Apple’s MacBook is known to deliver the best battery life when it comes to laptops. If you are looking for a long battery life, and do not have Windows-specific work, MacBook is the way to go. That said, if you still want to improve battery life on MacBook, here are some best tips to improve battery life of MacBook from my personal experience.
My personal Best tips to improve battery life of MacBook
Turn off the backlit keyboard if you don’t use it, go manual.
Every MacBook comes with a backlit keyboard which automatically turns on when its dark or when the light is low. It’s a great feature as it makes convenient to work, but then it also takes a tool in the battery. At times like watching a movie or casual browsing, this feature doesn’t need to be there.
My recommendation is to turn this off by default, instead of automatic, and go manual. MacBooks come with hardware keys which lets you increase or decrease the brightness on will.
- Keep the F5 key pressed, and until you see the backlight gone or set to the desired level.
- Next, Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Uncheck the option which says Adjust keyboard brightness in low light. You can also set to turn it off when the computer is not used to 5 sec.
Close heavy applications
This is one of the best tips you will get. Why? MacBooks have such incredible battery life we tend to keep the apps running even when not using it. I would suggest closing applications like FCP, iTunes, iCloud if you are not using it or close it when you are done.
Adjust Screen Brightness.
The screen of a MacBook makes almost anything beautiful. They not only offer great contrast but also offers impressive battery life. Even if you lower the brightness by 40% it looks good enough to get the regular job done. I usually run it at 50% brightness.
To lower screen brightness, keep the F1 key pressed until the brightness is at a level just tolerable enough to view comfortably. That done, lets now disable the auto adjustment for display.
- Open System Preferences >Energy Saver > Switch to Battery tab.
- Make sure to put hard disk to sleep when possible.
- Check the option which says Slightly dim the display when on battery power.
- Disable Power Nap if you don’t want apps to run in the background.
- Set Turn off display after to 5 minutes. You can adjust based on the kind of work you do.
- You may choose the same setting for Power Adapter mode as well which helps when the MacBook is low on battery.
Disable MacBook Pro / Air Screen from Dimming with Ambient Light
Now if you have a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air and your screen brightness is still adjusting, it is because of the ambient light sensor. we can change this using display setting.
- Open System Preferences > Displays.
- Uncheck the checkbox which says “Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes”
- Next, select a brightness level which suits you best by moving the sliders to the left.
- Close System Preferences
Quit Applications which consume more power
Just like any Operating System, apps on MacOS X can go rogue and consumer lot of battery without your knowledge. To find out which apps are consuming the battery, let’s follow the steps as below:
- Search for Activity Monitor, Open and then switch to CPU section.
- Click on the column which says “%CPU” to sort them by CPU percentage.
- Now, look out for apps which are consuming higher percentage which looks abnormal compared to others.
- Double click on that app, and it will open another window.
- Select Quit.
- The next obvious step is to figure out if you need that app, and if not uninstall it.
How do you save battery on Macbook OSX? Let us know in the comments.
