What does energy impact mean on a Mac, and which number should you trust?
Energy impact is a relative score, not watts. On our Mac WindowServer scored up to 65 while kernel_task scored 0 at 67% CPU. How to read it and act on it.
730 guides
Mac storage, explained.
What fills your disk, where it hides, and what is safe to remove. Every guide gives you a way to check it on your own Mac.
Why your MacBook battery drains overnight while asleep, and how to see what woke it
A sleeping Mac still wakes itself. Ours logged 49 dark wakes in two days, most for scheduled maintenance. How to read the wake log and cut overnight drain.
Why your Mac's battery time remaining keeps changing
The time remaining estimate follows what the Mac is doing this minute. On ours it read 1h 0m, 1h 24m and 1h 38m within an hour at similar charge. How to read it.
How to keep a Mac awake with caffeinate, and how to tell when something is using it
caffeinate keeps a Mac awake from Terminal, for a set time or while a command runs. Our Mac had it holding off sleep for a tool. The flags and how to spot it.
How to read and change your Mac's sleep settings with pmset
pmset shows every power setting, including ones System Settings hides. Ours slept the display after 2 minutes on battery with hibernatemode 3. What each one means.
Power Nap on a Mac: what it does while asleep, and whether to turn it off
Power Nap wakes a sleeping Mac to fetch mail, sync and back up. Ours had it on, and its log showed regular maintenance wakes. How to check it and turn it off.
What is preventing your Mac from sleeping, and how to find it with pmset
pmset -g assertions names every process holding a Mac awake. On ours it was a caffeinate call, and powerd while the display was on. How to read the list.
Reading your Mac's battery with ioreg: amperage, voltage and the MaxCapacity trap
ioreg shows a Mac battery's raw readings, and two of them mislead on Apple silicon: MaxCapacity says 100 and amperage prints as a huge number. How to read them.
Low Power Mode on a Mac: how to turn it on, and from Terminal
Low Power Mode lowers the Mac's speed and brightness to stretch the battery. How to turn it on in settings or with pmset, and when it is worth it.
How to see which app is using the internet on a Mac, with nettop
nettop lists data in and out per process. On our Mac the top three were all macOS: apsd, mDNSResponder and a browser helper. How to read it and what is normal.
What compressed memory means on a Mac, and why 3 GB of it is fine
macOS compresses memory it is not using right now instead of writing it to disk. Ours held 6.4 GB of data in 3.1 GB of compressed memory. How it works.
What wired memory means on a Mac, and why you cannot free it
Wired memory is held by macOS itself and can never be compressed or swapped. Ours was 1.5 GB of 8 GB. What uses it and when a large figure means something.