MacBook Air shuts down at 10% battery despite 100% capacity and low cycle count

Those can be symptoms of a failing battery. Been there, done that.

Has the battery in this Mac been replaced?

If so, and Apple did not do the service, you have the answer. Virtually all aftermarket batteries are terrible compared to Apple's. And worse, if a non-Apple provider replaced the battery, Apple can refuse to work on the computer.

Have you rebooted your Mac? With older (Intel) Macs, there was a procedure to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) that controls power, among other things. With M-series Macs the SMC is reset every time you reboot the Mac.

It should run until it is down below 2%. That fact that it's not would concern me enough to take it to an Apple Store for a diagnostic.

I do not believe this is expected behavior. 10% is just that. Here's a screenshot from another user:

Clearly, the Mac is still running as it should be.

@OP, if you're near an Apple Store I'd suggest making a Genius Bar appointment.

pritheesh64 wrote:

is there any way to turn off this automatic shutting down ..

frankly, IDK. but I would recommend folowing leroydouglas' advice, and see 10% as 0% and recharg it at 10%. or better yet, keep It plugged in when convenient, and run on battery when you need portability.

pritheesh64 wrote:

my macbook air shuts down itself everytime after the battery turns 10 percentage . the battery life is 100 percent and total cycle count is just 20. same as the descriptive title.

[Edited by Moderator]

You do not want to deep cycle the Lithium ion battery. Read that 10% as 0% and plug it in.

The rule of thumb—if you are near the mains leave it plugged in, if you need the portability then run on the battery only—this is how you help optimize your battery charging and extend the working life of your battery by reducing the cycle count.

About BHM battery health management M1/M2/M3/M4 SoC

About battery health management in Mac notebooks - Apple Support

About BHM battery health management Intel

About battery health management in Mac laptops - Apple Support

if you think it should be different submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

pritheesh64 wrote:

is there any way to turn off this automatic shutting down .. this only happens after the macos tahoe update

No. It appears to be shutting down because the battery has run out of power at 10% charge either due to very heavy system usage, or due to a failing battery.

You neglected to mention the exact model of your Mac which is very important to note when asking for assistance online. You can get this information by clicking the Apple menu & selecting "About This Mac".

FYI, most Apple Lithium laptop batteries usually need to be replaced sometime between 3-5 years old, but some may need replaced sooner (rare), or get a few extra years out of it. Some of it depends on how the user utilizes their laptops & how much time they need the battery to last. If a person only needs the battery to last an hour or two, then they may be happy with their battery beyond the 5 year mark.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to monitor the battery on an M-series Mac. Even on an Intel Mac monitoring the battery at the necessary level requires analyzing the output of a Terminal command over time (on the M-series Mac, Apple broke the command as it displays incorrect information). I had to create a custom script to allow myself easier testing of my organization's Apple laptop batteries so I could detect & confirm battery failures.

neuroanatomist wrote:

I do not believe this is expected behavior. 10% is just that. Here's a screenshot from another user:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/33708db6-6f7f-43fe-9b9c-83916af2d8ca

Clearly, the Mac is still running as it should be.

that's why I said "I'm not certain". I am using an iMac. so no battery here. I just thought that it could be expected. but clearly, it's not. I was making an assumption based on the fact that you should not run the battery down to 0%.

You do not share what version of macOS you are running on that Air, but currently in macOS Sequoia or Tahoe, the low battery alert is set at 6%. You can see this along with the current charge level from the following command in the Terminal:

ioreg -r -l -k "BatteryPercent" | egrep -io '("LowBatteryNotificationPercentage"|"BatteryPercent") = \d+'

This should show the Apple Magic Mouse II and Magic Keyboard in order as in my current output:

The yellow result color is contolled by the following line in my ~/.zshrc file:

export GREP_COLOR='00;38;5;226'

VikingOSX wrote:

You do not share what version of macOS you are running on that Air, but currently in macOS Sequoia or Tahoe, the low battery alert is set at 6%. You can see this along with the current charge level from the following command in the Terminal:

ioreg -r -l -k "BatteryPercent" | egrep -io '("LowBatteryNotificationPercentage"|"BatteryPercent") = \d+'

This should show the Apple Magic Mouse II and Magic Keyboard in order as in my current output:

FYI, I don't get any output with that command when used on an M1 MacBook Pro 2020 running Tahoe. I don't get any output even with just the 'ioreg' portion of the command. I had to remove the " -r " option in order to get any output from the 'ioreg' command. With the 'egrep' filter added.....I had to remove the ' = \d+' section of the 'egrep' options so I get two lines with just "BatteryPercent" displayed with no values, otherwise I get no output with the 'egrep' command.

Also, I'm curious about the last part of the 'egrep' filter you used:

= \d+

I don't have any wireless devices connected to this laptop at the moment.

Do you have any good links to using 'ioreg' beside the man pages? I have been using it to retrieve battery information, but it seems to be a bit finicky, especially when I try to find other items & information when I'm not certain what keys or sections to give to the 'ioreg' command itself. I did a bit of experimenting over a year ago in general & trying to get info about connected drives, but don't recall some of the specifics I discovered (hoping I made a few notes).

Definitely agree on not running it to zero, though modern Li-Po battery controllers will not allow a deep discharge with normal use (meaning you'd have to work to damage the battery with a deep discharge, like running it until power off then leaving it sit for a few weeks without connecting to power).

neuroanatomist wrote:

(meaning you'd have to work to damage the battery with a deep discharge, like running it until power off then leaving it sit for a few weeks without connecting to power).

that's good to know. and apparently, battery questions are above my pay grade. :)

I'm not certain, but that could be expected behaviour. if you totally deplete your macbook's battery, it can actually get damaged. that could be the Mac protecting your battery.