Do you find your Chromebook consuming more battery than you expected it to? Chrome does show you reports on the remaining battery available and an estimate of battery life but does not contain detailed information on battery usage as you find in Android.

If your Chromebook is not giving the expected 9 to 11 hours of the battery check out for the basics before you go to the Chrome settings.

1. Disable bluetooth and other radios on your Chromebook
2. Reduce CPU usage and the screen brightness
3. Unplug any peripherals you’re not using like the USB wireless receiver dongles or USB flash drives

Now, if the above information doesn’t help you much, here’s a way to check out who is the actual villain draining the battery out.

1. Make sure you are on the Dev Channel of Chrome OS.
2. If you are already on it, Click Settings > About Chrome OS > More info. Click the Change channel… button and pick a channel from the box that appears. Get more information on the Dev Channel here.
3. Open Settings again and click the ‘Battery’ button under ‘Device’. You can also go to chrome://settings-frame/#battery which even works on Chrome for Desktop.
4. A list of Chrome apps, Hosted apps and websites appear, organized with the biggest battery drains at the top.
5. Use the search box if you want to look for a particular site.
6. Click on an app to get more information and controls
7. Close the tabs that are draining your Chromebook’s battery.

Once this is done, open Chrome’s Task Manager (Shift+Esc) or clicking Chrome’s menu button. Check out the list of background processes and disable the processes you don’t feel are useful. Also, examine your list of installed extensions and uninstall the ones you don’t need.

The key here is to use what you need and discard what you don’t. Little bit of cleaning up will help you make the most out of your Chromebook experience. Let me know if the tips are helpful.

The chrome://power Page

Here is an additional feature available even on the stable channel of Chrome OS. The Chrome URL chrome://power provides more details about battery discharge on your Chromebook. Open chrome://power/ and click Show against Battery Charge.

This page shows Battery Charge Percentage and Battery Discharge Rate in Watts with helpful graphs.