The last thing you want is for your MacBook’s battery to die when you need it most. While Mac laptops do offer solid battery life compared to many competitors, even the best batteries decline with age. Batteries are consumable, but you can enhance 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 a few simple clicks. These will help you squeeze 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. This tool offers a neat interface that lists all the battery vitals for your MacBook.
The app displays the 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 for yourself. Power History is a premium feature that helps you gain useful insights. It displays dynamic power consumption graphs and beam notifications when the battery consumption exceeds a certain threshold.
Download: Battery Health 2 (Free, in-app purchases available)
2. Coconut Battery
Coconut Battery is another stalwart of macOS battery monitoring tools that focuses on the basics. Despite its 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 also lets you record battery status at different intervals of time and save the log accordingly. Lastly, the tool also lets you check the battery status of your iOS device if it’s connected to your Mac via USB or Wi-Fi.
Download: Coconut Battery (Free, premium version available)
iStat Menus comes in handy if you want to add advanced stats like Fan Speed, Memory Consumption, and Network Indicators. Apart from this, iStat Menu also offers an insightful battery monitoring tool that helps you keep abreast with the battery vitals. The tool displays Battery Health, Cycles, and Condition.
iStat Menus displays the Time Remaining on your current charge, along with a list of apps that are hogging resources. Hovering your mouse on each of these options will lead you to advanced stats to help better deduce the battery’s condition. Make sure you’ve put our tips for better MacBook battery life to use, too.
Download: iStat Menus ($10, free trial available)
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 a pretty easy-to-use app filled with useful features to monitor your Mac’s battery with the click of a button.
Download: Battery Monitor (Free)
5. Better Battery 2
Another easy-to-use app that you can download and start using in seconds is Better Battery 2. After you install the app, you’ll be able to see a list of all your battery information. From Current Charge to your battery’s Current Capacity, and even the date your battery was manufactured and its current age.
If you want all the features Better Battery 2 offers, you’ll need to upgrade and buy the premium version. But the good news is that the free version will have more than enough information for you to manage your battery on your MacBook.
Download: Better Battery 2 (Free, in-app purchases available)
6. Endurance
Endurance is a more active battery management tool that aims to help Mac users increase the battery life. It switches your Mac into a low-power mode as soon as the battery level falls below a certain percentage. The tool saves power by Dimming the screen, Monitoring Expensive Apps, Monitoring Flash Plugin, Slowing Down Processor, and Hiding Background Apps.
You can choose the trigger levels at which you want Endurance mode to kick in. I’ve observed a substantial increase in battery life after using this mode. In essence, the app lets you easily decide between performance and battery life. There is a low-power mode in macOS, but some users find Endurance is even more effective. Try it out for yourself with the free trial.
Download: Endurance ($20, free trial available)
Bonus: Built-In Power Info
Apple has been thoughtful enough to include a battery cycle tool in macOS. The tool is not as comprehensive as those above; however, it does offer basic functionalities. In order to access the built-in battery information tool, follow these steps:
- Hold the Option key and click on the Apple menu.
- Select System Information.
- Under the Hardware section, select the Power tab.
The Battery Information heading displays Cycle Count, Condition, Charge Remaining, and Battery Voltage. Ideally, a MacBook Air battery should last for a thousand charge cycles. Earlier models had a lower maximum cycle count, though.
When Enough Is Enough
Monitoring and managing your Mac’s battery life with all the apps we’ve listed above is an excellent start. It’ll allow you to find out which apps blast through your battery faster than others, so you can limit their usage whenever you need to use your Mac for a long time without plugging it in.
However, eventually your battery will degrade to the point that any app will drain the power astonishingly quickly. When it gets to this point, the first step you should take is looking at replacing the battery. But if that isn’t possible—or if it’s prohibitively expensive—then it may be a sign you need to replace your Mac.
Take Control of Your Battery
All the tools on the list are easy to use, and they’ll give you a better insight into your MacBook’s battery. Whether you’re looking to keep your battery as healthy as possible, or your MacBook has started to act weird and is shutting down randomly, these battery management tools are your best options.
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