I think something is wrong with my Mac..

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Hi, I need help..
I own a 13" M2 MacBook Pro, currently running Ventura 13.4.1 (c). This is my first macOS machine ever, I have had it for about 5 months and it has been pretty solid for me, battery life is great, performance is great, everything has been good so far.

But lately, I've noticed that the battery is draining so much faster, especially when I use Safari. It also drains notably when it's on sleep mode. It goes down by about 3-5% on sleep mode for no reason even when there are no apps running in the background. I'm not really sure if this is normal especially since the battery health is still at a 100%.
And also, I just feel like Safari has been acting kinda weird. I always make sure to quit all the apps before I put the Mac to sleep. Lately, whenever I wake the Mac again after sleep mode, I keep noticing that Safari is somehow still running (indicating by that dot under the app icon) even when I'm 100% sure I quitted it before putting the Mac to sleep. This is aside from it massively eating up the battery...

I have been very concerned that I'm actually starting to suspect there could be some sort of a malware.. I could be overreacting, but I don't know, I'm just really worried. I'm pretty sure I never clicked on nor downloaded any weird files, but I'm still concerned

So I just wanna know if any of this is normal ? And just to make sure, how do I check if my Mac doesn't have any viruses/malware ? I don't wanna download any kind of third-party antivirus software because I don't really trust them.. So is there a way to check that without downloading any sort of third-party app ? I'd really appreciate the help.

 

[bogdanw]

If you already close all apps, why don’t you shut down your MacBook?
Do you have any extensions installed in Safari?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203051

If you want to scan for malware, free in the App Store
Intego VirusBarrier Scanner https://apps.apple.com/app/intego-virusbarrier-scanner/id1200445649
Bitdefender Virus Scanner https://apps.apple.com/app/bitdefender-virus-scanner/id500154009

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

If you already close all apps, why don’t you shut down your MacBook?
Do you have any extensions installed in Safari?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203051

If you want to scan for malware, free in the App Store
Intego VirusBarrier Scanner https://apps.apple.com/app/intego-virusbarrier-scanner/id1200445649
Bitdefender Virus Scanner https://apps.apple.com/app/bitdefender-virus-scanner/id500154009

Is shutting down actually good for it though ? I used to shut it down every night until I was told that Sleep mode is better for the Mac than shutting it down so I started putting it on Sleep instead, but I'm not really sure about that.
And no, I never installed any extensions for Safari.

But thank you for the antivirus suggestions ! I guess they should be fine as long as they're from the App Store. I'll make sure to check them out.

 

[3166792]

You can see what's running and taking CPU cycles by opening Activity Monitor, going to the CPU tab and making sure All Process under View is tagged.

I would definitely shut down or reboot first and reassess. Sometimes a process can just hang or glitch out and start chewing through resources. Generally speaking, it's better to sleep your Mac at the end of every day but if there's an issue, a reboot is a great idea.

 

[bogdanw]

Is shutting down actually good for it though ? I used to shut it down every night until I was told that Sleep mode is better for the Mac than shutting it down so I started putting it on Sleep instead, but I'm not really sure about that.
And no, I never installed any extensions for Safari.

But thank you for the antivirus suggestions ! I guess they should be fine as long as they're from the App Store. I'll make sure to check them out.

There are fierce debates about this and I not going to take part in them
I don’t use it, I shut it down.

Regarding extensions, Apple’s new model for them permits any app to inject extensions into Safari. They are just not activated. Take a look just to be sure. (Safari > Settings (or Preferences), then click Extensions.)

Intego and Bitdefender from the App Store are definitely trustworthy.

 

[Ben J.]

Mac user for forty years here. Just my thoughts:
MacOS is safe. Unless you go to lenghts to install unsafe software, and that's not at all easy to do, there's no need to worry about malware, viruses etc.
Checking Activity Monitor is a good tip. Pretty easy to spot if something is misbehaving, hogging memory and such. And it lets you easily quit processes that you think is acting up.
Losing 3-5% on the battery overnight in sleep mode doesn't sound too bad to me. Of course, shutting it down would help with that.
Quitting apps before sleep is kinda pointless IMO.

I keep my Mac Mini running 24/7. Displays sleep when inactive. I feel that there is a slight benefit to having stuff running in the background, everything is ready to spring into action, and I actually think the mac handles memory better as it 'learns' what I use and have it ready. A restart empties the memory, and it has to start over again. I sometimes quit apps just to not push the memory into its limit.

Still, with the lightning fast boot times we have today, shutting down or putting to sleep is not a big issue.

Have you tried a different browser? I use Mozilla Firefox. Very happy with it. You can import your bookmarks, and if you like it, you can set it as your default browser in System Settings. One big deal for me was that Safari when you click fullscreen on a video f.ex, it will open a second window/space, Firefox will go fullscreen in the same space.

