82 MACWORLD DECEMBER 2021
WORKINGMAC CHECK YOUR BATTERY LEVELSIn this trimmed Keyboard preference pane image, you can see the
charge at the very bottom as an icon and text.Control Center in Catalina and later provides a
visual and numeric indicator.
The Bluetooth preference pane shows an icon
representing charge for connected devices.
You can find the current charge of most
peripherals in one or more places when a
wireless device is turned on and awake.
On some equipment,
that means moving
your finger on it,
moving it around, or
tapping a key. Here’s
where to look:
Open the Control
Center in macOS
Catalina or later and click
Bluetooth. Any connected
devices show their current
charge level as a graphic and
with a numeric percentage.
This also shows charges
for connected headphones
and earbuds.
> Open the Bluetooth
preference pane in any version
of macOS. All connected
Bluetooth devices show their
charge, but only as a graphic.
> Open the Keyboard, Mouse,
or Trackpad preference panes to see the
battery graphic and numeric percentage of
active peripherals of those types.
Depending on your hardware, you
may receive alerts when the battery
level is low.
Third-party developers used to
offer utilities that would show you the
charge of all connected peripherals and
provide more detailed notifications, but the
two best known of those utilities went out
of development years ago. ■