Some macOS 12.2 Users Experiencing Bluetooth-Related Battery Drain Issue During Sleep Mode

Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:10 AM

Apple released macOS Monterey 12.2 earlier this week, and some Mac users who have installed the software update are experiencing excessive battery drain during sleep mode, seemingly due to Bluetooth accessories frequently waking the computers.


The issue has been reported by users across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and Twitter over the last several days, but it is unclear how widespread it is.

Affected users say their Mac's battery life drops from 100% to 0% while in sleep mode overnight since updating to macOS 12.2. A few users tried to identify a cause in Terminal and found that Bluetooth accessories are frequently causing a "DarkWake from Deep Idle" that results in the Mac repeatedly waking from sleep, which drains the battery. The issue appears to be affecting both Intel-based Macs and M1-based Macs.


Users report that the issue ceases when Bluetooth is disabled or when all Bluetooth accessories are disconnected from the Mac, but this is not an ideal solution.

Apple seeded the first beta of macOS 12.3 earlier this week, but it is not immediately clear if that version fixes the issue



A number of users are experiencing overnight battery drain on MacBooks in macOS 12.2, and this turns out to be due to a Bluetooth bug that continually wakes the machine from sleep. The bug affects both Intel and M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro machines.

We’ve previously suggested manually toggling Bluetooth off at the end of the day, but now there’s an app for that …


Developer Jordi Bruin created the FluTooth app for his own use and found it solved the problem, so is now sharing it with others.

Toggle Bluetooth automatically when closing your MacBook.

A simple Mac utility that turns off Bluetooth when you close your MacBook, and turns it back on when you open it again.

In an attempt to solve the battery drain issues I was having.

It seemed to solve the problem for me, so sharing it now. Let me know if this doesn’t solve the problem for you, so I can add more things to the app to try to find the cause!

The app is made available as donationware. You can enter any amount (including $0) to download the app. What you may want to do in practice is download it for free, see whether it fixes the problem for you, and return to make a paid download if so. Note that donations are in euros; at the time of writing, $1 = €0.87.

Apple will hopefully fix the problem in the next update, but this could be a handy fix in the meantime.

As we’ve cautioned before, don’t be tempted to skip updating to macOS 12.2.

Inside of Apple’s latest update for Mac are fixes for a wide range of security flaws. macOS 12.2 patches 13 serious security bugs ranging from the Safari web browsing leak to a flaw that can give malicious apps access to root privileges, kernel privileges, iCloud data, and more.

We already knew about the web browsing and Google account ID flaw being patched ahead of time as it arrived with the RC versions of iOS 15.3 and macOS 12.2 However, Apple has now detailed the full list of security patches with documentation available for macOS 12.2.