While MacOS 27 Golden Gate is overall a great system software release, that’s not to say it’s perfect and without user complaints. One issue that is cropping up for some MacOS 27 users, myself included, is poor battery performance. Battery life issues and complaints are fairly common to crop up during the initial release period of major new operating systems, and macOS Golden Gate is no different in this regard.
Often the complaints about battery life also include perceived sluggishness to the Mac in general, and sometimes the Mac is also warm or hot to the touch. Those are indicators that a lot of system activity is occurring behind the scenes, and that’s all typically related with the reduction in battery life.
If you’re experiencing issues with reduced battery life with MacOS 27 Golden Gate, read along to better understand the issue, what could be the cause, and what to do about it.
My MacBook Air/Pro?Neo Battery Life Now Just 2 Hours?! What the?
Some users report that Mac laptop battery life has suffered tremendously after installing the MacOS 27 Golden Gate release.
For example, battery life on my particular MacBook Air has been reduced to just over 2 hours of usage since installing MacOS 27 Golden Gate final. Curiously, this is notably worse than earlier betas, which suggests the significant reduction in battery life is associated with some of the standard processes of upgrading to a final version of a new operating system, plus perhaps some quirks, incompatibilities with third party software, or even bugs.
Again, it’s fairly common for users to experience a temporary reduction in battery life after installing a major new system software update like MacOS 27 Golden Gate, so let’s explore this topic further, including some tips that might help you if you’re experiencing worse battery life with MacOS 27.
1: Just Upgraded to MacOS 27 Golden Gate and Battery Life is Worse? Allow Background Tasks & Indexing to Complete
Upgrading to MacOS 27 Golden Gate kicks off a whole series of indexing and background tasks to allow for features like Siri, new Siri AI, improved photos search, improved files and app search, improvements to Spotlight, iCloud syncing, and more. When these background tasks are running, performance on the Mac can potentially be reduced, leading to sluggish performance and reduced battery life, but the good news is that once they’re all finished, everything speeds up again, and battery life should return to normal.
Keep in mind that the more files, photos, and stuff you have on the Mac, the longer this series of background tasks and indexing processes can take to finish.
The best way to handle this is to simply keep a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Neo attached to a power source and turned on for a few days, including overnights. If your Mac has a lot of stuff like mine does, with a nearly full 1TB SSD, the indexing processes could take even longer. Patience is really important here, so give your Mac plenty of time plugged in and unused so that things can index properly.
1: Reduce Liquid Glass and Transparency Effects
I’m a big fan of the Clear icons and have grown to really like the Liquid Glass look with full transparency, but all of that eye candy can come with a cost to battery performance as it requires CPU and GPU to draw all of those fancy visual effects on screen. Particularly for Mac users like myself who have many open apps, windows, and browser tabs open at a time, all of those transparent and translucent windows, icons, and interface items, undoubtedly create more load on MacOS, and MacOS 27 Golden Gate is not immune to that.
You can reduce system load of the fancier effects of the graphical user interface by reducing the intensity of Liquid Glass, or using the Reduce Transparency accessibility setting.
- Go to System Settings > Appearance > Liquid Glass > Adjust the slider all the way to TINTED rather than transparent
To remove transparency effects throughout the MacOS 27 interface:
- Go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency > ON
Overall Reduce Transparency usually has more of an impact both on the visual look and feel, as well as resource usage on the Mac. If your Mac battery is suffering, or the Mac just feels a bit more sluggish, try toying with these settings.
2: Close Unnecessary Apps, Browser Tabs, Processes
This is basic performance advice, but it impacts your MacBook battery life as well; close out of stuff you don’t need.
The more open apps, browser windows and browser tabs, and processes you have running, the more system resources are needed to maintain those apps, browsers, and tabs.
Web browsers in particular are notorious for being immensely hungry for resources, consuming significant amounts of memory and CPU. The more browser tabs and windows you have open, the more susceptible you will be to this being a potential drag on your battery life, so get in the habit of closing things you do not need.
3: Use Activity Monitor to Locate the Biggest Culprits
Activity Monitor has an “Energy” tab that can be used to determine what is consuming energy on the Mac, which directly impacts the Mac battery life. This is also where you can see the amount of time your Mac has been used on battery, as well as time remaining on battery.
- Open Activity Monitor via Spotlight (command+spacebar, type Spotlight, hit return)
- Go to the “Energy” tab and sort by “Energy Impact”
- Evaluate processes and subprocesses (browser windows/tabs) for the energy hungry culprits and target those apps and processes directly
- Assess battery time information within Activity Monitor as well
4: Reduce Display Brightness
One of the easiest ways to boost your Mac battery life (or any electronic device for that matter, iPhone and iPad included), is to reduce the display brightness. The dimmer the display, the less the backlighting will draw power.
You will typically find the most battery benefits at the lowest brightness, so anytime you’re running on battery power find the lowest acceptable brightness level for your work. Less energy usage means longer battery life.
5: Try Low Power Mode
Low Power Mode on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Neo will reduce energy usage by throttling CPU, leading to longer battery life while the feature is enabled. You can use this to get some additional battery life out of your Mac, perhaps another hour or two depending on how you use the Mac, but be aware that you might notice a performance hit as well.
- Enter Low Power Mode on Mac laptops by going to Battery menu > Low Power Mode
6: Install MacOS 27.x Updates & App Updates As They Become Available
You will want to install any available MacOS 27.X updates when they become available, because if there are any issues that are known to impact battery or performance, they will almost certainly be resolved in system updates.
Additionally, keep your apps updated, because sometimes one app is not optimized well and can lead to performance issues including reductions to battery life and longevity.
If you are experiencing less than ideal battery life with the first release version of MacOS 27.0, you will want to be sure you install MacOS 27.1, MacOS 27.2, MacOS 27.3, MacOS 27.4, etc, basically any MacOS 27.x update, as they become available. Often the first or second major point release update includes tons of bug fixes and can address issues that might exist on the prior release, including things that can impact battery life and battery drain.
So be on the lookout for MacOS 27.x updates and app updates, and install them when they become available, as they could resolve whatever issue you’re facing, including subpar battery life. This is not without precedent, in fact we can turn to recent history with the release of macOS Tahoe, when MacOS 26.1 notably improved battery life compared to the prior MacOS 26.0 release.
What is your battery life in macOS 27 Golden Gate? Is it better, worse, the same?
How has your battery life and battery experience been with your MacBook since updating to MacOS 27 Golden Gate? Have you noticed any change at all, for better, or for worse? Did you let your Mac complete indexing tasks, or is your Mac still in that early indexing period where background activity, iCloud syncing, etc, is still ongoing and thus reducing battery life?
Share your battery experiences with MacOS 27 Golden Gate in the comments below, we are curious to hear from you.
