You’re working on an important project when all of a sudden, your computer screen goes dark. When you push the power button to turn it back on, the battery icon pops up to tell you that your device is dead.
You feel like it never takes long at all for your MacBook battery life to come to a screeching halt. It makes it hard for you to get any work done. We can teach you how to squeeze as much power out of your laptop as possible.
Check out this guide for a few tried and true battery saving methods that will extend your work productivity.
1. Keep an Eye on Your Battery Percentage
Keeping a watchful eye over your MacBook Pro battery life percentage isn’t going to make it last much longer. What it can do is help you figure out how to use what power you have left productively.
All you have to do to check how much juice you have left is to click on the battery icon in the top right corner of your screen. The dropdown box will show you the exact percentage.
2. Dim the Display
One of the things that will make your MacBook Air battery life go down the fastest is your display. The brighter your screen is, the more power it’s going to use up. Just make sure that you don’t set your brightness down so low that you’re straining your eyes.
If you’re working in a bright environment, your screen is set up to automatically adjust with it. Do yourself a favor and turn that feature off. It will save you a ton of power in the long run.
3. Update Your Software When Prompted
When developers come up with a new battery-saving feature, they release it in the form of a software update. If you never download the update, you won’t have the option to use these helpful features.
So, when your computer prompts you to download the new OS, don’t put it off. It might take an hour or so but let the update happen.
If you suspect that you might have a pending update, go over to your system preferences and click on the system update icon. There you’ll be able to both see and download any updates you have available. You can also check the “automatically keep my Mac up to date” box to well, keep your Mac up to date.
4. Turn Off Your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
You’re watching a movie on a plane. You get about half-way through the movie before your computer turns off. You should have shut off your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth during the film.
If you’re not using the internet to work, your Wi-Fi should be turned off. It’s a huge energy sink that can be done without. Besides, turning it off can also up your productivity.
If you can’t reach your social media because your internet is off, you won’t have anything there to turn your attention away from your work.
5. Find Out What’s Eating Your Power
There are certain programs that eat up more power than others. There’s a simple way to find out what these programs are so you can turn them off.
Click on the battery icon at the top of your screen again. There will be a section in that dropdown box that says “using significant energy”.
That section will show you every program that’s using up power. Once you close them, your battery should deplete at a less rapid pace.
6. Kill the Backlights
Having a backlit keyboard is pretty handy. They allow you to see what you’re typing no matter how dark the room you’re working in is. You don’t really need to have yours on at noon in your well-lit office, though.
It’s wasting power instead of guiding your fingertips across the keys. Go to your system preferences and click on the keyboard icon. There you can set the light to go off after a certain amount of inactivity.
7. Change Your Preferences
Next, we’re going to play around with your energy-saving preferences a little further. Go to your preferences menu and click on the battery icon. When you do that, you’ll see a slider that says “turn display off after”.
Go ahead and drag that bar down low as it will go. The lower you set it, the more energy you’ll end up saving. From the battery menu, go to the power adapter tab.
Check the box that says “put hard disks to sleep when possible”. If the “enable power nap” box is checked, uncheck it. If you leave it active your computer will use up power even when it’s sleeping.
8. Remove Any Dongles You’re Not Using
You plug a flash drive into your computer so you can move some files over. Once you’re done, you space out and leave the device plugged into your laptop.
Every second that it stays plugged in, it’s zapping power away from your machine. The same goes if you plug your phone or tablet into your computer.
It will charge the device by pulling the battery from your laptop. Never forget to unplug any dongles that you’re not using.
If unplugging the dongles and performing the other battery saving tips you’ve read here doesn’t help, the problem is most likely your Mac battery health. Check to make sure that you don’t need a replacement.
Keep Your MacBook Battery Life Chugging Along
Is your MacBook battery life not holding up long enough for you to get any work done? The fix to this problem is as simple as adjusting your system preferences or figuring out what program is eating up the most power and turning it off.
Once you do that, you should be able to use your laptop for hours without the screen turning off on you.
Are you looking for more ways to keep your Mac in tip-top shape? Check out the tech section of our blog daily for even more posts like this one.
