Battery Draining Fast since Tahoe upgrade

This is not an answer for the problem stated. A new macbook that has three days of battery life suddenly changes to 6 hours of battery life after a software update. This is a bug, not a usage issue. Somewhere there is a setting that needs to be changed.

Buy a desktop computer is an ineffective solution.

Hi

I have the same issue. I m hitting 77% battery where before Tahoe this time of day = 90%. I updated the day after release and yet the drain is still a lot more than the previous OS.

I have now closed all virtual desktops but seeing no differences so far.

Josh

Same here. It's ridiculous! Before I could go 2 days without needing to charge my Mac.. now since the Tahoe update within a few hours it has run flat. Apple really needs to get bette at ironing out these glitches before they launch their updates as every update seems to have issues. Most frustrating!

I upgrade to 26.0.1 (25A362) directly, and even after some days my battery lasts literally 1/4 of the time of what it does before. I am not joking, it is unbelievable how fast the battery drains. I'm constantly checking in Activity Monitor if there's a specific culprit, but it randomly moves the energy impact from one app to another.

Thanks for the tips. Just to be clear: I bought a laptop to use away from power. Since the Tahoe update my battery life tanked, so “just keep it plugged in” isn’t a workable answer. Can we focus on why 26.x is draining so hard and what can be fixed?

Panda5598 wrote:

Thanks for the tips. Just to be clear: I bought a laptop to use away from power. Since the Tahoe update my battery life tanked, so “just keep it plugged in” isn’t a workable answer. Can we focus on why 26.x is draining so hard and what can be fixed?

Mac OS 26.1 is currently in beta and being tested. We cannot comment on the improvements made in battery performance as it is a violation of the terms of use for being a beta tester, so you may have to wait and see.

The recommendation to plug your Mac into power when it is available is a good one and should be followed. Certainly a laptop is meant to be mobile, but it is also true that speed is going to be limited on battery power with processor intensive apps, so to take full advantage of your Mac laptop you will want to have it plugged in when power is available.

In addition, when using your laptop on battery and there is power available that you are not using, then it just means you will be replacing your battery/laptop much sooner. The charge cycles that the battery is rated for is determined by how often the battery is discharged, not how often it is charged.

Before the Tahoe upgrade, my battery showed 99% battery health. After the update, it runs out fast and now shows 96%. The issue hasn’t been resolved yet. I need a verified update to solve the battery drain problem.

The next version is currently in beta and being tested. You can be part of that verification process if you wish by becoming a tester, but would not recommend to do that on a primary device. We cannot comment on the issues that have been resolved so far in the beta process as it is a violation of the terms for becoming a tester.

The Battery Health of a device is always going to drop, so there is no update that will see the Battery Health percentage increase. Those drops are not linear and some months may not drop at all and other months could drop more. That has always been the case.

I still couldn't figure out what fixes this in my case. I first updated to Tahoe 26.0.1 (I believe) about three weeks ago. The battery basically ran down from full charge to <10% in no time, mostly from browser usage (including streaming). Last week I updated to 26.1. and it still drains the battery really fast.It looks like indexing is done I'd assume that after about a week everything should be done.

Any clue as to what I can do?

I just got a used 13" 2020 Macbook Pro, 32 GB RAM, 500GB... on macOS Tahoe, it's draining from 100% to 30% in 1.5 hrs. It's just ridiculous.

Has anyone contacted Apple support or visited the genius at the store for them to look into this?

Yes, i got the M4 Macbook Pro in July and this update has decimated my battery life. I am going to try your suggestion right now, this is the best answer i have found so far and seems logical. I expected it to be a simple setting like that but since this is my first Apple device i had no idea where to look. Thanks for that post!

I was slightly upset, I exaggerated (I hadn't checked, it really seemed like 3 hours...). Reality is not that much better tho. It's less than 6 hours per cycle consistently. This shouldn't happen in an M3 Pro with a normal battery health. This is atrocious work, man. Isn't this just obliterating the longevity of machines for users that need VS Code (or any Electron app)? Plus, it's been 2 months already. We're up to 26.1 and they still haven't fixed this.

[Edited by Moderator]