4 free battery monitors for your MacBook

What is the best battery monitor for MacBook Pro? If you have had your computer for a couple of years, how worn is the battery? Is it becoming weaker with age. These apps show you.

Apple’s battery technology is better than most rivals and MacBooks last longer than almost any other type of laptop. However, batteries do deteriorate over time and after a year or two, it may not be working as well as it did when it was new. A battery monitor can show the charge status, life left, recharge cycles and general health. Replace the macOS menu bar battery status with a more powerful version. Here are four free ones to choose from.

macOS battery status

macOS shows the current battery status of MacBooks in the menu bar at the right hand side. It shows a small graphic and the percentage (click it to toggle percentage on and off). To see more detailed information about the battery status, hold down the Option key as you click the battery level meter in the menu bar.

The drop-down menu, which has not changed for many years apart from removing the time remaining, shows the battery power source and the condition of the battery. Here you can see that it is normal and if it says anything else then there is a serious battery problem and it probably needs replacing. There isn’t anything you can do to repair a battery when it fails.

Take note of any apps that are using significant energy. In the screen shot there aren’t any, but if you are video editing, watching videos or playing games, you might see apps appear in the list.

Although the battery status menu is useful, barely, there is actually a lot more information available about the battery and macOS simply chooses to hide it. Let’s turn it off and replace it with a better battery status display.

Go to the Apple menu in menu bar on the left and select System Preferences. Find and click Energy Saver and down in the bottom left corner is Show battery status in menu bar. Clear the tick and OS X removes the battery status.

Modern battery technology

Before looking at the battery monitors, it is worth mentioning here a little bit about battery technology. With most things, the more you use them, the faster they wear out. Batteries are the exact opposite and counterintuitively, the more you use them the longer they last. It may sound strange, but a rarely used battery can expire at any time. It is really bad for it to be left discharged and it isn’t much better keeping it fully charged. Use it or lose it.

Battery monitors show cycle counts and this is the number of times a battery has been charged and discharged. This is not the number of times you charge a battery though.

If you use a MacBook on the battery and run it down to 75%, charge it up then run it down to 25% and charge it up again, that is one cycle and not two charges. You used 25% charge the first time and 75% charge the second time making a total of 100%, which is one charge cycle. Basically you add up the percentage used each time and count the times you use 100% of the battery.

The number of cycles a battery can last varies with the MacBook model and not all are equal. Way back in 2008 a MacBook Pro was expected to last 300 cycles (it is never exact, so you could get more than this). That is surprisingly low compared to Macbook Pros from 2011 onwards, which can run for 1,000 cycles. To find out how long your MacBook’s battery is expected to last, see this Apple support document.

Battery Monitor: Health, Info

Battery Monitor is a simple battery status replacement that has a modern interface that is clear and easy to read. It is free in the Mac App Store and the colour scheme and icons are all plain and simple, and it looks good. Click the menu bar icon and you can see the battery capacity (the arrow at the right), and how much it is down compared to the original capacity when the MacBook was new. At the bottom is a health icon, a battery cycle count, and the time remaining on battery power.

A menu button enables you to choose to start Battery Diag at login, and to show the percentage battery and time remaining in the menu bar. An i button displays detailed information such as the remaining battery capacity, full capacity, design capacity, battery temperature and so on.

Battery Diag looks good and works well. If you want a simple replacement for the macOS battery status indicator, this is worth checking out.

The Battery

The Battery is free in the Mac App Store, but has not been updated for five years. It still works though. In some ways it is better than Battery Monitor and it has a display that is packed with information, but it does not show anything in the menu bar apart from an icon. This means that you can’t see the battery status while you are working on your Mac. You have to stop, go to the menu bar and click the icon.

Click the icon and the screen has lots of useful information and at the top is a large battery graphic, the temperature in Celcius and Fahrenheit, percentage charge remaining and power usage in mAh. What’s more, it shows the time remaining according to activity, such as internet browsing, playng music, watching a movie or standby.

The batter health section shows the cycle count, design limit, cycle life remaining, maximum capacity, design capacity and more. The information is very good, but if it had a menu bar status display, it would be better still.

coconutBattery

coconutBattery is an unusual battery monitor because it can be used in several different ways. It can be run as a desktop app on demand and you just run it whenever you want to get a status report on the battery health. It can also be run in menu bar mode as a replacement for the OS X battery status. It can also be used to show the battery condition and status of the iPhone and iPad when they are plugged into the Mac.

Whichever way you run it, the information is the same and it is very detailed. It shows the current charge, maximum and design capacity, temperature, usage, age in days, manufacture date, serial number, manufacturer and so on. It has a history tab that records battery usage and charging, and this enables you to monitor the battery health over time.

Another unusual feature of coconutBattery is that the menu bar information is configurable and you can choose what information to display and in what order. For example, you can show the charge percentage, Watts poswr usage, temperature, and charging/discharging status.

coconutBattery is a great utility and because it can be used in so many ways, as a app, a menu bar indicator, and iPhone and iPad battery checker. There are no fancy graphics or icons, just good information. It's not in the Mac App Store, so you must download it from the website.

Battery Medic

The Battery Medic icon sits in the menu bar like the other apps here and in the preferences it can be configured to show just the battery icon, the percentage charge and the estimated time remaining until the battery is drained.

Click the icon and this free app shows a panel containing useful information and a nice graphic showing the battery charge. It displays the battery health and the battery cycle count, so you can see how near the end of life the battery is. Below is the design capacity, current capacity, temperature, age and current power usage.

A couple of notifications can be set, one for low battery, so you don't run it until it is dead, and another for high battery to avoid charging it to 100% (it may prolong battery life to avoid 100% for extended periods).

This is a simple app, but it looks good and shows the information you need to keep an eye on the battery. Get it from the Mac App Store.