How to Boost Your Battery Life
Battery-saving tips and tricks for MacBooks!
Is wimpy battery life leaving you power-less? We’ve got tips for getting the most from your MacBook on a single charge.
1. Turn Down the Brightness
The easiest way to save power is to reduce your screen’s brightness with the F1 and F2 keys on your keyboard. You can fine-tune these settings in System Preferences > Displays.
The brighter the screen, the faster your battery croaks.
2. Turn Off Wireless Services
If you don’t use Bluetooth peripherals, turn that Bluetooth radio off.
Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth delivers a noticeable bump in battery life because your MacBook won’t waste juice seeking internet hotspots or Bluetooth devices. To turn off Bluetooth, go to System Preferences > Bluetooth and uncheck On. If you rely on Bluetooth peripherals, consider unchecking Discoverable to keep your computer from responding to new Bluetooth requests. If you don’t need wireless internet access, click the AirPort icon in the menu bar (or navigate to System Preferences > Network) and select Turn AirPort Off.
Same goes for Wi-Fi. You’ll be surprised by how much these two radios zap your battery!
3. Switch to Integrated Graphics
Older MacBook Pros let you switch between power-sipping integrated graphics cards and dedicated cards that eat batteries for breakfast. To make the switch, go to System Preferences > Energy Saver. There you can choose “Better battery life” or “Higher performance.” Note that switching cards in some MacBook Pros requires you to log out for the change to take effect.
Older MacBook Pros let you fiddle with custom settings for battery life vs. performance.
If you have a newer Pro, Apple’s stripped out this feature for reasons only they understand, but you can install handy donationware that gives you the same powers. It’s called gfxCardStatus, and you can download a copy and get installation info at codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus.
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