Apple Seeds Fifth Beta of Upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.5 Update to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available]

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.5 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the fourth beta and over a month after releasing macOS Catalina 10.15.4 with Screen Time Communication Limits, iCloud Folder Sharing, and real-time Apple Music lyrics.

The new macOS Catalina beta can be downloaded from the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after installing the proper software from the Developer Center.

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduces a new Battery Health Management feature for Mac notebooks, which is designed to extend the overall lifespan of a Mac’s battery by reducing the rate of chemical aging.

The Battery Health Management feature analyzes the battery health of a laptop and its charging pattern, and in some cases, will preserve battery longevity and health by not charging a MacBook to its full capacity, which can reduce battery life.

When a Mac is used plugged in and the battery is largely kept full, Battery Health Management will kick in and will stop short of a full charge. The feature can be enabled and disabled in the Energy Saver section of the System Preferences app.

The macOS Catalina 10.15.5 update also addresses an issue that caused large data transfers to RAID volumes to freeze up the Finder app. With the update, large data transfers will no longer cause Finder to become unresponsive.

After installing macOS Catalina 10.15.4, some Mac users began experiencing occasional system crashes, primarily caused by large file transfers. The new update should successfully fix the problem.