POWERTOP(8)

📦
version 2.16.1 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💅 POWERTOP — the powertop(8) glow-up

okay bestie, so this is the powertop manual page from the System Administration section of your man pages, and it's genuinely iconic for anyone who wants their laptop to stop inhaling battery like it's a strawberry acai refresher. 🍓✨

✨ NAME ✨

powertop — a power consumption and power management diagnosis tool. that's the whole vibe. it sniffs out what's eating your watts. 🔥

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

powertop [options]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

powertop is the program that helps you diagnose all kinds of issues with power consumption and power management. think of it as a little detective for your battery 🔍💖

it also has an interactive mode where you can literally experiment with different power management settings and see what happens. and here's the slay part: when you invoke powertop with no arguments at all, it just drops you straight into interactive mode. no flags, no stress, main character energy. 👑

💅 OPTIONS 💅

so many options, and every single one of them matters. let's go. 🫶

  • --auto-tune — sets all the tunable options to their good setting, with zero interaction from you. it just does the thing. ✨
  • --auto-tune-dump — same idea, except it prints the auto-tune commands to STDOUT instead of actually executing them. so you can peep at them first, iykyk. 👀
  • --bypass-root-check — skips the root privilege check. > ⚠️ intended for testing only — running without root privileges will limit the data powertop can collect. so like, it works, but it's not the full picture, bestie. 😭
  • -c, --calibrate — runs powertop in calibration mode. when you're running on battery, powertop can track power consumption and system activity. once there are enough measurements, it starts reporting power estimates. and you can get more accurate estimates by using this option to enable a calibration cycle — it cycles through various display levels and USB device activities and workloads. fancy. 🎀
  • -C, --csv[=filename] — generates a CSV report. if you don't specify a filename, the default name powertop.csv is used. perfect for reporting and data analysis. spreadsheet girlies rise. 📊
  • --debug — runs in debug mode. 🐛
  • --extech=devnode — use the Extech Power Analyzer for measurements. this lets you specify the serial device node of the serial to USB adaptor connecting to the Extech Power Analyzer, for example /dev/ttyUSB0. hardware girlies, this one's for you. 🔌
  • -r, --html[=filename] — generates an HTML report. if no filename is specified, the default name powertop.html is used. you can send this report to other people to help diagnose power issues. sharing is caring 💖
  • -i, --iteration[=iterations] — number of times to run each test. repeat after me: iterations. 🔁
  • -M, --markdown[=filename] — generates a Markdown report. if you don't specify a filename, the default name powertop.md is used. markdown girlies stay winning. 💜
  • --once — run measurements only once and then exit. super useful in combination with --html, --csv, or --markdown to generate a single-shot report non-interactively. one and done, periodt. ⭐
  • -q, --quiet — suppresses stderr output. shhh. 🤫
  • -s, --sample[=seconds] — sets the interval in seconds between power consumption measurements. the default is 5. ⏱️
  • -t, --time[=seconds] — generates a report for a specified number of seconds. ⏳
  • -w, --workload[=workload] — executes a workload file as part of calibration, before making a report. 🏃‍♀️
  • -V, --version — prints version information and exits. always know what you're running. 💫
  • -h, --help — shows the help message and exits. the classic. 🌈

🎀 COMMANDS 🎀

in interactive mode, these are the key bindings available to you. memorize them, they're giving cheat code:

  • Tab — show next tab
  • BackTab — show previous tab
  • Right Arrow, l — scroll to the right
  • Left Arrow, h — scroll to the left
  • Up Arrow, PageUp, k — scroll up or select previous item
  • Down Arrow, PageDown, j — scroll down or select next item
  • Space, Return — activate current item
  • s — set refresh timeout
  • r — refresh window
  • q, Ctrl+C, Escape — exit powertop

💀 BUGS 💀

found a bug? don't suffer in silence, bestie. send bug reports to the GitHub issue tracker at: https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop/issues

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

the program is more fully described at: https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop

go read it, it's giving documentation excellence. 📚

👑 AUTHOR 👑

powertop was written by Arjan van de Ven, and is currently maintained by Chris E Ferron. legends, both of them. 🫶

and that's the whole page, bestie — this powertop manual is dated 2026-05-13 and lives in the POWERTOP(8) section under System Administration. go forth and slay your power management. 💖✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from