Published May 30, 2023, 9:45 AM EDT
Jessica has been writing tech articles since 2018, and in her free time loves knitting, crocheting, and embroidering tiny things.
If you leave your MacBook on overnight or other long stretches with the screen on, its battery can drain. Putting your laptop in sleep mode should fix that—but does it?
There are features on your MacBook that can keep draining its battery even when the machine is idle. Certain accessories can do this too, and malware can also create battery problems.
Read on to see what features and programs can be draining your MacBook's battery even while it's in sleep mode, and learn how to disable or turn them off so you don't have this issue going forward!
1. Turn Off Bluetooth on Your MacBook
It takes energy for your MacBook to find, connect and stay connected to Bluetooth devices. Keeping these connected to your MacBook when it's in sleep mode can steadily drain your system's battery.
When Bluetooth is left on, your MacBook is constantly searching for nearby Bluetooth devices. This can also be a battery drain, albeit a slower one.
Therefore, you should not only turn off Bluetooth on your MacBook when you're not using it but also turn off your nearby Bluetooth devices to prevent any pairing attempts.
To turn off Bluetooth on your MacBook, click the Control Center icon in the menu bar and set the Bluetooth toggle to Off.
2. Unplug USB Accessories From Your MacBook
Much like Bluetooth-connected devices, USB accessories can also use some of your MacBook's battery when connected. This is especially true for USB accessories that don't have their own power sources—they get their power straight from your MacBook, and drain even more of its battery.
So, when you're about to walk away from your MacBook for a while, it's best to unplug your external hard drives, keyboards, mice, and any other USB accessories from your MacBook's ports.
3. Switch Off the Power Nap Feature
Power Nap is a feature on Intel MacBooks that allows background processes, like checking Mail messages and making Time Machine backups, to run when it's running on battery power—even while it's in sleep mode.
There are times when you won't want to interrupt these processes, but in general, leaving Power Nap on equals a constant loss of your MacBook's battery power.
To turn off the Power Nap feature, open System Settings and select the Battery menu from the sidebar. Click the Options button at the bottom and set the Enable Power Nap dropdown menu to Never to disable the feature entirely, or set it to Only on Power Adapter to keep Power Nap off when your MacBook is unplugged.
4. Update Your Mac and Apps
If many of your MacBook apps are outdated, they may drain the battery more than they should due to bugs. Updating your apps and keeping them up to date can get you fixes to those bugs and any performance improvements that can also help apps use less battery.
The same applies to your computer's operating system. By keeping macOS up to date, you ensure your MacBook gets energy efficiency improvements and fixes for battery-guzzling bugs.
To update apps installed on your Mac, open the Mac App Store application and select the Updates menu. Here, you can update individual apps or click Update All to download and install them all at once.
To update macOS, open System Settings and go to General > Software Update. If a new macOS version is available, click the Update Now button to download and install it. Remember to back up your files before installing the update as a safety precaution!
5. Disable Notifications on Your MacBook
Another factor that can cause your MacBook to lose power while it's in sleep mode is notifications popping up on your screen. Notifications can wake a MacBook from sleep mode, turning the screen on and consuming its battery.
Notifications also drain power by having processes constantly run in the background to see if there's anything to notify you about. You can disable these processes and preserve your MacBook's battery by turning off notifications.
To disable notifications on your MacBook while it's in sleep mode, go to System Settings > Notifications and toggle off the switch next to Allow notifications when the display is sleeping.
6. Find Battery-Draining Apps and Background Processes
We've mentioned that certain apps and MacBook features require background activity to function, and these processes consume battery power in order to run even in sleep mode.
So, if your MacBook is suffering from battery drain, it's best to know what software is causing the problem. You can find this out with the built-in Activity Monitor app on your Mac.
You can open Activity Monitor with a simple Spotlight search (Cmd + Space). Click the % CPU column in Activity Monitor to sort it by apps and processes using the most power to the least.
If you notice any processes single-handedly using more than 60% of your CPU, it's best to close them. Click on a process to highlight it and hit the Stop (X) button at the top of the window to turn it off. It's also worth looking at the Idle Wake Ups column for other processes that might be waking your MacBook while it's not in use.
Do your research before stopping a process if you're unsure. You don't want to close down kernel_task, for example.
7. Evaluate Your MacBook for Energy-Draining Malware
Your MacBook's battery can drain in sleep mode from normal processes, but it can also drain because of malware. Although Apple's computers have historically been safe from computer viruses, ransomware targeting Macs do exist, and some of them can wreak havoc on your laptop's battery.
You can download a malware scanner to check if your MacBook is infected with a virus. You can also check the % CPU column in Activity Monitor, as described in the last section, and do your fair bit of research on the web to see if any power guzzlers are actually illicit software that needs to be removed.
If malware is found, most scanners will give you options for removing it, like any other antivirus software for Mac. Use these to get the malware out and preserve your MacBook's battery while it's in sleep mode.
8. Check Your MacBook's Battery Health
If you've done everything we've described above and your MacBook's battery is still draining while it's in sleep mode, it's possible the battery itself may be the problem.
As batteries age, they can't hold as much power as they once did. This means they don't stay charged as long and can reach 0% in shorter periods of time, even in sleep mode.
Fortunately, Apple provides an easy way to check the battery health of your MacBook. Head to System Settings > Battery and look for Battery Health on the right. If you see Normal next to it, your MacBook's battery is operating normally and hasn't lost much capacity yet.
However, if it says Service Recommended, contact Apple to get your MacBook's battery replaced as soon as possible.
You Can Stop Your MacBook From Draining in Sleep Mode
As you can see, a few things can go wrong and cause your MacBook to lose battery power while in sleep mode. Thankfully though, there are a plethora of solutions for these problems.
We hope our troubleshooting steps helped you find the cause of your MacBook's battery drain so that you can make sure it's not a problem anymore when you put it to sleep next time.