How-tos

How to Fix Bad MacBook Pro 16 Battery Life


Here’s how to fix bad MacBook Pro 16 battery life if it isn’t matching up to your expectations and Apple’s promises.

Apple says the MacBook Pro 16-inch is capable of 11 hours of battery life with the screen at 75% brightness and browsing in Safari or playing 1080P content in the Apple TV app.

In the real world, you may see lower battery life and bad battery life depending on what you are doing and if there is an issue with your MacBook Pro.

This article may contain affiliate links. Click here for more details.

Figure Out What’s Using Your Battery Life

The first thing you need to do is figure out what is using your MacBook Pro 16 battery life. This will let you know what you need to do to fix it.

Find out what's using your MacBook Pro 16 battery life.

Find out what’s using your MacBook Pro 16 battery life.

The first place to look is the battery icon in the upper right corner. Click on it and you will see what is using significant energy.

Another place to see what is using your battery life is in the Activity Monitor. To access this press command and space bar and then type Activity Monitor and hit enter.

Once it is open, click on the Energy tab. Here you can see what is using the energy and even sort by energy impact.

Use Activity Monitor to see what is causing your bad MacBook Pro battery life.

Use Activity Monitor to see what is causing your bad MacBook Pro battery life.

These will point you in the direction of apps using your battery life or a system process that is using too much power.

In most cases, this is where you will see what is causing the issue. From there, you can take action.

Read: Best MacBook Pro 16 Accessories

How to Fix Bad MacBook Pro Battery Life

The best thing to do if you are seeing bad MacBook Pro battery life and there is an app in one of the options above is to close that app and restart your Mac.

  1. Click on the Apple in the upper left.
  2. Click on Restart.
  3. Click on Restart on the Popup.

This can solve many of the issues, and get you back to working with better battery life.

If Chrome is the app using all your battery life, the best thing to do is to switch to Safari. Chrome is simply bad on battery life, and Safari is much better. It may even mean using Safari when you are mobile and Chrome when you are plugged in.

You should also try updating your apps. Check for updates in the App Store or inside the app to get the latest version, which could fix battery issues.

If there is another app using too much power, and you don’t need it at that time, close it. This is especially important if you use Photoshop, Photos, Final Cut Pro or any other major apps that are resource-intensive.

In most cases, closing apps, switching apps or just turning your brightness down will fix most of your MacBook Pro 16 battery problems.

MacBook Pro Battery Life Settings to Change

There are a few settings that you can change to get better battery life on your new MacBook Pro 16.

Turn off WiFi or Bluetooth.

Turn off WiFi or Bluetooth.

You can turn your brightness down using the brightness button on the Touch Bar. Apple uses 75% brightness for battery testing. If I am concerned about battery life, I typically try to use 50% brightness.

If you don’t need WiFi or Bluetooth, you can turn these off. If the icon is in your menu bar, click on it and choose Turn off WiFi or Turn off Bluetooth.

Check Energy Saver preferences.

Check Energy Saver preferences.

You can also check Energy Preferences to make sure your settings are optimized for battery life. Go to System Preferences -> Energy Saver and click on Battery.

Check the following options to

  • Automatic graphics switching
  • Put hard disks to sleep when possible
  • Wake for network access

These will make sure your Mac is optimized for battery life. Many of these options may already be checked, but you should double-check these if your MacBook Pro battery life is bad.

Talk to Apple for Help

If you continue to have problems on your MacBook Pro 16-inch, you should contact Apple for help. Potentially there is something wrong with your hardware, or maybe you need to start fresh and avoid restoring from a Time Machine Backup or using Migration Assistant.

You can get in touch with Apple using this page and use chat, the phone or schedule a genius bar appointment to find out what is going on with your computer. You have a 1 year warranty and 90 days of tech support, so use them. If you have AppleCare+, you get three years of support and warranty.



READ SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.