If you use Ubuntu on laptop and want to see battery percentage in the top panel, you can — in this guide I show you how.
By default, Ubuntu only shows a battery icon in the top bar. This icon gives a vague visual indication of how current battery levels but is far from specific. Half a battery can mean anything from 50% to 26% — if you’re not near a power point that’s a huge difference.
And while you can open the Quick Settings menu in Ubuntu to see a more accurate percentage of battery remaining, it’s hidden: useful for an occasional check but not great if you’re prone to forgetting (as I am) — next thing you know: battery about to die alert!
Which is why I think choosing to show battery percentage in the top panel is most convenient. It’s visible all the time you use your computer (obviously not when an app is fullscreen) and you only need to look at the top of the screen to see it, nothing to ‘remember’ to click or open.
In Ubuntu, you can enable this features from the Settings app:
To show battery percentage in Ubuntu:
- Open Settings
- Select “Power” from the sidebar
- Under ‘Power Saving Options’ slide ‘Show Battery Percentage’ to on
When enabled a battery level appears in the top bar right next to the battery icon:
Nice and easy — though it wasn’t always so: prior to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS one would need to install a separate app to show battery percentage.
Alas, Ubuntu doesn’t provide an option to show time remaining only battery charge level as a percentage.
You can open Power Statistics (type Power in the app launcher and click the matching shortcut) to see an approximate “time to empty” value (at bottom of the Details tab when viewing your laptop’s battery) which gives you an indication of how long you’ve got left based on current usage:
Anyway, that’s that.
You now know how to show remaining battery percentage in Ubuntu’s top panel.
I just hope you’re close to a charging point if you turn this setting on only to discover you’re almost out of juice… 😅