How To Add The Battery Percentage Level After Upgrading To macOS Big Sur. 

I’ll start this post by saying as the writer, I’m a little OCD. One of the things I need on all of my laptops is a clear indication of how much battery is left on my machine. Today’s post will cover the how to for Showing Battery Percentage Level in macOS Big Sur. You would assume it’s a simple solution, but in fact, with the Big Sur update, it’s a bit convoluted.

About The Battery Percentage Level / Issue In Big Sur 

When you look at your laptop, we are all familiar with the battery icon, showing you the battery status on the top menu band. However, the default look is just an icon. In the default state, you have to actually click on the icon to see what the actual status of your battery is.

However, many of us prefer to be able to just look up and see what the actual battery percentage is, without having to click. And this is where Apple (intentionally or unintentionally) has a strange situation. If you go into the battery settings, by either clicking Battery Preferences in the box that opens when you click on the battery status icon or go into settings -> select battery icon, you get a window that has many choices but adding the battery percentage level is NOT one of the choices.

So where o where did the battery percentage level go?  So let me tell you, this is what you actually have to do to get the battery percentage level added to your screen.

Adding The Battery Percentage Level To The Menu Band and Control Center 

To add the battery percentage level, do the following

• Open the system preferences on your Mac

• When system preferences open, find and open the icon that says Dock & Menu Bar 

• Once the Dock & Menu Bar window opens, On the left side scroll down until you see Battery (under Other Modules). Now you can select Show Percentage to see it listed on the menu band, and Show in Control Center to see it as part of the Control Center info.

Once those checkboxes are selected you get

Battery percent level next to the battery charge icon and

Final Thought

On a difficulty scale, this really isn’t difficult, while at the same time, it seems convoluted and doesn’t make sense why Apple wouldn’t also add the option to the battery window.

Showing Battery Percentage Level In macOS Big Sur