Pavel Jelic A week and a few days ago, we saw the release of new operating systems from Apple. Specifically, the Californian giant released updates labeled iOS and iPadOS 15.4, macOS 12.3 Monterey, watchOS 8.5 and tvOS 15.4. In our magazine, we cover all these new systems in articles. We've already shown you all the news, and at the moment we're looking at tips that you can use to increase battery life or recover lost performance - a handful of users may have problems with their device after the update. In this article, we will specifically focus on tips to increase the endurance of your Mac after updating to macOS 12.3 Monterey.
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Low power mode
If you want to save battery on your iPhone, you automatically turn on low power mode. This mode can be simply turned on on an Apple phone when the battery charge drops to 20 or 10%, within the dialog window that appears. Portable Macs lacked such a mode for a long time, but we finally got it in macOS Monterey. Low Power Mode on Mac works exactly as it should, and you can activate it in → System Preferences → Battery → Battery, where you check Low power mode
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Do not charge the battery above 80%
Are you one of those people who keep their MacBook on their desk all day plugged in? If so, you should know that it's not exactly ideal. Batteries prefer to be charged between 20 and 80%. Of course, they also work outside this range, but if it is in it for a long time, the battery can lose its properties faster and age prematurely. macOS includes the Optimized Charging function, which is designed to prevent charging above 80% in certain cases. But the truth is that only a handful of users manage to live with the function and guarantee that it works. To all of you I recommend an app instead of this feature Al Dente, which simply stops charging at 80% and you don't have to deal with anything else.
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Working with brightness
The screen is one of the components that consumes the most battery power. The higher the brightness you set, the more demanding the screen is on the battery. To avoid unnecessary battery drain caused by high brightness, macOS has an automatic brightness feature that you should definitely have active. To check, just go to → System Preferences → Monitors, where you can see for yourself check Automatically adjust brightness. In addition, you can activate the function to automatically reduce the brightness after battery power, in → System Preferences → Battery → Battery, where enough activate function Dim the screen brightness slightly when on battery power. Don't forget that you can still control the brightness manually, using the physical keys on the top row, or through the Touch Bar.
Auto brightness
Slight dimming of brightness on battery power
Check for hardware intensive applications
If you have an application running on your Mac that excessively uses the hardware, you must expect that the battery percentage will drop rapidly. From time to time, however, it can happen that the developer simply does not prepare his application for the arrival of a new update, and so certain problems appear after its installation, which can be caused by excessive use of hardware. Fortunately, such an application can be easily identified. Just open the app on your Mac activity monitor, where you then arrange all the processes descending according to cpu %. In this way, the applications that use the hardware the most will appear on the first rungs. If there is an application here that you practically do not use, you can close it - that's enough tap to mark then press the X icon at the top of the window and tap on End, or Force Termination.
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Reduce screen-off time
As already mentioned on one of the previous pages, the display of your Mac is one of the most demanding components on the battery. We've already shown you how to work with brightness, but you should also ensure that the screen turns off as soon as possible when idle to save the most power. To set this option, go to → System Preferences → Battery → Battery, where you use above slider set up after how many minutes should the display turn off when powered from the battery. It should be mentioned that turning off the display is not the same as logging out - it really just turns off the display, so just move the mouse and it will wake up immediately.
Slight dimming of brightness on battery power
