Back when Apple started throttling devices with degraded batteries, much ado was made around iPhone battery health. So much ado, in fact, that they not only published a very lenghty explanatory page about it, they also added a profusion of battery-related functionality to iOS. Graphs, buttons, statistics: you name it, it’s in the Battery section of the Settings app.
But what about iOS’s older cousin the good ol’ Mac? Nothing. In fact, Apple even removed the timer telling you how long your charge was estimated to last. Thankfully, free macOS utility coconutBattery comes to our aid.
It’s one of those small, lightweight utility apps you keep installed on your Mac and go back to from time to time. It’s simple, it does only a few things, but does them well.
At a glance, you can see a significant amount of information not only about your battery, but about your Mac in general. By clicking on Mac or Battery info, you can get even more detailed information about both. You can see from my screenshot above that my MacBook Pro is about 3 years old, and its battery is at 77% capacity. This means that even if I were to fully charge it, I would only get 77% the power I was getting when I bought it. Bummer.
One of the features I like the most however, which you get as part of the free plan, is the following. If I make my way to the History tab, I can manually add datapoints, “snapshots” of the battery’s health in time, if you will.
All that’s really nice, however the true magic happens when you click on the “coconutBattery Online” button. When you do so, you’ll be able to see your battery’s performance compared to that of everyone else using your same device who chose to share it. It’s a fantastic way to tell whether or not your Mac’s battery is doing ok. Mine… isn’t.
If you plug your iOS device to your Mac, you’ll also be able to see your iPhone or iPad’s battery performance, however not the green graph. This has been somewhat obviated by Apple’s own Battery Health submenu, but it’s still there nonetheless. The app also has a Pro tier, which adds some more features and analysis tools. I personally did not feel the need to upgrade, but the choice is yours.
coconutBattery is truly a nifty piece of software, a must-have for Mac users. You can download it here for free.