MacBook Pro M5 Pro: DarkWake causing overnight battery drain

terriermind wrote:

HWTech,

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me.

So, I did one test, in which I undocked properly, closed all apps, and it was unplugged with battery at 100% - I turned the Wifi OFF.

Next morning battery - 100%

So it looks like OS/apps are downloading updates, or you have some file syncing services running & updating overnight. @Grant may have identified one such app "UlyssesMac".

So, last night same conditions, but obviously WITH Wifi.

This morning it was at 75%. I ran the pmset Sleep | Wake command in terminal, and there multiple entries a minute. It was all throughout the night,

Yes, as expected. Sometimes those wake events will provide a reason that may provide a clue, but other times they mean nothing to us unless they can be discerned from the system log. Was hoping to see a few of those Sleep/Wake events....especially the longer duration wake events with the larger battery drains.

and when I tried to isolate it with the log show command to make the wake log , even if I only did a 5 min window it was 3.5MB of text.

Yes, I did mention that. I only provided that option for you to perhaps identify what macOS may have been doing during those longer wake events where the battery drained more drastically. Usually I focus more on the latter half of the wake period. Without knowing the Wake & Sleep event times & reason, the system log is meaningless. Even with that information, you have to just look to see if you can associate a cryptic wake reason with something in that portion of the system log. I only concentrate on events where the wake period & battery drain are largest because it should be easier to identify a longer ongoing event in the system log.

I took a very quick glance at the system log and you have a lot of entries I've never seen in any of my organization's logs. No idea if they may be normal for your system & configuration. I barely look at the logs on my organization's Macs except for certain large wake events or performance issues....and only when my curiosity overwhelms me or I feel like driving myself crazy.

For small wake events & small battery drains, it really isn't worth looking at the system logs. Even for larger events/drains it is debatable if it is really worth it...even then I only give a very quick scan.

Here is a Link to the Wake Log and Its only about 2 minutes of it but it's enough. There's no major drop the drain is even throughout the night.

Then for your configuration & setup this may be normal.

Please, can you help. This MacBook Pro shouldn't be doing this, and because my wifi test proved its not hardware and the battery is fine,

I never thought the hardware was bad. My first instinct was some sort of online service (updates, or syncing).

Since turning off WiFi stopped the battery drain.... you need to look at any apps & services with an online component that may be updating or syncing. Maybe disable them one at a time until you find the culprit.

and I haven't done anything funky to any settings, installed any weird programs. I'd be grateful for any help you can give.

Sometimes I consider the macOS default settings & options to be "funky". macOS can allow some configuration settings that do things people don't expect with all sorts of side effects. Apple is sometimes its own worst enemy. It doesn't help that Apple's documentation on various features & services is lacking in sufficient details. I don't think Apple really understands much of their own OS these days.

Anything with an online component could be causing the battery drain. You just need to start disabling such apps & services one at a time until you find the culprit(s).

Or as others have already mentioned, leave the laptop connected to the power adapter whenever possible. Or you can completely power off the laptop overnight. I would say these two options will be simpler than trying to pin point multiple wake events draining the battery in small bits especially if your battery runtime during the day is fine.

macOS will constantly wake up the computer when it is sleeping to perform various maintenance functions. Usually these events will use very little power, but it depends on your specific workloads & system configuration. I've seen someone's laptop lose battery charge overnight due to their photos syncing to iCloud.

Here is a better command to use to just get the actual sleep & wake events themselves.....I recommend copying & posting the command since the spaces (exactly two) in the filter are critical to minimizing the lines found & getting the critical lines (as are the uppercase "S" & "W"):

pmset -g log  |  grep  -E  'Sleep  |Wake  '

While the information may vary by version of macOS, at least one of the lines (Sleep and/or Wake) will contain the battery charge level at the time so you can see the progression of the battery charge declining to narrow things down. Also, each line will tell you how long that even lasted in seconds. I have found Sleep sessions may only last for a few minutes up to 20 minutes on average. It has been rare for me to see undisturbed sleep periods covering hours.

The wake reasons can be very cryptic and very difficult to discover the actual reason since the system logs contain thousands of entries per second and may only provide very general insights. Usually the normal Wake times are very short so you should be looking for the longer Wake events & ones where the battery charge drops the most.

You can use the following command template to retrieve the system logs from the time period of the longest most drastic battery drain periods:

log show  --start "YYYY-MM-DD  HH:MM:SS"  --end "YYYY-MM-DD  HH:MM:SS"  >>  ~/Desktop/Logs_Wake_YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.txt

The ">> ~/Desktop/Logs_Wake_YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.txt" part will create a new file or append to an existing file on your Desktop called "Logs_Wake_YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.txt".

Of course replace "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" parts with the date & time you are inspecting such as "2026-03-18 08:00:00".

You may want to run the third party app EtreCheck and post the complete report here so we can examine it for clues since third party apps tend to be the usual culprits.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting an EtreCheck Report - Apple Community

Not insight and possibly not a solution. A long time ago I had problems with dark wake waking my Mac up in the night and then causing a crash. I fixed it by setting the standby delay to a long time which, I believe, stopped dark wake happening in the night.

