MacBook Pro is draining battery while it's turned off - Battery discharges 30% overnight

Hi there, i have 2021 M1 MacBook Air and i have the exact same problem. Could you have found a solution for this?

I have the same issue. Battery totally discharges when switched off. Thought it was the battery even though it said it was good. Changed it anyway costing me £140 and its still the same.

Something is clearly not right with the OS to cause this.

Must be something running in the background draining the battery.

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Same, I have a MacBook Pro 2019 and it drains every night, no matter what I do. It drains all the way, too, not to 3%. I've run the activity monitor, shut down background apps, closed down all the apps running; it doesn't matter, it still does it. It's destroying the computer too because I'm currently in a very hot area and when I carry it in my bag and then take it out after a few hours, it's so hot I almost can't even touch it. Then I open it and it's really glitchy and takes ages to return to normal.

I think it's a built-in design to ruin the machine and battery faster that way we have to buy new ones every few years. It's really unfortunate too because it's a nice machine otherwise.

I'm sure people go through the common points, I sure have. Shut off the bluetooth, wifi, make sure there are no other devices attached to it, make sure everything is updated, reset the SMC and NVRAM, make sure the battery health is ok, etc. It still does it, every time. There should be no reason one need manually turn the machine to sleep mode just so it will go into sleep mode. The battery settings themselves should also be such that sleep mode actually works.

When someone complains that their foot is hurting, your suggestion is to wear shoes, wherein you explain sarcastically that the foot isn’t designed for the rough terrain of city landscapes? Thank gosh you stopped by, here on Apple’s forum. If only I had thought to plug in my machine.

I just had the issue with one of my organization's Apple laptops which appears to be some sort of software issue since I've performed extensive tests on the battery and macOS detected the closing of the lid in the logs, but macOS kept busy until the battery reached 3% and entered hibernation mode.

For people testing, they should also try putting the laptop to sleep manually by clicking the Apple menu and selecting "Sleep" (or if their Lid Angle Sensor is faulty).

Software issues are one of the common reasons for the battery draining. iCloud & other cloud file syncing services tend to be a common reason as well. Figuring out exactly what software or service is causing the problem can be tricky though.

When you set your computer down in one place, connect it to AC power.

That computer is a battery-CAPABLE device. It is not optimized as a battery-operated device. (It is NOT an iPhone.)

In general, you should ALWAYS connect AC power when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no AC sources are at hand. Your Mac will NEVER over-charge.

<< Any suggestions would be very welcome. >>

if you plug it in before you set it down for the night, it can't run out of power no matter what it is doing.

same here and the strange thing is I have purchased 2 weeks ago only

Make sure to disconnect the power adapter and all physically connected external devices prior to selecting "Shutdown" since disconnecting items from the laptop can trigger the laptop to power back on. Also avoid touching any key on the keyboard or even the Trackpad since that can also trigger the laptop to power back on. Apple loves to include very useless & annoying features these days.

Before powering off the laptop, make sure to press the Caps Lock key so its LED is lit. When the laptop is completely powered off, this LED should go out so at least you know the laptop reached a power off state and did not get stuck closing down macOS.

Edit: The laptop can be triggered to power on if the lid/sleep sensor is triggered as well. Sometimes this is triggered by moving the display, or even by moving the laptop to or from a metallic or magnetic surface. A bad or misconfigured Lid Angle Sensor could be at fault too, although you can check if this sensor is working by logging into macOS, then closing the lid. Slowly open the lid and peer inside to see whether you can see any video....if you can, then this sensor is not working. Normally you should be greeted with a login prompt as well unless you have the laptop configured to automatically log in.

THIS>>>. "A bad or misconfigured Lid Angle Sensor could be at fault too, although you can check if this sensor is working by logging into macOS, then closing the lid."

I tested this several times by closing & opening my macbook and realized my the sensor doesn't always work. After reviewing my battery health I can see this happened to me on Sunday, where my macbook was running the whole time while the screen was off.

Thank you for your tip!!!

I have been battling the same issue for some months now on my mac book Pro 2021, mine drained to the extent that I could not power it up, even when I plug it in with its charger, it refuses to come on until my repairer open it up and disconnect something before it comes on, that was when he noticed that the battery drains even when shutdown to the point it wont come on again.

he later noticed that the rate of discharge reduces when the speaker is disconnected from the board, that is, it usually takes a day and half for the battery to drain to zero, but with the speaker disconnected, it now takes about 2 days or more...... I have been using it that way for a month now....... i came to a conclusion that something is actually keeping the laptop awake even though you shut it down, I'm not sure if its a hardware or software issue, but i will lean towards the software side.

polisny wrote:

When someone complains that their foot is hurting, your suggestion is to wear shoes, wherein you explain sarcastically that the foot isn’t designed for the rough terrain of city landscapes? Thank gosh you stopped by, here on Apple’s forum. If only I had thought to plug in my machine.

Make sure to completely power down the laptop for the night if it will not be connected to the power adapter. To do this, you must make sure to disconnect all external devices prior to shutting down the laptop since doing so after the laptop is powered off or sleeping may cause the laptop to power on/wake again. I personally like to press the Caps Lock key first so its LED is lit, so when the Caps Lock LED goes dark, then I know the laptop is fully powered down or sleeping. Make sure to close the laptop's Clamshell lid as well.

Make sure not to touch any keys or even the Trackpad since that will also power on/wake the laptop which is why I suggested closing the Clamshell lid as well to prevent anything from touching the keys & Trackpad.

FYI, macOS is never fully asleep and will wake up periodically to perform various maintenance items. Depending on the software installed & the system configuration, it is possible the laptop is doing more work than you realize.

@Grant's suggestion will at the very least prevent the battery from being at 0% when you need to use the laptop the next time. Seems like it is a valid suggestion. In fact, it is usually best to keep the laptop connected to the power adapter whenever possible.

Besides, most people complaining of these issues are not performing thorough enough troubleshooting to help identify the underlying problem. Most never specifically list any of the troubleshooting steps they have performed, the OP is one of the rare ones, although the OP did not provide enough details to discern whether they actually tried a clean install of macOS & testing thoroughly before restoring from a backup, and before installing any third party software, and before signing into their AppleID/iCloud.....extremely critical information since if the problem exists under those conditions it confirms either an issue with macOS or a hardware issue.....both of which Apple could then do something about if Apple was made aware of the issue & testing performed as it could get escalated to an Apple engineer.