6 Apps to Monitor and Improve Your MacBook’s Battery Life
The last thing you want is for your MacBook’s battery to die when you need it most. While Mac laptops offer solid battery life compared to many competitors, even the best batteries degrade with age. Batteries are consumables, but you can increase their overall longevity through regular monitoring and housekeeping.
We’re going to introduce you to a handful of battery apps for your Mac to monitor your computer’s battery with just a few simple clicks. They’ll help you get the most out of your Mac’s battery.
1. Battery Health 2
Battery Health is arguably the most popular battery monitoring tool for Mac, and Battery Health 2 is the successor we didn’t know we needed. The tool offers a neat interface that lists all the battery vitals for your MacBook.
The app displays current charge, current max, macOS health status, cycles, age, power usage, and amperage. Basically, everything you need to know to monitor your MacBook’s battery. Power History is a premium feature that helps you gain useful insights. It displays dynamic power consumption graphs and beams notifications when battery consumption exceeds a certain threshold.
2. Coconut Battery
Coconut Battery is another veteran of macOS battery monitoring tools that focuses on the basics. Despite the spartan approach, the app is accurate and useful.
Coconut Battery displays a percentage bar showing your current full charge capacity, followed by a percentage bar for the battery’s designed capacity. The app lets you record the battery status at different intervals of time and saves the log accordingly. Lastly, the tool lets you check the battery status of your iOS device if it is connected to your Mac via USB or Wi-Fi.
3. iStat Menu
The iStat menu comes in handy if you want to add advanced stats like fan speed, memory consumption, and network indicators. In addition, iStat Menu also provides an insightful battery monitoring tool that helps you keep up with important battery information. The tool displays battery health, cycles and status.
The iStat menu displays a list of resource-hogging apps as well as the time remaining on your current charge. Hovering your mouse over each of these options will take you to advanced statistics to help you get a better idea of the battery status. Make sure you also put our tips to use for better MacBook battery life.
4. Battery Monitor
Battery Monitor is the perfect battery app for MacBook if you want a free app with all the basic information you need to maintain your MacBook battery.
Battery Monitor will sit on the Apple menu at the top of your screen, where you’ll be able to see your current charge, your battery cycles, and even see your battery capacity, temperature, and power usage. Overall, it’s an easy-to-use app packed with useful features for monitoring your Mac’s battery with the click of a button.
5. Better Battery 2
Another easy-to-use app that you can download and start using in seconds is Better Battery 2. After installing the app, you will be able to see a list of all your battery information. From the current charge to the current capacity of your battery, and even the date of manufacture and current age of your battery.
If you want all the features that Better Battery 2 has to offer, you will need to upgrade and buy the premium version. But the good news is that the free version will have enough information on how to manage your battery on your MacBook.
6. Stamina
Endurance is a more proactive battery management tool that aims to help Mac users extend battery life. It switches your Mac into low-power mode as soon as the battery level drops below a certain percentage. The tool saves power by dimming the screen, monitoring expensive apps, monitoring flash plugins, slowing down the processor, and hiding background apps.
You can choose the trigger levels at which you want to turn on Endurance Mode. I have noticed a substantial increase in battery life after using this mode. In short, the app lets you easily decide between performance and battery life. macOS has a low-power mode, but some users find Endurance even more effective. Try it for yourself with a free trial.
The Battery Information heading displays the cycle count, status, charge remaining, and battery voltage. Ideally, the MacBook Air’s battery should last up to a thousand charge cycles. However earlier models had a lower maximum cycle count.
when enough is enough
Monitoring and managing your Mac’s battery life is a great start with all of the apps we’ve listed above. This will allow you to discover which apps make your battery explode faster than others, so you can limit their use whenever you need to use your Mac for long periods of time without being plugged in.