I don't know if this is related to your problem or if it will fix your problem. This was also quite a few OS's ago so it's possible that in today's Macs it might bugger something up and dark wake is needed for something more critical than back then. But it might be a place to start another line of research and you are, of course, welcome to ignore it.

I used

sudo pmset -a standbydelay 86400

86400 is seconds - 24 hrs.

<< I haven't [...] installed any weird programs... >>

except these:

com.crystalidea.macsfancontrol.smcwrite.plist (Ilya Parniuk - installed 2026-03-12)

    Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.crystalidea.macsfancontrol.smcwrite

 Share services:

    [Loaded] Ulysses - /Applications/UlyssesMac.app

Follow the excellent advice of Grant Bennet-Alder above. Plug in your computer whenever near a power source. If you will be away from power for some period of time, shut down the computer rather than just put it to sleep.

There is no need to uninstall Ulysses if it is something you want to use. Just be aware that it, along with other network-aware apps on your Mac, will be active over the network even while your Mac appears to be "sleeping" all night, so all you need to do is connect the charger at night. It's not a bug and I don't think anything is wrong with your Mac hardware. It's just that you have various software that "phones home," as designed and intended.

(If you replace your Mac with another one, it will do the same thing after you reproduce the setup you have on this one.)

Just connect the charger when leaving the Mac overnight.

You might not have seen this background activity when using the Mac, as you mentioned, because some of these softwares wait to perform this network activity until the Mac appears to be idle.

terriermind wrote:

Ulysses is a well known writing app that is recommended by the apple community and is not a dangerous app to install.

Ulysses for Mac web site has this:

Work Anywhere, Anytime

All your texts will be stored in Ulysses’ library, and seamlessly sync to all your connected devices. It doesn’t matter where you are or when inspiration hits: All of Ulysses’ tools, and all your texts, are always at your fingertips.

I don't own nor use Ulysses but from the above, it sounds like there is ongoing network activity and interaction with libraries over the internet. Perhaps this can be configured (or turned off) in the app's settings, I don't know. But it is consistent with regular network activity that uses energy (Battery) and that I believe you squelched when you disabled your Mac's WiFi in your experiment. Something like this can easily use up 25% or more of a battery overnight. Why on Earth don't you just plug it in overnight and resolve the issue?

I also noticed you have iCloud, that may also involve more over the air communications through the night.

Also ...

Top Processes Snapshot by Network Use:

Process (count) Input / Output (Source - Location)

...

exchangesyncd

rapportd

This exchangesyncd is some sort of syncing, it is using the network, that too will take energy (battery). And rapportd is an Apple system daemon (/usr/libexec/rapportd) in macOS that enables communication between Apple devices. It supports Continuity features like Phone Call Handoff, AirPlay 2, and Instant Hotspot, allowing secure connections between nearby devices.

These things are no doubt running in the background, including all night, using up your battery. When you turned off WiFi you probably disabled them and your battery usage went down.

Again, as suggested by others ... simply plug in the Mac when it won't be used for a while (overnight ... one week ...).

I'm having a similar experience. I have an M5 that's almost the same build as yours. While in sleep mode I experienced about a 20% loss in roughly 24 hours. I brought the laptop to Apple yesterday and they performed a diagnostic test on the battery and said everything looked normal. They said I could just swap it out because I'm within the 14 day window. I really don't think that's the proper solution. Have you gotten any new insight on this?

terriermind wrote:

No, I have not found a solution.

The thing is, I do think it's a small bug issue. I really do. I see people on reddit posting about this same issue as well. Hopefully there will be a cause found, and a patch made. I've heard that macbook pro models have had battery drain issues before in other models that was fixed by a patch.

I think you should consider @steve626's reply which shows several cloud syncing apps & services you are running on your Mac:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256265048?answerId=261879557022&sortBy=oldest_first#261879557022

I believe those are most likely the source of the wake events & battery drain. I somehow missed their post yesterday...it was late & the forum was having issues. I think @steve626 has found the source of your multiple wake events & battery drain.

FYI, when you go looking online, you will inevitably find others writing about similar issues, but most times they will have different causes for similar types of symptoms. From assisting here on the Apple forums for years now, I can tell you that most people rarely post enough pertinent details about the issue & their system configuration and many never actually do any real troubleshooting....especially when they come across other online posts mentioning similar symptoms. Many times critical details emerge only after weeks of posts where tiny tidbits are provide to finally reveal the real problem. Take most of what you find online with a grain of salt....don't take it at face value.

Maybe the OP could run a network monitor overnight on the Mac to log which websites are being accessed. I don't know if there is such a product or whether there's a terminal command which does it - maybe someone will be able to confirm whether it's possible and/or a good idea.

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, such as the power adapter. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work could also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, even with the power adapter connected, the charged state may decline during very 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 a power source when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no power sources are at hand. Modern Macs maintain optimum battery charge levels under program control, and will NEVER over-charge. Connected to Power is NOT necessarily charging.

When you set it down in one place, or set it down for the night, Plug it in. Then you won’t CARE whether it would drain the battery.