macOS Mojave battery drain

Then I would run Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor and look for anything that may be using an abnormally high amount of "Energy."

Sometimes old applications or daemons from previous operating systems don't play well with the new one and spin and use a lot of power.

If your computer is not sleeping at all, that can also be caused by a third party application or daemon.

You may want to try creating a test user and logging in as that user to see if it's something specific to your login that could be causing your power draw.

It's tale quite an amount of time since the update, but last night my mac seems to have slept without power drain. I'll not be confident that the issue is settled until I've seen that for a couple more nights, but my fingers are crossed!

It's a pity that Apple don't highlight alerts about this behaviour, and continuing to silently process during sleep is a bit naughty.

Anyway - looking back (and indeed forward to the next upgrade) would there be any evidence of this in logs?, (or next time, processes to monitor to verify the reason of the increased drain?)

Same issue here. Using Dark mode on a MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017).

When first installed, I did an upgrade from High Sierra, but had so much lag I had to erase disk and reinstall clean. Only issue now is the battery draining when lid is closed. In High Sierra I could have it put away like that for days, but now have to recharge every other day.

Hi again,

seems to be better now, but it will be confirm tomorrow after one night.

Now the battery drain seem to be 0...

So if it's that, the system after upgrade need a lot of time to make some job..

It would be good from Apple to inform the user... Bad user experience, it's can be so easy to inform the user that for few hours/days the system do a maintenance and will drain the battery...

I'll keep you inform tomorrow if everything come back to normal..

S.

I'm happy to declare my computer is back to normal after 3-5 days after the update. While it did drain the battery unusually faster while on sleep right after the update, I simply left it plugged-in for two days (while on sleep), and now it won't drain the battery anymore. I left it unplugged from friday to sunday (while sleeping) and it lost just 5% of battery. Yes, indeed it seems some indexing occurs for the APFS (that's different from spotlight) after the update while on sleep, and that consumed a lot of power. But when it's done, it's back to normal. I'll call it solved here. Cheers!

Hi, here is what can help you.

Start your "Terminal" application, which is command line and type:

pmset -g

(this shows you power management settings in detail)

Now change the settings by these commands, one by one:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

sudo pmset -a standby 1

sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 60

sudo pmset -a standbydelayhigh 60

This causes sleep mode to go to hibernation after 60 seconds (you can put more/less than 60 seconds in two last commands if you want) and hibernation does not drain your battery while your macbook is sleeping. Hope this can help you. Regards, Tomas.

Hi, here is what can help you.

Start your "Terminal" application, which is command line and type:

pmset -g

(this shows you power management settings in detail)

Now change the settings by these commands, one by one (they will ask for your system password):

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

sudo pmset -a standby 1

sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 60

sudo pmset -a standbydelayhigh 60

This causes sleep mode to go to hibernation after 60 seconds (you can put more/less than 60 seconds in two last commands if you want) and hibernation does not drain your battery while your macbook is sleeping. Hope this can help you. Regards, Tomas.

Hi, here is what can help you.

Start your "Terminal" application, which is command line and type:

pmset -g

(this shows you power management settings in detail)

Now change the settings by these commands, one by one (they will ask for your system password):

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

sudo pmset -a standby 1

sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 60

sudo pmset -a standbydelayhigh 60

This causes sleep mode to go to hibernation after 60 seconds (you can put more/less than 60 seconds in two last commands if you want) and hibernation does not drain your battery while your macbook is sleeping. Hope this can help you. Regards, Tomas.

Hi,

thanks for the info, I've put 600sec instead of 60s.

I've done it now on the MAcbook12.. will see next night

This night it was less draining but still a lot. 99% a 20H -> 70% this morning.

compare 2 days ago it was 99% at 22H -> 4% in the morning. 😟

I fixed this on MBP and MBA, on both the drain was caused by running in background MS Word and CleanMyDrive 2, after shoot down this 2 apps no more drain, over 12h os sleep MBA took 2% and MBP took 0%

I charged my Mac Pro 2017 to 190% and then put in my bag. I then got to work pulled the Mac out of my bag and I noticed it was warm to the touch. It was in the bag for about 3 hours before I used it. The battery had drained to 40%. I used my Mac normally.

Today I plugged in my Mac overnight and normally it’s cool to the touch at 100% but it was warm to the touch. I put the Mac to sleep while it charged. It has never done this.

Thanks a lot for your findings and hints. I don't know why "standbydelayhigh" was set to the equivalent of 24 hrs on my Macbook after the update. It's no wonder that the battery drains super-fast with this configuration. After doing the needful (set to 60 Seconds), my MB12 appears to conserve way more battery then after the Mojave update - likely to be back to normal. Will keep an eye on over next days...

Cheers, Meshua.n

djrob1010 wrote:

(...) I noticed it was warm to the touch. It was in the bag for about 3 hours before I used it. The battery had drained to 40%. I used my Mac normally.

Today I plugged in my Mac overnight and normally it’s cool to the touch at 100% but it was warm to the touch.

Same-same here - with MacBook 12": It feels cool with the lid closed - but after the update to 10.14, first time I experinced some warm bottom-side on my Mac while sleeping. Well, the reason seems that it obviously wasn't sleeping at all - but idle only. Check your current power management settings (Console => pmset -g) and pay attention to the "standbydelayhigh" value!!! In my case, it was set to "86400" (seconds) 😝

Cheers, Meshua.n

to downgrade visit your local Apple store and they can do it. Or call support and they can do a screen mirroring and take you step by step. same thing happened to me when upgrading from el captain to high sierra battery life cut in half so I switched back and have had no issues since.