Energy consumption

[acsch]

On my Macbook Pro 13 retina, spotify has an energy impact of +70. On the road this basically kills my battery life and it is unacceptable even at home. I like Spotify but consider this to be a very serious bug and it seems I am not the only one. Does somebody has any advice? Are developers looking into this? Else, I may have to look for alternatives.

Thanks you for any hints.

[MichaelW]

I'm tagging some of our OS X experts for you.

@Jordi @MattSuda @Merik 

[Jordi]

Hey @acsch,

Could you try doing a full reinstallation, including removing your cache? See if that works.  

If that doesn't help, check your "Activity Monitor" and check how much ram/memory spotify is using.

[acsch]

Thank you, very appreciated! I will do as advised and post any changes.

[acsch]

Thank you, the reinstallation seem to have solved the issue. CPU and energy usage has been at reasonable levels for two days now.

[acsch]

The issue has now returned. Turning off the "Show Tracks from ....", deinstalling (including caches) and reinstalling do not have any effect. As soon as I start music, "Energy Impact" jumps to almost 30. I love Spotify but it is unusable on a portable computer and unacceptable even while pluged-in. Please, this issue has been around for years, time to fix it! I'm working on a second generation MBP 13 Retina under 10.10.2. Happy to provide any more information and happy to receive any advice on how to solve this problem.

Best, acsch

[krecio4]

I also have this problem, with Spotify. I'm using the Spotify Beta version because of the "remote control" capabilty, but i guess that's the same. It is since couple of months that the problem is really frustrating sometimes. The computer's fan goes on and I need to restart the spotify app from time to time as well.

If that would be a short problem with a Beta version, i take the hit, as i like new features, but i expect it to be quickly fixed as well in case a serious problem shows up. 

On the new computer it's the same thing from the very first hour of using it. 😕

How is the status on that guys?

[acsch]

The situation has not improved with the latest update. I have tried to deselect local file option and reinstalled Spotify as was suggested in other threads. The problelm has not been resolved, Spotify constantly has an energy usage of about 30, kills my battery life and slows down my computer. I would really appreciate if Spotify deals with such serious bugs before developing a plethora of new features. Any hints, any response?

[acsch]

No improvement over years. I seriously question Spotify's priorities as well as customer support on this. The complete lack of improvement and communication is disapointing. Any way, it's their decision to care or not about it but it sure is not a great way to persuade more people to use it. I seriously consider going back to iTunes and I will stop recommending Spotify to network.

[www]

Same here… I am seriously annoyed by this. Even when doing NOTHING, not playing music and just idling in the background, Spotify is within the top three of highest energy consuming apps on my Macbook Air - above a compiling Xcode. This is unacceptable. I am happy to switch over to Apple Music as soon as possible.

[carrerasrodrigo]

I'm having the same issue. The energy impact it's too high. This is happening even when i'm not playing music. I'm testing this on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), with the lastest spotify versión. 

[bosforBlues]

I am seeing the same thing. Even when not playing anything, Spotify is in the top 3 in Activity Monitor, scoring well above dropbox, onedrive and the like. When I am playing music, it is considerably higher. 

(Macbook retina 13 inch, late 2014, latest Spotify version).

[Dangrove98]

I got my MacBook Pro (Early 2015 model) yesterday and Spotify was one of the first apps I installed. The averge energy impact is around 630(!!) after a day of moderate usage - OS X likes to tell me Safari is using a lot energy all the time but the average for that is around 50. People online have said the highest values they've ever seen on energy usage have been around 700ish - and that's only when running the Geekbench test - so considering Spotify is doing nothing more than streaming music, that's absolutely ridiculous. Considering we have to pay for the service, a mildly optimized app wouldn't be too much to expect, surely?  What is it doing that could possibly use so much battery? I really love Spotify but they've got to sort this out!

[rojax444]

This is what I see on a 2015 13" MacBook Pro. I never had this problem on my MacBook Air, but this is crazy. If Spotify will refuse to fix this issue, I'm more than happy to go to another provider. I've stuck with Spotify throughout, but we're paying customers. If they can't make it so that my battery doesn't get shot everytime I want to stream music, then I'll go to someone else who can.

[ccgggc]

same issue here, whats the problem spotify? if the engergy drain keeps going I will switch back to dee**. 

[Dangrove98 · Accepted solution]

I've found that putting Spotify in its own seperate space/desktop works well - it shows around 4 on the energy usage instead of 40+ (but only if your Spotify isn't in any of your "active" spaces). The keyboard controls still work and 4 is still too high for energy usage considering its only streaming music, but as a quick fix I've found this works infinitely better than reinstalling etc. I guess this could suggest it's something to do with it overworking the GPU, but that's only a guess

[ccgggc]

???

[ccgggc]

ater a clean install of el-capitan and spotify, the problem is still there. spotify drains all my battery. 

byebye spotify, back to deezer 🙂

[nitramwin]

Hi there, I've found that this too works okish for me. Very strange indeed and quite surprising that more people are not noticing this strange behavior of the program...

[xyzasd]

I've noticed same thing since last update - 1.0.23.90.g42187855.
Reinstallation worked only for a while.
Macbook Air 13" 2014 El Capitan (10.11.3) is overheating with just Spotify turned on.

Can't live like that with usage ca. 10h/day, maybe it's time to move to Apple Music.