @nkv76 post (MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4 Pro) Battery Drai… - Apple Community) on battery drain I have had my MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip since February 1st of this year. The specs are as follows MacBook Pro 14-inch with M4 Pro, 24GB, 1TB SSD, currently running Seqouia 15.3.

On the first day while transferring data from my M1 MacBook Air, the fans suddenly ramped up and the device got unusually hot. The battery drained in under 5 hours, but I brushed it off as normal since it was fresh out of the box and I was transferring a lot of data all at once.

After everything was transferred and two days of regular use, I noticed that the battery still drained quickly — less than 6 hours on light use. I suspected the files and apps transferred from my old Mac might be causing the issue, so I reset the device, hoping to fix it. Unfortunately, the problem persisted.

Even during basic tasks like browsing with Chrome or typing in Word — without any pro apps running — the battery drained way too fast. I hadn’t even started using Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, or Photoshop yet, which are essential to my work as a graphic designer and content creator. Now that I do use those apps, the Mac barely lasts 6 hours unplugged.

Meanwhile, friends of mine with MacBook Airs (M2 and M3) are getting significantly better battery life. One of them, a developer using the M2, charges his laptop at 7 a.m. and codes all day until 4 p.m. without needing to plug in. Another friend, who also does graphic design, runs Illustrator in the background for hours with minimal battery drain.

Sometimes I miss my old M1 MacBook Air — it was lighter, and even at 85% battery health, it consistently gave me about 7 hours of usage.

After searching online, I found multiple Reddit threads from users reporting similar issues with their M4 Pro models. Then I came across @nkv76’s post from January, which mirrors my experience.

Ironically, a friend and I upgraded at the same time — he chose the base M4, while I went with the M4 Pro for the extra performance. Yet, his machine regularly gets around 10-12 hours of battery life, while mine struggles to hit even half of that.

The rapid battery drain has forced me to charge my MacBook multiple times daily. I'm already at 112 charge cycles — and it's only April. For comparison, my old MacBook Air had around 475 cycles after three years of use.

One workaround that has helped is switching to Low Power Mode, capping the refresh rate at 60Hz, and limiting brightness to 600 nits. With those settings, I can sometimes hit 12 hours on light days and around 9.5 hours on heavier ones. But honestly, that’s similar to what a MacBook Air can do — and I paid much more for this device.

All this leads me to believe the issue is software-related, possibly a calibration problem between the M4 Pro chip and the battery system or the display. I’m hoping Apple can fix this with a software update, much like how they resolved the iPhone 15 Pro’s overheating issues via update soon after release (iPhone 15 overheating - Apple Community).

Please let me know if there are any solutions, if Apple is working on it, or simply click me too if youre having similar issues.