this is my exact opposite experience. my M3 Max from 2 years ago now has <2hrs battery life at best. wondering if any experts here can help me figure out what is going on? what should i be expecting?
I type this from an M3 Max 2023 MBP that still has 98% battery health. But admittedly it's only gone through 102 charge cycles in ~2 years.
(use `pmset -g rawbatt` to get cycle count or `system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 'Health'` to get health and cycles)
That's amazing. I have an early 2023 M2 Max MBP that mostly charges in desktop mode, which limits to 80%. I just looked in battery health and it says 82%. Damn! :(
For giggles, earlier today I asked Apple how much they'd give me for this machine if I traded it in on a brand new $5K M5 Max equivalent. $825. Ouch. I think I will keep it for a few more years. 96GB is enough memory to do anything I want, and it's been such a great performer that it's easily my favorite MacBook ever. I do wish the battery weren't so degraded though.
For anec-science, here goes:
% pmset -g rawbatt
03/03/2026 18:29:51
AC; Not Charging; 76%; Cap=76: FCC=100; Design=6075; Time=1092:15; 0mA; Cycles=63/1000; Location=0;
Polled boot=02/09/2026 07:24:50; Full=03/03/2026 18:24:52; User visible=03/03/2026 18:28:52
% system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 'Health'
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 63
Condition: Normal
Maximum Capacity: 82%I’m not even sure how it got installed, possibly when I installed Zoom for an interview once but I don’t know. Point is, at least in one case, AI can help track down battery hogs.
I'm typing this on an M3 Max; its max battery capacity is 88%. I've got some things running (laptop average temp is 50-55C, fans off), screen is half brightness, and it's projected to go from 90% to 0% in five hours. I don't usually baby it enough to test this, but 8-10 hours should be achievable.
Apple will replace the battery for $249 if you choose to. https://support.apple.com/mac-laptops/repair?services=servic...
The only plausible answers are either: something you’re running is eating CPU/GPU cycles like crazy (browser tabs gone amok, background processes) or you have a defective battery. Use Activity Monitor to look for energy usage and that will give you a pretty good idea.
Unless of course you're doing something that truly sucks down your battery! If I spin up a few Docker instances doing 100% CPU then obviously battery will go down much quicker.
Hot take: people should get used to, and expect to, replace device batteries 1 or 2 times during the device lifetime. They're the main limiting factor on portable device longevity, and engineers make all kinds of design tradeoffs just to make that 1 battery that the device ships with last long enough to not annoy users. If we could get people used to taking their device in for a battery once every couple of years, we could dramatically reduce device waste, and also unlock functionality that's hidden behind battery-preserving mechanisms.
> Hot take: people should get used to, and expect to, replace device batteries 1 or 2 times during the device lifetime.
I agree that people should get used to replacing device batteries, but if you accept that then you should just stop worrying about charge habits. An MBP that doesn't have a defective or extreme-heat-damaged battery should stay above 80% battery capacity for at least 600 charge cycles without any special care at all. That's many years of regular charging, and 80% capacity is still good for all day usage.
And some apps are really inefficient. New Codex app drains my battery. If you are using Codex I recommend minimizing it, since it’s the UI that uses most power.
What in the world is an idle Claude Desktop doing that uses so much power?
Which is fine, I use Firefox usually, but any time I open Chrome it just seems to drain the battery super fast.