How to check Mac battery consumption?

Working with an optimized Mac machine is adorable by every user in this digitized world. We start downloading and installing applications desperately enough to have in our system to make the things done easily. Once system starts behaving slowly, every user tries to remove duplicate data, defrag large files, removing unused applications and removal of unusable widgets from dashboard in order to get a fine tuned Mac.

Users spend too much time in order to improve Mac performance. But sometimes, it does not seem a feasible task to remove redundant files and folders from a system as it consumes more time. If a user owns a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air then it becomes mandatory to proceed towards the duplicate data removal process with a complete charged battery. Now, it’s a main point to consider that how to track the battery usage time. Which app is eating up more power and not allowing a system to work without carrying spinning beachball?

Although, a user is aware about plugging into power switch before Mac machine battery goes down and keep charging battery until power LED light changes to green or light ring.

Usually, user quits from the running apps forcefully to save power but it can harm machine performance. A worn or damaged battery can affect the performance of Mac. Either it’s a MacBook Pro/ Air/iMac or any OS X device; to get a speed up Mac, it is important to keep track of all the files, folders and applications in terms of the power consumption.

 How to check it in OS X Mavericks?

If Mac is running OS X Mavericks then it is pretty easy to check the battery power consumption, grabbed by the files and applications. Click on ‘Battery’ option in top right bar to know which apps are eating up more energy. Moreover, user can hold ‘option’ key down while clicking on ‘Battery’ option to see the concerned information of an application.

battery option in status bar in Mac machine

 If you are working with a Mac Mini and UPS is connected via USB then its status can be seen in the upper menu bar by simply clicking on the UPS icon.

Once, you click on battery icon, then a new dropdown menu will be opened carrying a different selection of ‘Apps Using Significant Energy’.

items consuming more battery power

• ‘3:20 Remaining’ option in the menu bar tells about the time remaining to either fully discharge, or charge your Mac’s battery, depending on the power source. 
• If ‘Show Percentage’ option is checked then battery percentage is visible with battery icon in status bar.

On the other hand, if you want to know how many apps are running on your Mac machine then launch ‘Activity Monitor’ (Applications>> Utilities). At the top side, different tabs (CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network) will be shown to you. Click on ‘Energy’ tab and see all the applications currently running in Mac.

Now, if you are interested in watching the applications, consuming more power then click on ‘Energy Impact’ column and get the items (for e.g. browser, iTunes, Facebook, iPhoto etc.) sorted by ‘consuming most energy’. At the lowest point, those applications will be there which consumes less power or are running in idle form in background.

applications showing in list in Activity Monitor window

 If you have closed those applications which are consuming most energy and still Mac is suffering from spinning beachball. Then click on ‘Memory’ tab; definitely you will be surprised to see any ‘Kernel’ task busy in system working.

Check from the list and close the applications, which are not in use or halting Mac machine to work and save the battery. Please close all the apps before running any Speed up Mac or any system clean process.