How to check the battery level on a laptop. How to check remaining battery life on MacBook Sierra mac os how much battery life

Prior to macOS Sierra version 10.12.2, you could click on the battery icon in the menu bar to see how much time your MacBook's battery had left, which as a rough estimate is more useful than seeing the remaining battery percentage. Luckily, there are cheap or free apps that bring the display of remaining battery life back to the menu bar. And if you don't want to install a separate application for this purpose, you can also turn to Activity Monitor. Let's look at the options.

Menu bar applications.

There are a number of apps that can add a battery icon to the menu bar with battery health and status information. I've reviewed a whole bunch of them and I'm giving you two recommendations: one is free and the other is $75. Both apps are available on the App Store.

The free app is called Battery Monitor, developed by Rocky Sand Studio. It places an icon in the menu bar that shows the percentage of battery remaining. Click on the icon and you will see a battery statistics panel, including the remaining time at the bottom. When you click the gear icon in the top right corner to open app preferences, you can change what's shown in the menu bar from percentage to time remaining.

The paid app is called Battery Time Indicator. It adds the remaining time to the menu bar, but it does so in a more elegant way than the free app. By default, its menu bar icon shows the remaining time, and the app places the hours and minutes inside the icon for a more compact display of information. The app doesn't show any of the battery status information you see in the free app.

If you choose to use the menu bar app, there is no need to have two battery icons there. To hide the built-in battery indicator, click on it and then select "Open Power Saving Options". Then uncheck "Show battery status in menu bar".

Activity monitor.

If you feel the need to check your battery hours and minutes only occasionally and don't want to install an extra app, then you can use the Activity Monitor to get a quick estimate.

Open Activity Monitor, and then go to the Power Options tab. Below the energy impact statistics from each of the applications running on the computer, there is a small bar that shows the percentage of remaining charge, elapsed and remaining battery life.

So that the discharge of a laptop during offline operation does not come as a surprise, you need to constantly monitor the battery level. This can be done using the built-in Windows tools or through special utilities.

Checking the charge level

To find out the battery charge, just look at the notification area. There should be an icon that shows the status and mode of operation - offline or plugged in. But if it's simple, why do users have a question, where to look for information about charging a laptop?

Sometimes the taskbar icon disappears. It can be returned through the control panel, but there are other ways to find out the charge level. For example, on Windows 10, you can go to the "System" section in the settings and go to the "Power saver" tab. At the top you will see the level and approximately the remaining time.

By clicking on the "Battery Usage" link, you will be able to see which apps are using the most power.

You can monitor the battery status and battery life using special utilities - BatteryCare, Battery Optimizer, Battery Eater Pro, etc. These programs allow you to optimize the performance of your laptop by showing the battery life when different settings. In addition, some manufacturers build proprietary utilities into laptops that control battery life. For example, on Lenovo laptops, the Energy Management program is responsible for power management, through which you can also find out the battery status.

Charge icon return

If the laptop battery icon has disappeared from the notification panel, you can quickly return it by setting the display of system icons. On Windows 8 and 7:

If the laptop is running Windows 10, then the procedure is performed differently:


View battery capacity

If your laptop's battery level drops sharply and you're running out of battery life, then check the battery capacity. Capacity decreases over time, so even if the icon in the notification area shows a battery level of 100%, in fact, the battery may be 50 percent charged from its original capacity. Why is this happening? This is due to the wear and tear of the laptop battery, which needs to be changed in a timely manner.

To find out the laptop battery capacity, use the Windows command line:

  1. Launch command prompt with administrator rights.
  2. Execute "powercfg -energy".
  3. Wait for the diagnostics to complete and the report to be generated.

Another way to find out the degree of battery wear is to look at it using the AIDA64 program. This diagnostic utility shows the status of all laptop components, including battery capacity and charge. Therefore, even if the battery icon is gone, you can see the charge level in AIDA64.


AIDA64 offers free demo access for 30 days. After this period, you must buy a license or stop using the utility.

Power setting

If there is no way to replace the battery, and you urgently need to increase the battery life, then try to optimize the performance of your computer by adjusting the power supply. You can do this through the control panel:


On Windows 10, there are even more options for customization. On the Battery Saver tab in the System section of Windows Settings, you can enable the feature of the same name (only available when running on battery power).

If you go to "Saving Options", you can manually set the level at which the feature will automatically activate. This allows you to seriously extend the battery life, albeit with some limitation on the performance of the laptop.

The icon may be hidden.

For battery icon display:

  • right-click an empty area on the taskbar and select Properties;
  • in the notification area, click Setting;
  • in the window Notification area icons click ;
  • On the page Turn system icons on or off, In chapter Behavior click Turn on in the drop-down list next to the item Food and press the OK button.

Why does the battery icon keep changing

battery icon changes view to indicate that the computer is plugged in or running on battery power. It shows that the battery is still being charged or has a full charge.

