Mac OS Low Battery Usage

OS X Settings

Mac OS Low Battery Usage

Introduction

Here are some ideas that may help having a lower energy consumption with Mac OS (OS X, macOS) when you want to save the energy of your MacBook's battery. See also: Mac OS Settings, Operating Systems, Software.

System Preferences

Security & Privacy

Privacy

Location Services

System Services

[ ] Location-Based Suggestions

[ ] Setting Time Zone

Analytics

[ ] Share Mac Analytics

[ ] Share with App Developers

[ ] Share iCloud Analytics

Spotlight

Privacy

Macintosh HD

Energy Saver

[x] Automatic graphics switching

[x] Put hard disks to sleep when possible

[ ] Wake for network access

Keyboard

Text

[ ] Correct spelling automatically

App Store

[ ] Automatically check for updates

Network

[Turn Wi-Fi Off] (of course, only turn off when not needed)

Bluetooth

[Turn Bluetooth Off]

Extensions

Share Menu

[ ] Notes

[ ] Reminders

[ ] Add to Reading List

[ ] Twitter

[ ] Facebook

[ ] LinkedIn

[ ] Add to Aperture

[ ] Add to Photos

[ ] Flickr

[ ] Vimeo

[ ] Sina Weibo

[ ] Tencent Weibo

[ ] Youku

[ ] Tudou

Today

[ ] Calendar

[ ] Weather

[ ] Social

[ ] iTunes

[ ] World Clock

[ ] Find My Friends

[ ] Calculator

[ ] Stocks

Sharing

All off

Users & Groups

Login Items

[ ] iTunesHelper

[ ] AdobeResourceSynchronizer

Siri

[ ] Enable Siri

Date & Time

Time Zone

[ ] Set time zone automatically using current location

Accessibility

VoiceOver

[ ] Enable VoiceOver

Zoom

[ ] Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom

Display

[x] Use grayscale

Speech

[ ] Enable announcements

Keyboard

[ ] Enable Sticky Keys

[ ] Enable Slow Keys

Screen Brightness

Use the lowest possible setting where you still can see considering the environment you are at.

If it is difficult to see, try increasing the zoom factor or font size of the app you are using.

Terminal with apps

w3m for web browsing (instead of Google Chrome)

emacs for editing text files (instead of using LibreOffice for word processing)

Terminal settings

Profiles

Basic 2 (new profile)

Text

Font

SF Mono, 16

Character Spacing: 1

Line Spacing: 1

Window

Window Size

Columns: 165 (depends on the display size)

Rows: 49 (depends on the display size)

Advanced

Text encoding: [Unicode (UTF-8)]

Full Screen

When an app is in full screen mode the operating system can determine to discontinue some background tasks.

You can put two or more apps to full screen view and then use three fingers to swipe left/right on your trackpad to switch between those full-screen apps.

See "System Preferences", "Trackpad", "More Gestures", "Swipe between full-screen apps".

Browser

QupZilla

Firefox

(When comparing web browsers, remember to start them approximately at the same time after starting your computer, use them for the same period of time and use them on the same web pages for more reliable "Avg Energy Impact" on "Activity Monitor".)

PDF Viewer

Preview

Last modified: August 27th, 2018

Author: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com)

URL: http://sites.google.com/site/tomihasa/mac-os-low-battery-usage