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My 2013 13" MacBook Retina (OS X 10.10.3, Yosemite) shuts down when I have about 20 minutes of battery left. Not sleep, full shut down. It does this with no warning at all.

I seem to remember earlier Mac laptops giving me a low battery warning at around 20% and then putting the machine to sleep (hibernation?) when it gets real low... but never a full shut down.

Does my battery need to be recalibrated? Does the system inaccurately think it has some juice left? Worth mentioning, when I plug it back in and boot it back up, it claims to be at about 15%.

Update: I've done the recalibration thing a couple of times now, but still no difference in performance. What's frustrating is that I never get the low battery warning and the machine doesn't sleep; it shuts down. I've done tons of Googling around and everything I find says exactly what Buscar웃SD suggests below. The one weird thing that I found on Apple's site is this:

"If your portable Mac has a built-in battery, you don’t need to calibrate the battery."

Can't say I've ever heard that before.

Community
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Sam
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  • There are some apps that show the health level of your batter: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-health/id490192174?mt=12 - Have you checked if your battery stands good? – FFrewin Jun 07 '15 at 16:35
  • Would you mind if we reviewed if this can be the canonical version of a question with this? If so - we'd reverse the close direction and migrate some of the better answers here so ideally you could select the answer that best answers the general / canonical - why does this happen and how would someone measure / decide how to fix it. – bmike May 05 '19 at 18:17
  • @bmike Go for it. – Sam May 06 '19 at 19:00

4 Answers4

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I had the same problem with a MacBook Pro mid-2009. Even changing the battery for a "non-official" battery did not solve the problem; I had to take it to an authorised Apple service centre; after that, no problems and still happy as the writing of this (about two years).

Any workaround that you might find online (resetting SMC and/or PRAM, recalibrating, etc) is just a temporary measure, they won't hurt at all and might give you some peace of mind.

Besides changing the battery for a new one, the Apple tech guys have special "secret" programs that can modify certain system flags and parameters.

About a year ago my MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012 (2.7 Quad i7) started with the same exact problem; the shocking news came with an estimate of $975.00 AUD to replace the battery (as it comes glued firmly to the housing you have to replace the unibody bottom including keyboard and trackpad). Still one year later the battery has not degraded at all and I still get 3-4 hours of battery life with full performance settings, but now the message has changed from "Service Battery" to "Replace soon", after this there is still a "Replace now" message.

In brief:

Service Battery means: There might be something wrong with your battery, or it could be nothing, but keep an eye on it.

Replace soon means: Your battery will last less than expected, but there should be no major issues, stay alert.

Replace now means: If you hate carrying around your charger have your battery (or the entire laptop) replaced.

Hope this helps.

Alex CS
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Once in a while (like 3 months or more) you should recalibrate the batter charge percentage. The reason is each time it charges it uses the previous value as basis (and it is a assumption that one was correct) so the error accumulates.

So once in about 3-6 months, you should let your computer shut down because of a´batter warning. Now you did that it it should be behaving better now.

It is not recommended to do the discharge to often (the battery does not like that.)

Ruskes
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  • I've done the recalibration thing a couple of times now, but still no difference in performance. What's frustrating is that I never get the low battery warning and the machine doesn't sleep; it shuts down. I've done tons of Googling around and everything says exactly what you've said. The one weird thing that I found on Apple's site is this: "If your portable Mac has a built-in battery, you don’t need to calibrate the battery." https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14087 Can't say I've ever heard that before. Any other ideas? – Sam Jun 07 '15 at 13:15
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    Can you also add explanation, how to calibrate battery? – skywinder Feb 19 '17 at 08:23
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    yes, if this is the answer, please include steps to recalibrate the battery. – pixelfairy Jul 08 '17 at 18:26
  • fyi: I found this article http://www.tomsguide.com/faq/id-2349626/calibrate-battery-macbook.html – pixelfairy Jul 08 '17 at 18:29
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I have the same problem on MacBook Pro Retina, early 2013, OSX 10.10.5 Yosemite. Shutting down without warning around 22%. In the battery menu it says "Service the battery". The reset of the SMC didn't help. Yesterday I asked at Genius Bar about this. The answer was "We need to investigate it and probably you will have to replace the battery." It is not free and they need to keep my computer for few days, not good option for me. After the visit at Apple I tried to drain the battery totally by restarting several times after it shut down. And it was shutting down again and again quite quickly, the charge indication was changing a bit irregularly, sometimes 17% then up to 19% then lower again. I left it for the night, restarted in the morning and it worked normally. The battery went down from around 18% to 2% and went to sleep normally. There was no more message about the Battery Service. Now plugged and charging, around 20% I have the "Service battery" message again. I do not find any fix for it.

Gérard
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I have the same issue.

Probable Cause: If you let your computer "overcharge" meaning, you let it charge over night, or keep it connected to charger for a long duration after it has reached 100% you are damaging the battery. On a monthly basis, you should let the battery "die" because it is good for the battery cycle, as I've been told my Mac tech experts.

You have to wonder why they can't or haven't re-engineered these machines to simply reject charge after 100% to not suffer this damage lest it is a typical profit-making scheme.

Myles Brawer
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  • Can yopu provide a citation for this I thought that computers have been reengieered as you say – mmmmmm Nov 15 '16 at 14:12
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    This is utterly false. Overcharge protection has been built into all laptops (PC and Mac) for decades now. – Allan Nov 15 '16 at 14:54