Hey Appelist,
I see that you are experiencing some behavior from your MacBook Pro that has you worried about your battery life. I can understand this concern, and I’m gad you’ve decided to address it at this time. Some helpful information about your battery on your MacBook Pro can be found in the following article:
About Mac notebook batteries - Apple Support
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204054
First, you may want to check the health of your battery:
To see the health of your battery, hold the Option key and click the battery icon:
You'll see one of the following status indicators:
- Normal: The battery is functioning normally.
- Replace Soon: The battery is functioning normally but holds less charge than it did when it was new. You should monitor the health of the battery by checking the battery status menu periodically.
- Replace Now: The battery is functioning normally but holds significantly less charge than it did when it was new. You can safely continue using your computer, but if its lowered charging capacity is affecting your experience, you should take it to an Apple Store or Apple-authorized service provider.
- Service Battery: The battery isn’t functioning normally. You can safely use your Mac when it's connected to an appropriate power adapter, but you should take it to an Apple Store or Apple-authorized service provider as soon as possible.
Note: While some third-party apps report on battery health conditions, the data reported by these apps may be inaccurate and isn't a conclusive indication of actual diminished system run time. It's recommended that you rely on the information reported in the battery health menu (shown and described above).
Next, it may be necessary to follow the troubleshooting steps suggested by that article:
A great place to start when troubleshooting battery issues is the built-in diagnostics that are available on your Mac notebook. Review the following articles for more information on using diagnostics.
Note: The additional troubleshooting recommended below assumes you have run the above diagnostic appropriate for your computer and that no issues were found.
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Identify what the battery life should be for the product you're using.
The Tech Specs site provides Apple's battery life expectations for battery usage. The specifics for wireless web usage and standby time are included in the Tech Specs article for each product.
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Learn how to minimize common causes of battery drain:
- Optimize your battery life using the Optimizing Battery Life section earlier in this article.
- Learn how apps can affect Mac battery performance. Check Activity Monitor for any malfunctioning software processes, especially after installing software updates or a new operating system. Installing updates is important to ensure optimal performance for all applications.
- If you're still having battery runtime issues after optimizing your computer's performance and checking for malfunctioning software processes, test in Safe Mode. Safe Mode limits the active items on the system and allows testing in a more minimal environment. If the battery life is better in Safe Mode, you may need to do further software isolation for the items disabled by Safe Mode to determine what the power draw is while not operating in Safe Mode.
Confirm the correct wattage AC adapter for the computer. A power adapter rated for a lower wattage than is required for the system may not reliably charge the computer. For assistance identifying the proper adapter, review Find the right power adapter and cord for your Mac notebook. Additional adapter troubleshooting is available in Troubleshooting MagSafe adapters. If issues persist, reset the SMC.
Occasionally, the battery may not show a full charge (100%) in OS X, even after the power adapter has been connected for an extended period of time. The battery may appear to stop charging between 93 percent and 99 percent. This behavior is normal and will help to prolong the overall life of the battery.
If the battery in your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro is fully drained of power, the battery will put itself into a low power state to preserve its ability to charge in the future. Connect your Mac Notebook to AC power and allow it to charge for at least five minutes. If the connect to power screen persists after charging for five minutes, reset the SMC.
If you don't receive a warning when your battery has a low charge, generally reported at or under 15%, it may be because the battery menu bar icon is disabled. Follow these steps to enable the battery status menu item:
- Open System Preferences.
- Click Energy Saver.
- Enable the "Show battery status in menu bar" check box to display the battery status menu item.
Note: Portables using OS X Mavericks v10.9 or later display the low battery warning when the battery has approximately 10 minutes of power remaining. Earlier versions or OS X instead report it at 15% or less.
MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro computers with built-in batteries should only have their batteries replaced by an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store. Attempting to replace a built-in battery yourself could damage your equipment, and such damage is not covered by warranty.
These Mac notebooks have built-in batteries:
- MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009) and later
- All MacBook Air computers
- All MacBook Pro computers with Retina display
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) and later; MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009) and later
Most older Mac notebooks have removable batteries you can replace yourself. Contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store for assistance servicing a removable battery.
Your Apple One Year Limited Warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery. If you purchased an AppleCare Protection Plan for your Mac notebook, Apple will replace the notebook battery at no charge if it retains less than 80 percent of its original capacity. If you don't have coverage, you can have the battery replaced for a fee.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
