Think your M4 MacBook Air is losing battery too fast? While there is a slight chance this is happening, there’s likely a better explanation for why you might see your battery drain. It’s likely you may have seen Apple’s advertisement boasting all-day battery life in a MacBook. While the battery life of the M4 MacBook Air is rather impressive, there should be a figurative asterisk next to Apple’s statement.
It is entirely possible to get a long-lasting charge from your MacBook, but what you are using it for is going to have a great impact on the life of your battery.
Looking at the official specs of the machine, Apple promises 18 hours of video streaming alongside 15 hours of wireless web, all through the 53.8-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. Note that lithium-polymer is a bit different than the typical lithium-ion battery you might be accustomed to, however, taking care of lithium-polymer (LiPo) requires the same care as lithium-ion (Li-Ion), if not more so. Lithium-polymer is a bit different from lithium-ion, in that LiPo relies on dry, solid/gel electrolytes, whereas Li-ion batteries use liquid electrolytes.
Just like lithium-ion, lithium-polymer should never be overcharged. Also, just like lithium-ion, you want to avoid charging your device fully whenever possible, keeping the battery around ninety-five percent instead. You’ll also want to avoid storing the battery in extreme temperatures, and recharge it whenever you can. Knowing how to properly maintain your battery is great for extending its life.
Potential Issues with MacBook: Losing Energy Too Fast
Considering the M4 MacBook Air saw release in March 2025, it’s likely too early for you to have personally done damage to your battery, unless you’ve been doing something especially harmful. Let’s take my CPU performance test as an example. After running all 10 cores for as long as the battery allowed, I found the battery level dropping significantly. In fact, running all 10 cores at once would likely give me about two hours of battery life from a full charge.
Essentially, the harder you push the CPU, the faster you’re going to deplete your battery. So if you feel your battery is randomly dropping, the first thing to consider is which programs and apps you’re using. If you’re gaming, exporting/editing video, or doing anything to push the M4 chip to its limits, you’re likely going to lose battery quickly.
Your MacBook is equipped with some tools to keep an eye on your battery metrics, and also has some settings you can peruse to extend its life further.
Tools of the Trade: What’s Included with Your Mac
By now, you should be aware that you can access your battery settings at any time via Apple > System Settings > Battery from the menu bar. Not only does this menu give you your battery stats from the last 24 hours and the last 10 days (including energy usage and screen time), but you can check your battery health here as well.
Along with being able to check the metrics of your battery, clicking Options in the bottom-right corner of the menu will give you a selection of choices that can help you preserve your battery. This includes a couple of different features for fine-tuning, such as optimizing video streaming while using the battery and preventing sleeping on power adapter while the display is off.
Something else you should be familiar with is Activity Monitor. This app, typically found in Applications > Utilities, is great for checking metrics such as your battery and CPU. The Energy tab within Activity Monitor can provide some information about your battery, including the energy impact of specific apps, whereas the CPU tab can inform you what apps are hogging all your resources.
The Final Word: Is My M4 MacBook Air Losing Battery?
Considering the device has only been on the market for a little over 2 months at the time of this writing, it’s pretty unlikely that your battery is going bad already. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t. If you find that your battery is draining quickly even with minimal use, you may want to first consider checking for a software update.
If after performing an update, viewing your Battery settings and Activity Monitor is yielding no results, you may want to consider contacting Apple Support. Though there are currently no reports of users receiving defective batteries en masse, it’s possible you may have a bad one. However, I would highly recommend ensuring you’ve followed the tips above before contacting Apple.
Proper care of your MacBook will go a long way in extending its life, as will keeping an eye on your workload. If you think you’re having an issue, finding the proper resources is the first step towards a solution.