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

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!!!

Open the terminal and type the following line (it will ask for your login password):

sudo pmset schedule cancelall

(the last word is as I wrote "cancelall").

I did this and the battery time seems ok now after 1 day. I will test more days to see.

Good luck!

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.

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.

I have also faced same issue and contacted to unicorn service centre they told there is a problem in motherboard so they replace some part

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 —

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.

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?

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.