Lithium-ion batteries – batteries that our devices use – degrade over time. So, it’s important to keep an eye on your device’s battery health. A battery Report can be really helpful to understand the current status and health of the battery of your computer. If you have been experiencing significant battery drain lately, getting the report can help you pinpoint the issue and understand if it needs replacing.

The battery report can be easily generated using the Windows Terminal by executing a single line command. Though do understand that if you are generating the report on a new system, it might not contain as useful information and statistics as compared to a system that has been through at least a few charge cycles.

Generate a Battery Report Using Windows Terminal

To generate the battery report, head to the Start Menu and type Terminal to perform a search for it. After that, right-click on the ‘Terminal’ tile from the search results and click on the ‘Run as administrator’ option to proceed.

Then, a UAC (User Account Control) screen will appear on your screen. Enter the credentials for an administrator if you are not logged in as one. Otherwise, click on the ‘Yes’ button to proceed.

Now, on the Terminal window, click on the ‘chevron’ icon (downward arrow) and click on the ‘Command Prompt’ option to proceed. This will open the Command Prompt in a separate tab.

Then, on the Command Prompt tab, type or copy+paste the below-mentioned code and hit Enter to execute. 

powercfg/batteryreport

Once successfully executed, the command will save the report in the C:\Users\<YourUsername>\battery-report.html directory.

Reading the Battery Report

Once you have downloaded the report on your system, you can read it and examine facts about the installed battery. Though the information is pretty self-explanatory, for your convenience, below is a little gist of how you can make more sense of it.

First, navigate to the directory and double-click on the file to open it. The report is saved as an HTML file and will open in your default browser.

After that, head to the ‘Installed batteries’ section, and compare the ‘Design Capacity’ and Full Charge Capacity’ fields. If the ‘Full charge capacity’ is significantly lower (50% or more) it is time that you replace the battery.

The ‘Recent Usage’ section displays the information regarding when your computer was in an Active state, connected with power, or in a suspended state.

Similarly, the ‘Usage history’ section will show the record of total battery duration and total AC duration.

Finally, the ‘Battery life estimates’ section will display all the battery drains observed by the system. At the last of the list, the system will also display an estimation of battery life using the observed data.

As mentioned earlier, the battery report will be more insightful on a PC that has observed a few full charge cycles compared to a fresh device.

Check the Per-App Battery Usage from the Settings App

Windows 11 also allows you to check the battery usage of your computer on a per-app basis from the Settings app. It can come in handy if you wish to check whether an app is consuming a significant amount of battery in the background.

To check the battery usage this way, head to the Start Menu and click on the Settings icon to proceed. Alternatively, you can also press the Windows+I keys together on your keyboard to open the app.

Then, make sure you have selected the ‘System’ tab from the left sidebar of the window.

After that, from the right side of the window, click on the ‘Power & Battery’ tile to proceed.

Now, scroll down to the ‘Battery usage per app’ section and you will be able to view the list of apps consuming your battery in descending order. You can also search for a specific app from the list using the search bar or sort the list in order of ‘Background use’, ‘Name’, or ‘Overall usage’ using the drop-down menu present.

There you go, folks. That’s all about learning more about the installed battery on your device. Using the battery report tool and the per-app usage setting, you can quickly and easily diagnose if an app is using significant battery in the background.