battop

Display battery information

$ battop

$ battop -u [human|si]

battop [-b BATTERY, --battery BATTERY] [-i INTERVAL, --interval INTERVAL] [--no-full] [--no-unknown] [-h, --help] [--version]

-b, --battery BATTERY
    Battery name to monitor (e.g., BAT0). Default: auto-detect first.

-i, --interval INTERVAL
    Update interval in seconds. Default: 1.

--no-full
    Hide full batteries from display.

--no-unknown
    Hide batteries with unknown status.

-h, --help
    Show help and exit.

--version
    Show version and exit.

battop is a lightweight, curses-based terminal tool for real-time battery monitoring on Linux laptops and systems with power supplies. It presents data in a dynamic top(1)-inspired interface, showing multiple batteries if present. Key metrics include charge percentage, remaining capacity (Wh/mAh), full capacity, voltage, power (watts), status (charging/discharging/full), and temperature.

The display updates periodically, highlighting trends like drain rate or charging speed. Sortable columns and mouse support (if enabled) allow interactive viewing. It auto-detects batteries via /sys/class/power_supply, making it ideal for power debugging, scripting, or casual checks without GUI apps like GNOME Power Statistics.

Minimal dependencies (ncurses, Rust-built), low CPU usage, and keyboard navigation (q to quit, arrows for sort) enhance usability. Supports filtering irrelevant batteries for cleaner output on multi-pack systems.

Needs read access to /sys/class/power_supply. No data on battery-less systems. Terminal must support ncurses; mouse optional.

battop -i 5 updates every 5s.
battop --battery BAT1 --no-full monitors specific battery, hides full ones.

Parses /sys/class/power_supply/BAT*/uevent, power_now, energy_full, etc. Handles missing fields gracefully.

Created by Emil Renner Berthing in Rust (2021). Inspired by top(1) for batteries. Packaged in Arch, Fedora, NixOS; GitHub: emilberting/battop.

top(1), htop(1), powertop(8), upower(1), acpi(1)