Massive loss of battery charge while MBP is shutdown

jhyieslame wrote:

After doing all of these things, it seems as though the power drain is mostly back to "normal". But, again, the Apple tech had me make sure that I was doing CMD-Q on all open apps which makes no sense to me. If the mac is Off and has really shutdown, I'd assume that it would quit all open apps before shutting down, so how could not shutting down my apps possibly cause any kind of battery drain.

Like I said previously, it is very hard to confirm that a recent Mac is completely powered down. A black screen does not necessarily indicate it has powered off completely. It is possible it got stuck during the shutdown process due to an app that would not properly terminate. The Caps Lock trick is the best method of telling if the Mac has completely powered down since that LED goes out very near the final power off...it is the best indicator we have. Even Quitting all open apps still leaves some of them open running in the background.....these are apps which typically had installers (not sure if App Store apps are allowed to run like this in the background when closed).

You can do an experiment. Shutdown the Mac & wait at least five minutes. Then power on the Mac again. When you log into your Mac after the five minute shutdown, run the following Terminal command which will tell you whether you just woke up your Mac or whether it powered on instead. I have made it so the command will only show items for the current date & only the last 10 items of that list just to be safe.

It is critical to have two and only two spaces after "Sleep ", "Wake ", and "Start " so it is best to copy & paste the command into the Terminal window.

pmset -g log | grep -iE  'Sleep  |Wake  |Start  ' | grep -iE "^$(date "+%Y-%m-%d")" | tail -n 10

The last entry should be one listed as either "Wake", or "Start" (in the column immediately after the Date/Time) depending on whether the laptop woke from sleep or had a cold power on event. Of course this only confirms the shutdown during the experiment and not any of the other shutdown attempts. The command can be modified to filter for two dates like when shutting down the laptop at night & powering it on the next morning.

Here is the other command you can use when you shutdown your Mac at night & power it on the next day. Just change the dates to reflect the two dates involved. The command I'm placing here would look at the information for Sunday night Nov. 9, 2025 and Monday Nov. 10, 2025:

pmset -g log | grep -iE  'Sleep  |Wake  |Start  ' | grep -iE '^2025-11-09|^2025-11-10'

You must be extremely careful not to press any key or even the Trackpad which can cause the laptop to power on. Even connecting or disconnecting external devices including the power adapter can trigger the laptop to power on. Disconnect all external devices prior to initiating a "Shutdown".

And are you sure the laptop has fully powered off? It can be very hard to tell with the USB-C Macs. I like to press the Caps Lock key so its LED is lit so when the Caps Lock LED goes out the computer has fully powered off.

Plus your laptop is at least 6 years old since it was discontinued May 2019 according to Mac Tracker. It is possible the battery has a hardware issue since most batteries tend to need replaced between 3-5 years....some may last longer.

When you performed the SMC Reset, did you use the proper keys? The SMC Reset procedure for the T2 Intel Macs (2018-2020) has changed. See the following Apple article for details:

Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

And you are selecting "Shutdown" and not just closing the display clamshell lid? Just checking since most people on this forum don't tend to distinguish these things.

jhyieslame wrote:

I have a 2018 MBP.

I don't use it a lot, perhaps once a month or so. What I've typically experienced is that I'll shut it down and then a few weeks later I'll start it back up. I do see some loss of charge, but nothing too dramatic.

Recently, I'll use it, have over 50% charge left and then a few weeks later attempt to fire it back up and the battery is at 0%. I can charge it back up OK. My battery shows as healthy and I do not have an excessive amount of charging cycles.

I have disabled any wake-on settings as well as power-nap and I have reset the SMC.

I spoke to Apple about it and the guy I was talking to suggested that I make sure I close all apps before shutting it down; which made no sense, since in my mind a shutdown is just that; a shutdown that shuts down all running apps. Yes,

I realize that some background stuff happens even under shutdown.

So, I CMD-Q all my open apps and I removed any running widgets.

My battery read 48%. I am now at 2 days later, and my battery reads 47%, which is really what I would expect.

My questions are:

One, what would have started the problem in the first place? I "think" it started after upgrading to Sequoia, but I can't swear to a correlation there.

Second, why would closing apps and removing widgets have any effect at all? I'm pretty sure that in the past I didn't use widgets, but I probably never closed all my apps before shutting down.

verify your software is up to date—

The current stable release of Sequoia including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 15.7.2

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

Get help with your Mac notebook battery

Learn how to optimize the life of the battery in your Mac notebook, fix battery issues, and get service.

If you see Service Recommended on your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro - Apple Support

on the Intel mac—

Try resetting the System Management Controller Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support again

Try resetting NVRAM/PRAM Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

further for why question—

Call Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)

or on line https://getsupport.apple.com/

or call AppleCare Support at 1-800-APLCARE (800-275-2273)

Outside the USA—Contact Apple for support and service by phone

See a list of Apple phone numbers around the world.

Contact Apple Support - Apple Support

There is always a tiny bit of power draw when the computer is shut down. That is needed to maintain settings and preferences. Otherwise you would be re-entering prefs and settings every time you powered up.

Is this your original battery? A large amount of draw when off could be a cry for a new battery. Try this:

— Click your Apple menu and look at "About this Mac..."

— Now press the OPTION key to change "About..." to "System Information." Open that.

When SI opens to this screen:

...select "Power."

What are the three values in the section of your report under "Health information," that I've outlined in red below?