What causes battery drain on MacBook Pro in sleep mode?

Hello Community


I have my MacBook Pro 13" M2 since 2022 and I changed the battery 5 months after getting it for a keyboard issue.

Now its health is at 94% for a cycle count of 211.


I don't know what that really means. But since I got it I never really had an issue with the battery since it gave really tremendous experience!!


But it's been a week since I've seen a drop in its performance. The most one is while I'm not using it, it's losing battery in sleep mode. Since I've got it I never had the habit of turning it off.


So I thought of an app running on background but I can't seem to see where I could find that in system settings.


If you have any more ideas or help that would be very helpful

Thanks a lot !


Chris


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Battery issues

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jul 15, 2025 05:29 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 21, 2025 06:57 PM

Wow, your laptop is waking up a lot there many times within minutes of going back to sleep. I've never quite seen a system waking that soon. It is like death by a thousand cuts.


However, the biggest drops in battery charge level seem to occur after an extended wake period with these entries:

2025-07-21 11:57:15 +0200 Wake           Wake from Deep Idle [CDNVA] : due to smc.70070000 lid SMC.OutboxNotEmpty/HID Activity Using BATT (Charge:37%)           
2025-07-21 12:02:12 +0200 Assertions     PID 159(runningboardd) Summary PreventUserIdleSystemSleep  00:03:49  id:0x0x1000085a0 [System: PrevIdle DeclUser kDisp]          
2025-07-21 12:03:59 +0200 Assertions     PID 159(runningboardd) Released PreventUserIdleSystemSleep  00:05:36  id:0x0x1000085a0 [System: PrevIdle DeclUser kDisp]          
2025-07-21 12:17:12 +0200 Assertions     PID 159(runningboardd) Summary PreventUserIdleSystemSleep  00:12:39  id:0x0x1000086d4 [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp DeclUser kDisp]          
2025-07-21 12:32:12 +0200 Assertions     PID 159(runningboardd) Summary PreventUserIdleSystemSleep  00:27:39  id:0x0x1000086d4 [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp kDisp]          
2025-07-21 12:39:06 +0200 Assertions     PID 159(runningboardd) Released PreventUserIdleSystemSleep  00:34:34  id:0x0x1000086d4 [System: PrevIdle DeclUser IntPrevDisp kDisp]          
2025-07-21 12:39:18 +0200 Sleep          Entering Sleep state due to 'Clamshell Sleep':TCPKeepAlive=active Using Batt (Charge:26%) 962 secs


Notice the 11% drop there.


I'm not certain, but I think the laptop is waking up due to the lid angle sensor (see the first line I quoted where it references "lid") and it may be kept awake by the Display (kDisp).


Personally I would test with a clean install of macOS to confirm the same behavior. Erase the disk followed by reinstalling macOS, but do not install any third party apps and do not restore from a backup.


Even better would be perform a DFU Firmware Restore which resets the security enclave chip, system firmware, and internal SSD & pushes a clean copy of macOS onto the internal SSD.


You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. The only useful diagnostic is one which produces an error code. I'm not sure if the diagnostics would detect a bad Lid Angle Sensor.


You can try testing the Lid Angle Sensor by opening & closing the display clamshell. When the lid is just about closed, do you see the display go dark? And when you lift the lid beyond a quarter inch do you see the display light up again? Even if the Lid Angle Sensor is operating correctly for this test, it is possible the sensor is bad and intermittently thinks the Display clamshell has been lifted. Once macOS thinks the display has been opened, then your timers for putting the display to sleep will depend upon those settings before it may go back to sleep.


To get any further information & insights would require looking at the main system logs to see what else (if anything) the system may be doing during those time periods (requires using the command line to gather up the system logs), but that is a nightmare and is not for the faint of heart (or anyone who wishes to remain sane). You can easily have hundreds if not thousands of entries per second.....yes per second. Most of those entries will be meaningless and will be scary sounding....the ones which show the most promise will be censored for privacy/security reasons. I can provide the Terminal command to gather those logs, but I don't know how to filter them since the built-in filters require a deeper understanding of macOS & the programming interfaces/terminology which is very hard to find online...much less understand.


Maybe other contributors can provide a bit more information about the events causing the laptop to wake up. I tried a quick search for some of the terms, but unfortunately there is no quickly found information that I could find which would help understand them.


Assuming the test of a clean install (or better yet the clean install from a DFU Firmware Restore) has the same issue (remember, do not restore from a backup & do not install any third party apps while you test the system), then you have a hardware issue of some sort (most likely a Lid Angle Sensor if those log entries are any indication).


If there are no issues with a clean install, then it means you have some sort of configuration issue or an issue with some third party installed software. In that case you can post an EtreCheck report here and/or just keep the power adapter connected to laptop.

37 replies

Jul 15, 2025 08:27 AM in response to Chris_0607

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


Your computer performs best when connected to AC power, such as the power adapter. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, even with the power adapter connected, the charged state may decline during very stressful work.


When used only on battery, your computer has no extra cushion of power, and may perform more slowly. However, for ordinary non-stressful tasks this may not be objectionable (possibly not even noticeable.)


In general, you should ALWAYS connect a power source when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no power sources are at hand. Modern Macs maintains optimum battery charge levels under program control, and will NEVER over-charge. Activate Battery Health Management and do not spend another moment of your time thinking about charging.


That blocky device that plugs into the wall is the POWER ADAPTER. I am not trying to be a jerk about terminology, what these boxes do and how they do it is essential for understanding how they all work together. The LEDs in the MagSafe end are controlled by commands from the computer.


Connected to Power is NOT necessarily charging.


The CHARGER is inside the MacBook Pro, and is completely under program control. Your Mac accepts some power when needs to run, and accepts more power when intends to charge its internal battery. A power source like the Power Adapter or certain Displays can not 'force itself' on your MacBook Pro. Only the algorithms inside your Mac can decide when is a good time to charge the battery. Your Mac can NEVER be over-charged.


Jul 15, 2025 10:17 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi Grant, thank you for your reply.

That said, I feel like your response doesn't really address the concern I brought up. I'm not asking about whether it's okay to run my MacBook on battery — I'm pointing out that my Mac has recently started draining battery during sleep, which is new behavior after nearly two years of reliable performance.

Your message comes across more as a general lecture on power usage rather than a response to the actual issue I described. I get that you're trying to be helpful, but framing it with things like “this is not an iPhone” or correcting terminology feels a bit dismissive of the technical concern I’m raising.


Again, my issue isn’t about normal battery life or how Macs operate when unplugged. It’s that suddenly, when the Mac is in sleep mode, the battery is draining significantly, even when no major apps are running — which didn’t happen before. That’s not a philosophical battery usage question, it’s a potentially diagnosable change in system behavior.


Just to clarify — Apple Silicon Macs (like my M2) are absolutely optimized for battery use. Apple designs them for portability and long unplugged usage. Sure, performance might scale a bit to conserve power, but that’s by design, not a flaw. If anything, my experience until this past week proves how efficient they usually are.


I’m still trying to figure out what might be running in the background or waking it up during sleep, so if you or anyone else has insight into how to check that, I'd really appreciate it. As a college student, I use my MacBook on battery most of the time — it’s a portable device, after all. So I was hoping to understand if something in the background might be causing this recent change.


Best regards,

Chris


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What causes battery drain on MacBook Pro in sleep mode?

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