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

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.

<< ...sarcastically...>>

Sarcasm is impossible to determine reliably in this written medium between strangers. You need to know the writer well, to determine what they have written could not possibly be true. In this case, what I wrote was intended as a serious work-around.

There have been many posts by readers complaining their Mac was out if battery by morning. I have repeatedly suggested that their Mac might not actually be sleeping when requested to do so by closing the lid, and my serious suggestions for investigations have elicited NO responses. Readers appear to want a fully formed elegant final solution handed to them. The bad news: There is none.

The suggestion for further investigation was to connect the power adapter, wait a moment for the connected - disconnected - connected circus to settle down, then press the caps lock key to light the light, and choose Sleep from the  menu. if the light goes out after a few minutes, your Mac is actually sleeping, and otherwise it is NOT.

Since no one has responded that they are trying my debugging technique, or learned anything feom it, I concluded most readers do not want to try something that might be WORK. So instead, I posted my simple work-around: Connect the power adapter, and you will have plenty of power in the morning, regardless of what happened during the Night.

It was not intended to be sarcastic. It is a serious work-around for readers who are not willing to do any work to find the underlying reason for their subtle and and likely "un-related to anyone else's" reports of no battery in the morning.

Geofo17 wrote:

There are many with ideas here that it is normal for a MacBook to drain its battery when not in use

What people do not realize is that unless you completely power down the device, the Apple laptop & macOS may still be in use....perhaps not with a human operating it, but macOS is still doing what it has been configured to do by the user and the third party apps that have been installed. Just because you put the laptop to sleep does not mean it remains completely dormant. It will wake up multiple times to perform various tasks. Depending on the configuration settings & third party software, it is possible the laptop never even makes it into or returns to sleep mode.

Plus there are a lot of ways the laptop could be taken out of sleep (or even powered on if completely shutdown) these days. Have you reviewed those items I mentioned earlier in this thread? Plus it is possible your laptop even has a hardware issue such as a defective Lid Angle Sensor.

And what troubleshooting have you performed to eliminate a configuration issue or an issue with third party software or a connected device?

Do you have the battery drain issue with a clean install of macOS? A clean install is when you erase the drive followed by reinstalling macOS. Then thoroughly testing the device before installing any third party software, before migrating/restoring from a backup, and before logging into your AppleID/iCloud. If you have the battery drain under these very strict conditions, then you have a valid gripe with Apple.....so take the laptop to Apple and have them address the issue.

Troubleshooting which setting or third party app is to blame for excessive battery drain can be difficult (personal experience troubleshooting my organization's Apple laptops). You may need to find an Apple expert with experience troubleshooting macOS & third party software to assist you.

or that MacBook is intended to be used powered all the time, etc..

This is meant as a work around option for people who don't seem willing to perform the necessary troubleshooting to figure out what is keeping their laptop busy when it should be sleeping. Or to allow people to keep using their device until they can resolve the issue or have an expert examine their laptop & software. This option works and will have the laptop charged when the user needs to use it on battery power.

Plus how many people complaining of this issue have actually contacted Apple support directly to open an official support ticket for assistance? Or taken their laptop to Apple to be examined and for assistance? If there is any real legitimate issue with the hardware or macOS, then Apple will not be aware of any wide spread issue until people create an official support ticket. Besides, Apple needs very specific details & information from a large number of users & systems before Apple has any hope of trying to find a solution. Apple cannot fix something they don't know about and cannot fix something without knowing where to look which is why have exact details & logs from a large number of devices with the issue is necessary.

polisny wrote:

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 also found that the MBP getting quite hot two weeks ago, when we had a heat wave. I had to put it off for it to cool down. Mine is actually a 2018 15" Intel MBP, but it's battery drains normally, that is, about 2-3% if it is fully shutdown. I never leave it sleeping on battery, anyway. It is plugged in and sleeping in the night. No 3rd party background apps and wake up for network access is disabled.

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.

My MBP although is 2018 model, was made in 2019. It is still older than yours. I have these enabled, System Settings > Battery > Battery Health >

And, this disabled, System Settings > Battery > Options >

Maybe, you've done the same. if no, try that and see. This works best when always plugged in.

