Battery Drain Insights The entries under Allow in the Background are programs that apps install so they can keep working while the app itself is closed: update checkers, sync, menu bar helpers. Turning one off is safe for your Mac. macOS keeps running, and you can turn it back on with the same switch. The app it belongs to may lose a feature until you do.
Where is the list of background items on a Mac?
Open the Apple menu, choose System Settings, click General, then Login Items & Extensions (Apple, Change Login Items & Extensions settings on Mac). On macOS 13 and 14 the page is called Login Items. On macOS 12 there is no such list: System Preferences, Users & Groups, Login Items shows only the apps that open when you log in.
The page has two lists, and they are easy to mix up.
| List | What Apple says it is | What it means for your battery |
|---|---|---|
| Open at Login | Items that open automatically when you log in | Each one is an app that starts with your Mac, whether you need it that day or not |
| Allow in the Background | Lets apps run tasks when they are not open, such as checking for updates or syncing data | Each one is a program with no window that may work at any time |
How do I tell what a background item belongs to?
Most entries carry the name of their app, and those are easy. The puzzling ones carry the name of a company or a person, because macOS shows who signed the program when it cannot tie it to an app.
Three ways to find out more:
- Click the Info button beside the entry. It shows the item that is being launched.
- Look at where that item is. A program inside an app’s own folder belongs to that app. One inside a folder named after a tool you installed belongs to that tool.
- Search for the name you see, in quotes. Somebody has asked before.
Tools installed from the command line, with Homebrew for example, can appear here too. They often show under the name of whoever signed them, which is why a list can contain a stranger’s name.
Which background items are safe to turn off?
Turning off is not uninstalling. Nothing is deleted, and the switch brings it back. So the real question is what you lose while it is off.
| Kind of entry | If you turn it off | Advice |
|---|---|---|
| The updater of an app you rarely open | The app looks for updates only when you open it | Safe to turn off |
| A sync or cloud storage app | Files stop syncing until you open the app | Turn off only if you sync by hand |
| A menu bar helper | Its icon and keyboard shortcuts stop working | Turn off if you do not use them |
| Backup, security or VPN software | It stops protecting or backing up in the background | Leave on |
| A hardware driver or tool, for a mouse, tablet or audio interface | The device may lose its extra functions | Leave on while you use the device |
| A name you do not recognise | Unknown | Find out what it is first, with the steps above |
If an entry belongs to an app you no longer want at all, remove the app. Then the entry goes too. An entry with a yellow warning sign under Open at Login is an item that will not open because it was moved or deleted, and it can be removed.
How do background items get onto my Mac?
Apps add them, usually at install time or first launch. Since macOS 13 the system shows a notification when an app adds one, and lists every one of them on this page. Apple’s guide for administrators describes the mechanism in Manage login items and background tasks on Mac.
So the list grows quietly over the life of a Mac. After a few years it can be long, with many entries from apps that were tried once.
Does turning off background items save battery?
Only if the program was working. Many background items sit idle nearly all the time and cost nothing you could measure. A few work constantly. The list in System Settings does not tell you which is which, because it shows what is allowed to run and says nothing of what ran.
That is the reason to measure before you switch things off. Activity Monitor’s Energy tab, with View set to All Processes and sorted by 12 hr Power, shows which programs have been busy. The article on Energy Impact explains how to read it.
Where Battery Drain Insights fits
Battery Drain Insights answers the question the settings page cannot: which background programs worked while you were on battery, and how much. It lists them first when they did more than your apps. For each it says what it knows about where the program came from, and a button shows the file in Finder or opens Login Items, so you can decide.
It does not switch anything off for you. That stays your decision, for the reasons in the table above.
The other causes of fast drain are in the guide Why is my MacBook battery draining so fast?