I feel like I've been having a significant increase in battery drain since upgrading a week or two ago. Has anyone else noticed a similar problem? I'm on a M4 24gb 1Tb base MBP. Thanks.
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Increasing Battery Drain after 26.4 Tahoe
- Thread starter dizmonk
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Steve Adams
macrumors 65816
I don't have a mac, but on my windows and linux systems when updates happen, there is a period where the system is organizing and optimizing things in the background. So for a few days the battery life and performance take a little hit. after that, it's all back to normal or better than normal.
Okay I'm gonna bump my own post because I'm stumped about something. So as I mentioned, since upgrading my M4 MBP battery is draining much faster. I'm in the 14 day return window with a M5 MBA. The battery is much better. The battery on my M4 MBP is at 99% capacity with only like 125 cycles or something. It's almost a year old. I can't understand why the M5 MBA would be getting better battery life. Any ideas? Suggestions? I'm trying to decide whether or not to keep the Air or my M4 MBP. Thanks.
Have a look at activity monitor and energy tab. Is your MBP on low power mode?
Try it in Low Power Mode and see how you go. Check Energy tab to see what is draining it. To be honest it sounds like you want the air.
I do want to keep the Air. I just can't figure out what the hell happened to my M4 MBP.
First screenshot M4 MBP fully charged - 2nd Screenshot M5 MBA with less than 60% left. I have NO idea wtf is going on.
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Mail uses somewhat more power on the M4 machine. I suspect the main difference is found in display brightness. Or if you just installed Tahoe there are reports of issues with macOS 26.
capamac
macrumors 6502a
I'm on Sequoia ... no changes in battery drain rate. :^)
Someone speculated somehwere on the internet that the extra translucency effects in Liquid Glass was burning more CPU cycles than prior OS versions. Try turning off as many of the effects as possible and see if that improves the situation.
Someone speculated somehwere on the internet that the extra translucency effects in Liquid Glass was burning more CPU cycles than prior OS versions. Try turning off as many of the effects as possible and see if that improves the situation.
The problem is the macOS 26. If you can downgrade to Sequoia, that’s pretty much solve most of the problems.
capamac
macrumors 6502a
Naturally, computing graphics 120 times per second is going to drain the battery faster than computing graphics 60 times per second.
Steve Adams
macrumors 65816
There has to be something running in the background somewhere. You are getting roughly the same I am with my i7 1165G7. 6-8 hrs of screen on usage. Less if I push it. But you have some software somewhere that is doing something in the background.
Herr Podspro
macrumors member
My M1 Pro definitely runs through its juice faster than before. Even in constant low power mode.
Wish I could.. Firefox has been my go-to browser for years. Can't let it go. Too good.
But i thought Apple changed the process years ago where we can't downgrade. Am I wrong? I was suspecting it was a Tahoe issue.
You can downgrade on a system that did not come with Tahoe. Try Safari for a day and see if it improves.
You can downgrade on iOS / iPadOS if you use 3rd-party backup software such as iMazing.
I just leave my MacBook Air plugged into power all the time now. Tired of the constant low power alerts.
Honestly, I'm starting to not appreciate the new Apple course. I like Apple Silicon, iPhone, Macs and iPad but they're giving their efforts only to hardware and forget how important the OS optimization is.