How to Check Battery Capacity and Health on Windows 10
Batteries, whether they’re on a laptop or on a phone, will deteriorate over time. With laptops, you can prolong their life somewhat by not charging and discharging them frequently. Even with any precautionary measures you would take, your laptop’s battery will reach the end of its life at some point. The deterioration may be slow but you can check if it’s started. When a battery begins to die, it is able to hold less charge. Basically, the battery capacity is reduced. Here’s how you can check the battery capacity on Windows 10 (and these steps also work on Windows 11).
Check battery capacity
There is a built-in tool on Windows that lets you check the battery’s design capacity and your battery’s current full-charge capacity. Most users know it as the battery health report you generate from Command Prompt.
Open Command Prompt with admin rights, and run the following command:
powercfg /batteryreport /output "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\battery-report.html"
This saves a battery-report.html file to your Desktop (the exact save location is also printed in Command Prompt so you can open it from there). Open the HTML file in your browser. In the report, look for these fields under Installed batteries:
- Design capacity — how much charge the battery was built to store.
- Full charge capacity — how much charge it can hold now when fully charged.
- Cycle count — the number of charge cycles the pack has gone through (some devices report this, others don’t).
Tip: If you prefer, you can also run powercfg /batteryreport without the output switch and then open the report from the path shown in the Command Prompt window. For advanced diagnostics, Windows also supports /energy and /sleepstudy reports via the same powercfg tool.
In the report, compare Design capacity to Full charge capacity. It’s normal for these numbers to differ slightly even on a new battery (some OEMs enable battery protection features that cap charge to extend lifespan). A steadily decreasing full-charge capacity indicates wear.
BatteryInfoView
You can get a more detailed, real-time view of battery information with a third-party utility. We recommend BatteryInfoView by NirSoft, which shows current capacity (mWh and %), full-charged capacity, wear level, charge/discharge rate, and a running battery log.
The built-in Windows battery report summarizes history and health but doesn’t stream live readings like current charge capacity at this exact second. Tools like BatteryInfoView complement it by showing moment-to-moment values alongside lifetime stats.
Optional: Energy & Sleep diagnostics
To uncover settings or apps that reduce battery life, generate an Energy Report and (on Modern Standby systems) a Sleep Study:
powercfg /energy /duration 60 powercfg /sleepstudy
These create HTML reports you can open in your browser. They highlight misconfigurations, power-hungry apps, and sleep issues. See Microsoft’s reference for PowerCfg command options.
FAQs & quick definitions
Design is the original spec; full charge is what your battery can hold today. The gap between them is your wear.
Temperature, recent charge/discharge, and firmware protection features can nudge readings up or down. Look for the longer-term trend.
Occasional full cycles can help the controller estimate more accurately, but they don’t restore lost capacity.
Yes. Go to Settings > System > Power & battery > Battery usage to identify apps using the most power, then limit their background activity. Microsoft’s guidance on battery care is here: Caring for your battery in Windows.
If you don’t specify an output path, Command Prompt shows where the HTML report was written (often your user profile folder). Using the /output switch to save to Desktop is the easiest way to find it later.
When a battery begins to lose charge, your only option is to replace it. You don’t have to replace it right away. If your battery was originally able to last 5 hours, and it now only lasts 3 hours, you can still get use out of it for a while. The deterioration tends to accelerate as the pack ages, so keep an eye on it.
You can take some steps to reduce power usage if you know which apps are the most power-hungry. Use the Battery usage view in Settings to spot culprits and adjust background permissions, reduce screen brightness, and enable Battery Saver when needed.
References
- Microsoft Docs: PowerCfg command-line options
- Microsoft Support: Caring for your battery in Windows
- NirSoft: BatteryInfoView
What’s New in This Update
- Added explicit
/outputexample to save the battery report to your Desktop for easier access. - Clarified where the report gets saved by default and how to locate it via the path shown in Command Prompt.
- Expanded guidance on interpreting Design capacity, Full charge capacity, and Cycle count.
- Added optional diagnostics for
powercfg /energyand/sleepstudyto troubleshoot power drains and sleep issues. - Updated FAQs with Battery usage by app and a link to Microsoft’s current battery care guidance.
Last updated: 2025-10-21
