How to get low iPhone battery alerts on macOS

Apple integrates is products with all its other products really well. It does still manage to miss a few tricks. Case in point; you can’t view your iPhone’s battery level on your Mac. You can be on the same WiFi network, using the same Apple ID, and you don’t get to see the battery level. You can connect it to your Mac, and see the battery level but that’s terribly restrictive. If you want to get low iPhone battery alerts on macOS, and also view the battery level for your iPhone from the Notification Center, you need an app called Batteries Widget for Mac.

Need battery alerts for your Mac? There’s an app that does the job.

iPhone battery alerts on macOS

Connect your iPhone to your Mac, and open Finder (on Catalina). Select the iPhone under Locations in the column on the left. In the pane on the right, scroll down and make sure ‘Show this device when on Wi-Fi’  is enabled. You can disconnect the iPhone from your Mac but make sure it is connected to the same WiFi network that the Mac is on.

Don’t see the iPhone under Locations? It’s a simple fix.

Download Batteries Widget for Mac and run it. Make sure you move the app to the Applications folder. Open the app’s preferences and make sure Notifications are enabled for it. Select the iPhone that you want to get alerts for.

Batteries Widget for Mac is a widget so you need to enable it in Notification Center. Click the Notification Center button at the top right of the menu bar. Click the Edit button at the very bottom, select the Batteries Widget for Mac widget to add it to Notification Center. Give it a minute and the widget will show you the current battery level for your Mac, and your iPhone.

As for low battery alerts, you will get them when your iPhone’s battery drops to 20%, and then to 10%. You can’t set up custom battery level alerts.

Batteries Widget for Mac is not free. It costs $2.99 but it has a fourteen day trial period. That’s two weeks worth of time to try the app out and if it works for you, the price tag on the app is more than worth it.

Batteries Widget for Mac will work for iPhones, AirPods, trackpads, and keyboards. It will not work for an Apple Watch and that’s all down to Apple. The iOS version on your iPhone doesn’t matter with this app however, it will only work on Mojave or Catalina.