Q: 2015 Macbook Pro Retina battery drain after El Capitan Install

Apple Mail was the source of the CPU and battery drain.  It was using lots of CPU, heating up the Macbook and draining battery power.  It was Apple Mail that was the source.  I found it using activity monitor.  Nothing wrong with the computer, it was application.

I should make this more clear.  Apple Mail it self is not the culprit it is the cloud.  When I off line cloud Mail goes back to light CPU/battery drain, when I put cloud back on the CPU/battery drain goes up.  Yesterday I had to sign out of the cloud and sign back in and Apple Mail was again normal CPU/battery drain.  None of this happens in my iMac in 10.8.5 so I think it has something to do with OS 10.11 and the Cloud.

BTW, I have three mail accounts in Apple Mail, Comcast, G-Mail and .Mac/Cloud. 

I don't use iCloud mail. I don't see how the cloud would affect a battery.

Because Mail and Cloud was using so much CPU it affected battery drain because when the CPU is working harder it takes more power and drains the battery down faster.  Also the fan comes on to cool the processor. 

If you don't use the Cloud then you probably won't run into this situation.  When my mail/cloud are working light, my battery in the 2015 early MacBook Pro lasts for 10 to 12 hours easy and the computer runs cooler. 

Hi Guys. A new Macbook Pro user here and I just have a question. I noticed that when I shutdown my Macbook and turn it on again the battery is depleted by around 3-5%? Is this normal? I know it takes power to boot this thing up but I think it consumes to much power. Thanks in advance for your help!

Charge the battery fully note down hours remaining. The best thing is to create one more user , going to system preferences. Do not give any apple id while creating new user Log out from present user login as different user go to battery icon . See hours remaining it will be quite more than the last user. Logout once again got to original user and see battery percentage. It wll be almost normal hours of battery life and will continue......

Now may battery hours are 13 hours with macbook air which was 3 hours before....

Do write me if this help..........

This is undescribed solution to " Battery draing fast after upgrading to el capitan......

Of course this didn't change a thing and I don't understand how it possibly could have.    

I've had this problem plaguing me for ages.  Been to Apple who at first didn't fix it, spoke to the people on the end of the phone and i'd previously looked and a power management log and saw that it was searching for a wifi signal every 30 secs or so - this is with because our wifi dropped off or someone turned it off..  Made a keyboard shortcut through automator to turn the wifi on off with some command lines i found

Re: How to create shortcut to turn on/off Wifi in Snow Leopard

The command lines need to be as follows for Ei Capitan:

if [[ `networksetup -getairportpower en1` == *On ]] 

then 

networksetup -setairportpower en1 off 

else 

networksetup -setairportpower en1 on 

fi 

NOTE:  en1 referes to your wifi device, you will need to check what your wifi is, mine was en0. 

Turn wifi off before sleeping your mac.  Just started this, will be looking at if there is a better way to solve this.

Adam

macOS Sierra upgrade issues & fixes: fast battery drain

Having bad battery life problems updating from El Capitan to macOS Sierra. "100% charged battery drains fast on Sierra for 2 - 3 hours only. Before the mac OS Sierra upgrade, it could stay for 8-9 hours,". If we  installed macOS Sierra and noticed that the battery life drains very fast on MacBook Air/Pro, iMac etc, Please help me to fix the issue this problems.

Pradeep