MacBook Air M3 (15-inch) goes to sleep at 25% battery and won’t wake until plugged in

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Level 1

4 points

MacBook Air M3 (15-inch) goes to sleep at 25% battery and won’t wake until plugged in

Hi everyone,

I have a MacBook Air M3 15-inch and I’m facing a strange issue. When the battery reaches 25%, it suddenly and unexpectedly goes into sleep mode, and it won’t turn back on until I plug in the charger.

When it does turn back on, the battery shows somewhere between 1% and 11% and starts charging, but from that percentage up to around 25% (where it went to sleep), the percentage jumps up very quickly in increments of about 3%. After that point, it charges normally in 1% increments.

My battery health is 100% with 56 cycles.

I’m running macOS 15.6 (official release, not beta).

This has happened every time I’ve charged my Mac in the past two weeks.

I’ve run Apple Diagnostics and no issues are reported — it says everything is normal. I also checked the system logs in Console and ran command-line log checks, and nothing unusual shows up.

Even after several of these automatic sleep incidents, the battery health hasn’t dropped at all.

I’m really at a loss for what to do, and this is becoming very frustrating.

If anyone has encountered this issue or knows how to fix it, I’d appreciate your help.

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Aug 12, 2025 12:39 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 12, 2025 01:06 AM in response to jalaltorabi

First, let’s see if this issue happens in Safe Mode:

Shut down your Mac.
Press and hold the power button on your Mac. As you continue to hold the power button, your Mac turns on and loads startup options. When you see Options, release the power button.
Select your startup disk. It's named Macintosh HD, unless you changed its name.
Press and hold the Shift key, then click the “Continue in Safe Mode” button below your startup disk.
Log in to your Mac. You might be asked to log in again.

If the strange behaviors do not occur, then it may possibly be a software issue.

If the issue doesn't continue in safe mode:

Leave safe mode by restarting your Mac normally, then try to reproduce the issue.

If the issue doesn't return, it might have been resolved by the other things that safe mode did at startup, such as checking your disk and clearing caches.

If that doesn’t work, then the battery needs service.

Service Checklist:

Click ▶︎ Start a Service Request. ⚛️

Need more help?

Click ▶︎ Check Repair Status. 🔧

Good luck! 👋🏼😉

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Answer 2

Allan Jones

Level 9

76,466 points

Aug 14, 2025 08:33 AM in response to jalaltorabi

Nonsensical readings like that are similar symptoms to ones I experienced with a failing battery on both an older Macbook Pro and an iPad. I would not delay in having Apple evaluate as Smilin-Brian advises.

Be sure to:

— back up all data before going to Apple

—take your charger and cable with you so the can balso be checked.

Also make sure the battery is not swelling. Symptoms:

— Unexpected trackpad and/or keyboard behavior.

— The gap between the display and the deck is not even when the display is closed.

— The gap between the bottom plate and chassis is uneven in places.

— Some of the screws that hold the bottom plate have popped out.

— The trackpad surface is higher than the surrounding deck surface.

— The computer "rocks" a bit on a known flat† surface.

† — I find solid-surface and granite countertops very effective flat test surfaces.

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