 

[Rnd-chars]

Unless you've explicitly ignored Ventura's warnings about installing untrusted/unsigned software, odds are you don't have any malware.

As for Safari, how are you quitting it? Pressing the red dot in the upper left, using CMD+Q or something else? And depending on how you close it and if you're using Tab Groups, you might be unexpectedly running background tabs.

That said, losing 3-5% of your batter for (presumably) 8 hours of sleep time doesn't sound awful to me, especially if you have "Wake for network access" enabled.

 

[bogdanw]

Mac user for forty years here. Just my thoughts:
MacOS is safe. Unless you go to lenghts to install unsafe software, and that's not at all easy to do, there's no need to worry about malware, viruses etc.

macOS is not the OS from 40 years ago and the threat landscape changed substantially.
Signed Mac malware, notarized by Apple https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ized-a-north-korean-trojan-for-macos.2385323/
Active vulnerabilities, confirmed to be exploited to hack macOS/iOS users, fixed in almost every new release this year, including the ones from today, 24 July 2023
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

 

[Ben J.]

macOS is not OSX from 40 years ago and the threat landscape changed substantially.

OSX came in 2001.
You worry all you want, I say regular mac users have no need to worry about data safety. So we disagree.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Uninstall Chrome
Or any other CPU hogging app

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

There are fierce debates about this and I not going to take part in them
I don’t use it, I shut it down.

Regarding extensions, Apple’s new model for them permits any app to inject extensions into Safari. They are just not activated. Take a look just to be sure. (Safari > Settings (or Preferences), then click Extensions.)

Intego and Bitdefender from the App Store are definitely trustworthy.

Yeah I did check for extensions and I don’t have any.

But thank you for the tips.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Mac user for forty years here. Just my thoughts:
MacOS is safe. Unless you go to lenghts to install unsafe software, and that's not at all easy to do, there's no need to worry about malware, viruses etc.
Checking Activity Monitor is a good tip. Pretty easy to spot if something is misbehaving, hogging memory and such. And it lets you easily quit processes that you think is acting up.
Losing 3-5% on the battery overnight in sleep mode doesn't sound too bad to me. Of course, shutting it down would help with that.
Quitting apps before sleep is kinda pointless IMO.

I keep my Mac Mini running 24/7. Displays sleep when inactive. I feel that there is a slight benefit to having stuff running in the background, everything is ready to spring into action, and I actually think the mac handles memory better as it 'learns' what I use and have it ready. A restart empties the memory, and it has to start over again. I sometimes quit apps just to not push the memory into its limit.

Still, with the lightning fast boot times we have today, shutting down or putting to sleep is not a big issue.

Have you tried a different browser? I use Mozilla Firefox. Very happy with it. You can import your bookmarks, and if you like it, you can set it as your default browser in System Settings. One big deal for me was that Safari when you click fullscreen on a video f.ex, it will open a second window/space, Firefox will go fullscreen in the same space.

Thank you for the tips.

But I think it's different if you're using a MacBook. You don't have to worry about battery if you're using a Mac Mini (or any Mac Desktop machine). So yeah, I just quit apps to save up battery since it was one of the tips listed here according to the Apple website.

Save energy on your Mac

To save energy, put your Mac to sleep, dim the display, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, disconnect devices and close apps, and more.

support.apple.com

I also have Low Power Mode turned on 24/7. I just tend to worry mostly about the battery even though I'm not a heavy user 😅

Also I never tried other browsers and decided to just stick to Safari on macOS. I definitely don't wanna use Chrome because of how much it eats up the RAM. I might try Firefox though.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Unless you've explicitly ignored Ventura's warnings about installing untrusted/unsigned software, odds are you don't have any malware.

As for Safari, how are you quitting it? Pressing the red dot in the upper left, using CMD+Q or something else? And depending on how you close it and if you're using Tab Groups, you might be unexpectedly running background tabs.

That said, losing 3-5% of your batter for (presumably) 8 hours of sleep time doesn't sound awful to me, especially if you have "Wake for network access" enabled.

Yeah, I remember installing a few third-party apps before and I remember always getting the "Apple checked it for malware and none was detected" message before opening them. I never downloaded any weird/untrusted software on here.

I quit Safari either by Control-click > Quit or CMD+Q. I'm aware that pressing the red dot doesn't always fully quit the app and that it's indicated by that little dot under the app icon in the Dock. And I don't use Tab Groups.

And I guess the battery draining on Sleep mode could be normal, though I don't have the "Wake for network access" option enabled and I have Low Power Mode always turned on

Uninstall Chrome
Or any other CPU hogging app

I don't have Chrome installed. I only use Safari and it seems to be the one mostly eating up both the battery and the memory for some reason. At least that's what it showed me when I checked Activity Monitor. The CPU section seems fine though.