If yes, then there must be a problem with the logic board, or the battery.

I have 4 Apple laptops and this problem appeared after the last sw update on two of them. Since two computers have exactly the same loss of power of 5% per day, it cannot be the motherboard. Statistically it cannot happen that electronics on two computers fail simultaneously exactly after an update. However I studied better the two computers with the power problem and I found out both have programmed a startup event during the night. These events are not from me. I assume these two startups each night are draining batteries. In any case I deleted these events and I will put the computers in an adiabatic chamber and log precisely where is the heat coming from, when and for how long. I'll return with the results. The other two computers I have are not draining batteries and they don't have any startup event either. Maybe some of the members here can check if they have such unwanted computer startup events.

Yesterday, I put the MBP to sleep, which is usual. At 14:11:30 yesterday, I wasn't home, so the MBP was sleeping, plugged in. At 00:02:28 around midnight today, the MBP was sleeping too, plugged in. What might be those two power events?

sudo pmset schedule cancelall

didn't appear to cancel these two power events.

Yes, I had this problem which I solved as follows: the instruction "sudo pmset schedule cancelall" is deleting the events. However it seems that if you have several Mac computers, they calculate the total screen time you have on all your devices, and it seems this calculation is re-writing the wake up instructions. So the solution is to stop the screen time calculation and disable the option "Share across devices" as shown below. However, I am just a frustrated MacBook user like you, I am not sure I found the right solution, but I am doing tests and until now the wake up didn't come back.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

<< What is the issue you've found with Microsoft Exchange? >>

one of the TIMERs set up to go off in the middle of the night to wake up one of the readers Macs had a task name that suggested it was part of Microsoft Outlook. This one:

'com.apple.alarm.user-invisible-com.apple.calaccessd.travelEngine.periodicRefreshTimer

that appears to be set by Outlook Calendar feature, to synchronize calendar information in the middle of the night.

... but that lead is rapidly going stale because other readers are reporting wake-up problems without microsoft packages installed.

Thanks. I didn't know that MS Outlook was installed in my MBP. Just uninstalled it and deleted any residue packages. But, what might be this?

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

The VAST majority of users who find their Mac has been attacked were attacked by software they downloaded AND approved for use. Nothing can become executable unless you provide your Admin password to "make it so". Be vigilant and you will likely be safe.

This I agree. I have Excel, Word, few browsers even though mostly use Safari, GIMP, VLC, Geany and some open source (Linux) apps, Find any file app, which I use to find files, and then delete them myself. That's how I got rid of MS Outlook. No cleaners, no VPN and such like. I can't/won't use the macOS Office suite. Most of my work is in the internet, and I even know where the servers are stationed, and who maintains them. Quite safe, really.

But still, would like to know what is this,

Yes, it is strange.

The worst part is that the battery had lost lot of energy while the MBP is shut down. I suspect your MBP is not shutting down fully and also some app(s) working in the background and draining the battery. It may also be a hardware problem.

Try shutting down the MBP through the terminal

sudo shutdown -h now

which is immediate. You can also try

sudo shutdown -h +5

to watch what happens. It should then shut down fully in 5 minutes after click return key.

If it doesn't shut down fully, and the battery is still draining, you should check with a technical service.

<< and it drains every night, no matter what I do. >>

What you do to prevent that is to connect the charger when you set it down in one place at home. Then regardless of what wild adventures it has at night when you are not around, it will be ready-to-go by morning.

Open Battery Saver. Check the status of SLEEP time-out selection. If this is set to NEVER, choose a finite time. I have had this battery drain problem on my 13-inch Mid-2010 MBP on High Sierra, when I thought it was shutdown and asleep. On this computer I found the SLEEP mode set to NEVER. I have a 15-inch Mid-2010 MBP also, which has never had this battery drain problem; I checked the SLEEP time-out selection to be a finite value, 10 minutes. Right, so I have set the 13-inch Mid-2010 MBP SLEEP time-out to the default value, which is a mid-value finite time. I expect this will take care of the problem, but will report back on the results.

Grace and Peace to you.

— When I spread these wings and fly; no more heartache, and, no more pain in me, no more sorrow, no shaking me —