How to Enable the Battery Percentage on macOS

Knowing Exactly How Much Power You Have Left

By default, Apple ships every new MacBook with a simple, minimalist battery icon sitting in the top right corner of the menu bar. This tiny graphic—a small rectangle that slowly empties as you use the computer—provides a very rough estimate of how much power you have remaining.

While this clean visual style looks elegant, it is incredibly impractical for anyone who actually relies on their laptop for work. Looking at a half-empty battery icon makes it impossible to know whether you have 55% battery left (plenty of time to finish a meeting) or 41% battery left (time to start looking for a charger).

To use your MacBook effectively, you need hard data. Fortunately, you can easily force macOS to display the exact numerical battery percentage permanently next to the icon.

How to Show the Battery Percentage in the Menu Bar

Apple has moved this specific setting several times over the last few years. If you are running a modern operating system (macOS Ventura, Sonoma, or later), you will not find the toggle in the “Battery” settings menu where you might logically expect it to be. Instead, it is housed in the Control Centre settings.

1. Click the Apple Logo in the extreme top left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. In the left-hand sidebar menu, scroll down and click on Control Centre.
4. On the right side of the window, scroll down until you find the section clearly labelled Battery.
5. You will see a toggle switch labelled Show Percentage.
6. Click the switch to turn it to the On (green) position.

Look at the top right corner of your screen. You will instantly see the precise numerical percentage appear directly beside the graphical battery icon. This number will now remain permanently visible at all times.

How to Show Percentage on Older Macs

If you are using an older MacBook that cannot be updated past macOS Monterey or Big Sur, the system menus look slightly different (they are called System Preferences rather than System Settings), but the process is very similar.

1. Click the Apple Logo and select System Preferences.
2. Click on the Dock & Menu Bar icon.
3. In the left sidebar, scroll down to the “Other Modules” section and click on Battery.
4. Check the box next to Show Percentage.

If you are running an ancient version of macOS (like Catalina or Mojave), the process is even faster: simply click directly on the battery icon in the top menu bar and select “Show Percentage” from the drop-down list.

How to Check Battery Health

If you find that your battery percentage is dropping incredibly quickly—for example, falling from 100% to 20% in just two hours of basic web browsing—simply enabling the percentage display will not fix your problem. You need to check the physical health of the lithium-ion battery.

Lithium-ion batteries chemically degrade over time. After several years of charging and discharging, they can no longer hold the same amount of electricity they did when they were brand new.

1. Open System Settings (or System Preferences).
2. Click on the Battery tab in the sidebar.
3. Look for a section titled Battery Health and click the small “i” (information) button next to it.

This menu will tell you the current “Maximum Capacity” of your battery. If the capacity is at 95%, your battery is exceptionally healthy. If the capacity has fallen below 80%, macOS will display a “Service Recommended” warning. This indicates that the physical battery has chemically aged to the point where it can no longer provide a reliable charge, and you should consider paying Apple to replace it.