Performance & battery · Battery, power and Low Power Mode
Does Storage Studio do more when my Mac is plugged in?
Short answer: Yes. Plugged in, Storage Studio allows itself a bigger background budget and runs heavier jobs such as full duplicate scans of this Mac; on battery it scales back and leaves those jobs waiting for power.
Yes. On mains power Storage Studio gives itself a bigger background budget and allows the jobs that genuinely compete with you for the disk — such as a full duplicate scan of this Mac — to run. On battery it scales its work down and leaves those jobs waiting.
That's why you may see messages like "Waiting until you're on power." in the Duplicates window. Backup sets can also be told to run only on power — they'll show "Waiting for power — you asked for backups to run only when plugged in."
Nothing is lost by waiting; the work happens the next time you're plugged in and not busy. See why duplicate scanning is waiting.