Battery life is one of the essential criteria when choosing any laptop. At Apple, in this sense, everything is just great. The base MacBook Air on the M1 can take up to 18 hours of movie playback. The indicator is excellent. I think that none of the users of new poppies complains about autonomy yet. But what about older device owners? What to do if the computer runs out almost immediately, and there is no way to replace the battery right now? In today’s article, I propose to analyze a variety of ways to extend the autonomy of a MacBook and decide when it’s time to bring a laptop to a service center.
How to disable auto-brightness on MacBook
If you want to extend your MacBook’s battery life, the first thing you need to do is turn off the auto-brightness of the display and keyboard. These parameters directly depend on the operating time from a single charge.
To disable display auto-brightness on a MacBook, you need to:
- Go to System Preferences.
- Next, go to the Display section in the lower-right corner.
- Uncheck the box next to Automatically adjust brightness.
Does True Tone affect charging?
There is also one more parameter – True Tone. With this, everything is not so clear. On the one hand, if you turn on power-saving mode on your iPhone or Mac, TrueTone will stay on. This suggests that this feature does not affect battery life in any way. On the other hand, on the official Apple website, they write that when they test autonomy, TrueTone is turned off. Here are the tricksters! The answer lies somewhere in the middle – True Tone affects battery life, but not significantly.
How to turn off the backlight on a Mac keyboard
The real thing to turn off is the keyboard backlight. No user will suffer from this, and the battery efficiency of the MacBook will increase significantly.
To turn off the keyboard backlight on Mac, you need to:
- Open system settings.
- Next, go to the Keyboard section.
- Uncheck the box next to Adapt keyboard brightness to low light conditions.
- Next, press and hold F5, or click on the line button with five dots on the Touch Bar.
Note that if you turn up the brightness on your Mac, the keyboard will automatically turn back on after a while. In a good way, I would generally recommend disabling this option forever. After all, you can control all the parameters yourself, right?
Which apps are wasting your MacBook battery
Few people know, but there is a special section in the battery menu on the top panel of the Mac, where all the applications that are wasting your computer’s battery are listed. You can always click on the battery icon at the top and close all high-consumption apps. These will be resource-intensive applications like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, games, and a browser in most cases.
It is clear that programs like Final Cut seriously waste battery power.
If you often use the browser, try to control the number of open tabs and windows. You should not expect great autonomy, given the 20 open sites. The computer will not thank you for this, and it’s the same story with videos. Watch YouTube – lower the picture quality to 480p.
Plus, it’s always better to use Apple’s native apps; they’re much better optimized to run on a Mac. Are you going to write some notes? Avoid Evernote and other third-party software. Working in a browser? You should not use Google Chrome for this, and it is far from the best option.
MacBook power-saving mode
Also, do not forget about the power-saving mode on the MacBook. Yes, there is one here. It reduces power consumption by reducing display brightness, disabling background tasks, lowering the processor frequency, and reducing power consumption.
Power Save Mode works on all MacBooks newer than 2016, with macOS Monterey on board.
To enable power saving mode on your MacBook, you need to:
- Go to System Preferences.
- Next, go to the Battery section.
- Then go to the Battery tab in the left menu.
- Check the box next to Power saving mode.
Now, every time your MacBook is connected to the mains, the power-saving mode will turn on automatically. In the same section, you can set the inclusion of energy-saving mode when powered by a network adapter.
For this:
- Go to System Preferences.
- Next, go to the Battery section.
- Then go to the Network adapter tab in the left menu.
- Check the box next to Power saving mode.
How to turn off automatic updates on a MacBook
Auto-update is undoubtedly a cool feature, but it does not affect autonomy in the best way. This applies to both macOS updates and individual app updates. If you need to keep your MacBook charged, I recommend disabling these options.
To turn off automatic app updates on Mac, you need to:
- Open the App Store (via Launchpad or Spotlight).
- In the top menu of macOS, click on App Store, Settings.
- Uncheck the box next to Automatic updates.
To disable automatic updates for all native applications and macOS itself, follow the instructions:
- Go to System Preferences.
- Next, go to the Software Update section.
- Uncheck the box next to Install Mac software updates automatically.
If you experience any problems with macOS, remember that Apple always recommends having the latest version of the operating system onboard. Stay tuned for new updates. You shouldn’t do it the way I do.
How to View MacBook Charge Cycles
The battery life of the MacBook is not eternal. Mac battery efficiency is measured using a measure called the charge cycle.
Many users get confused about cycles. The thing to be clear about is that if you use up half of your MacBook’s charge, then fully charge it, and then drain it to half the next day, that’s one cycle, not two. The cycle can last several days.
The latest MacBook models are rated for approximately 1,000 charge cycles. Some of the past models of Apple laptops held 500 cycles or less; you can find a complete list of models on the official Apple website. If your MacBook has exceeded 1000 cycles, this does not mean that after that, it will stop turning on; it just won’t work comfortably anymore. It is best to contact the service center.
You can view the number of charge cycles on a MacBook as follows:
- Click on the apple icon in the top menu of macOS.
- Next, go to About This Mac.
- Then click the System Report button on the Overview tab.
- Go to the Power Options tab on the left menu.
- Look for an item called several recharge cycles.
Of course, there are still some settings that can be turned off. These include Location Services, connected external drives and peripherals, notifications, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Why don’t we do it? The answer is extremely simple – the game is not worth the candle. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth consume minimal battery, and all other functions and devices, most likely, are necessary for you to work.