The battery icon also indicates the remaining charge in 10% increments and changes appearance if the charge reaches a low or critical level. The icon also changes if no battery is detected.

The table below explains the meanings of the various battery icons.

Battery status

Explanation

The computer is connected to the mains.

The battery icon flashes briefly when the computer is connected to the network for the first time. While the battery is charging, the indicator shows the increase in charge in 10 percent increments, starting at 10 percent. If the icon indicates an increase in charge, the battery may not provide information about the state of charge. If the computer is connected to the network for a long time and the battery level remains low, the problem may be caused by the computer's hardware. If the batteries are not new, it may be suitable for a full charge.

The battery is fully charged.

The computer is connected to the network, the battery is fully charged.

The computer is running on battery power and the battery is draining.

When the computer is running on battery power, the indicator shows how much charge is left in 10 percent increments until the charge drops to a low level.

The battery is empty.

The battery charge has reached a low level.

Note: If the low battery indicator is more than 25 percent, the low battery icon will not appear.

The battery is discharged to a critical level.

The battery charge has reached a critically low level. By default, when the battery charge reaches a critical level, the battery charge indicator displays critical battery level alerts and the laptop enters sleep mode.

Battery condition unknown.

The remaining battery power cannot be determined.

Windows cannot find the battery in the battery bay, or the battery is not working properly.

The computer is connected to the network and the battery is not found or the battery is not working properly. The battery may not be installed in the battery bay, or the battery or computer hardware may be faulty.

Why sometimes the battery indicator changes abruptly

Electricity consumption is constantly changing, depending on the type of activity and its duration. For example, watching a DVD consumes more power than reading and writing messages. For these reasons, the battery indicator may delay charge reports and remaining runtime estimates.

How to hide the battery icon in the notification area

  1. Right-click an empty area on the taskbar and select Properties.
  2. In the notification area, click Setting.
  3. In the window Notification area icons click Turn system icons on or off.
  4. On the page Turn system icons on or off near the point Food click and press the OK button.

Developers from Apple have not yet cut the standard System Monitor utility. And so open the explorer Finder → Programs → Utilities and run the program. Go to the " Energy". The remaining battery time counter will be displayed at the bottom of the window.

But if you mostly work on battery power, and not on the mains and often looked at the battery icon in the menu bar, then this option can cause some discomfort. To avoid such routine actions, we offer alternative options.

CoconutBattery

CoconutBattery- this is a good utility that demonstrates not only the remaining battery life, but also indications of battery survivability (temperature, number of recharge cycles, capacity and condition). It is convenient that the program is presented not only as a window, but also as a compact menu, almost identical to the system solution.

In order to activate the ability to see the charge in the menu bar, open the program settings ( menu “soconutBattery” → Preferences or press keyboard shortcut Command (⌘) + comma).

Check the boxes next to " launch at startup” (launching the application along with system boot) and “ Show icons in menu bar”, to display the indicator.

True, now you will see two indicators in the menu bar: one - CoconutBattery, and one - system. To remove the system one, click on it and click " Open power saving settings...» or go to menu  → System settings… → Energy saving.

At the bottom of the display, uncheck " Show battery status in menu bar».

By the way, CoconutBattery can show information not only about the MacBook battery, but also about any mobile device. To do this, connect the device to the Mac and go to the appropriate tab in the main program window.

Returning the indicator to the regular menu

Perfectionists will definitely prefer working with a clean system, and therefore we propose to do several actions that return the removed indicator. You can do this by replacing the file " battery.menu to the one used in the previous firmware (10.12.1 or later).

If you haven't updated to macOS 10.12.2 yet, open File Explorer Finder and navigate to the following path:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/

You can do this by opening the menu. Go → Go to folder...(keyboard shortcut Shift (⇧) + Command (⌘) + G). Make a copy of the file battery.menu» in any convenient place (for example, on the Desktop).

If you have already updated, then download the file " battery.menu» you can from here (direct link to the archive).

After updating to macOS 10.12.2, replace the original file located in the directory /Menu Extras/.

Attention! Simply replacing it will not work, since the “System” folder is protected. You must disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) before performing these steps.

For this:

1 . Restart your Mac while holding down the keys Command (⌘) + R(release after the Apple logo appears) to start macOS in Recovery Mode.

2 . open Utilities → Terminal.

3 . Type the following command and press the Enter key:

csrutil disable; reboot

4 . Reboot your Mac after you see a warning that SIP is disabled.

Perform an operation to replace the file " battery.menu“, and then repeat steps 1-4 described above, and as a command in the Terminal (step 3) use the following:

csrutil enable

After restarting your Mac, SIP protection will be enabled again, and the MacBook's remaining time indicator will be displayed in the menu bar.

To make sure that the protection is enabled, open the Terminal and enter the following command:

csrutil status

The following message indicates that the protection is activated:

System Integrity Protection status: enabled

If the system is disabled, the following message will be displayed:

System Integrity Protection status: disabled