The Hidden Battery Drain Problem
MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models equipped with Apple Silicon chips are renowned for their exceptional battery life. However, even the most efficient M-series processor cannot overcome poorly optimized, rogue software. Sometimes an application running in the background will get stuck in a loop, utilizing excessive CPU cycles and quietly draining your battery from 100% to zero in just a few hours.
When you notice your Mac’s battery dropping faster than usual, your first instinct might be to restart the machine. Instead, you should open macOS Activity Monitor and use the often-overlooked Energy tab to identify the exact culprit.
How to Open Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor is the macOS equivalent of the Windows Task Manager.
- Press Command + Space to open Spotlight Search.
- Type
Activity Monitorand press Enter. - Alternatively, you can find it by navigating to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.
How to Read the Energy Tab
When Activity Monitor opens, you will see a series of tabs across the top: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network. Click on the Energy tab.
The Energy tab provides a detailed breakdown of how much power each individual application and background process is consuming. Pay attention to the following columns:
1. Energy Impact
This is the most critical metric. The “Energy Impact” column calculates a relative score based on current CPU usage, disk wakeups, and network activity. A low score (under 5) is normal for background tasks. If you see an application—such as a rogue Google Chrome tab, a syncing cloud drive, or a crashed background updater—displaying an Energy Impact of 100, 200, or even higher, that app is actively draining your battery at a rapid pace.
Click the “Energy Impact” column header to sort the list from highest to lowest.
2. 12 hr Power
While Energy Impact shows you what is happening right now, the “12 hr Power” column shows the average energy impact of the app over the last 12 hours. This is incredibly useful for finding apps that cause intermittent power spikes while your MacBook is asleep in your bag (a phenomenon known as “sleep wake failure”).
3. App Nap and Preventing Sleep
macOS features a technology called App Nap, which puts hidden or background apps into a suspended state to save power. If an app has “No” in the App Nap column, it means the developer has not optimized the app, or it is actively preventing macOS from conserving power.
Similarly, check the Preventing Sleep column. If an app says “Yes” here, it is actively blocking your MacBook from entering its low-power sleep state, which will destroy battery life if you close the lid without quitting the app first.
How to Stop a Battery-Draining App
Once you have identified the app with a massive Energy Impact score, you need to stop it.
- Click on the name of the rogue application in the list to highlight it.
- Click the Stop button (the icon showing an X inside an octagon) located at the top center of the Activity Monitor window.
- A confirmation dialog will appear. Click Quit. If the app is frozen and refuses to close, click Force Quit instead.
By regularly checking the Energy tab, you can ensure your MacBook delivers the all-day battery life Apple intended, and you can easily identify poorly coded software that you may need to uninstall.