How to keep your MacBook Pro battery healthy for years

Posted:
in General Discussion edited October 2020
The battery in your new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air has a finite life, but with a few steps you can maximize how long it is before you have to replace them -- and how many hours of use you get each day.

The battery inside a 13-inch MacBook Pro. (Photo: iFixit)
The battery inside a 13-inch MacBook Pro. (Photo:iFixit)


Even if we could readily swap out MacBook batteries the way we used to a decade ago, there's now the further complication that many of us are using these sealed laptops with physically smaller batteries as in years past as desktop replacements. We're running external monitors on them and, in recent years those monitors are charging the laptops.

If you're doing this, you're not letting the battery deplete, you are off-and-on recharging it a tiny, tiny bit at a time. It's been a long time since we had NiCad batteries where this would degrade them over time -- and this behavior in this day and age won't harm the battery to any appreciable level.

That old and outdated knowledge out of the way, let's talk about what you can do to prolong your computer's battery health for as many years as we can.

Cycle drama

Every battery in the world has a certain number of times, or cycles, that it can go through before it is considered to be spent. "Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles," says Apple regarding MacBook batteries.

Whether it's in a MacBook, an iPhone or any other device, though, a battery is a physical and chemical process. How it's used affects how it works and how it lasts. Even so, Apple publishes a list of how many cycles your model of battery ought to typically go through before they consider it done.

Where to find your current battery status (Photo: Apple)
Where to find your current battery status (Photo: Apple)


For instance, the newest 13-inch MacBook Pro models are rated for 1,000 cycles. That doesn't sound like a lot, but if you completely drained and recharged your battery every single day -- including weekends -- you'd get nearly three years out of it.

That's charging and depleting the battery completely every 24 hours, though, so if you used the machine half as much, you'd imagine you would get six years. It doesn't work like that, because the literal age of a battery is a factor as well, yet it is true that you can extend how long it takes the machine to work through its total number of cycles.

Not all cycles are created equal, though. Going from 100% to 50% charge is half a cycle. Yet how the batteries actually work from a chemistry and physical perspective means that this puts less of a strain on battery life than going from 100% to 0% all the time.

If you can't use the calendar and counting on your fingers to judge how far through the battery's total number of cycles your machine is, you can just check on your MacBook Pro. Hold the Option key on your keyboard and choose System Information from the Apple Menu. This doesn't really give you precise wear measure, though.

Here's how to see it.

Scroll through the Hardware listings to the section marked Power.

In there, you'll see Health Information which will tell you the current cycle count and, hopefully, a line saying Condition: Normal.

Save a battery life

You bought this laptop to work on, there's no point trying to save battery cycles by not using it. However, you can take some steps to maximize the time the battery lasts.

Apple recommends that you always update to the latest version of macOS. Beyond that general advice, you can make specific choices for certain settings.

The biggest drain for most people is the screen. Those 400, 450, or 500 nits of brightness depending on model take some power, so dimming the screen reduces that. It prolongs the life of the battery by extending the time before you have to charge it again.

And that's a win even in the short term as it means you get to work on the machine for more time in the day.

Really you should cut out things you don't need so that you can save this power, and thereby prolong battery life, for the things you do require. So as well as dimming the screen, you can switch off power drains such as Wi-Fi -- which uses your battery charge even if you're not currently connected.

Modern monitors like this LG Ultrawide will keep charging your MacBook Pro
Modern monitors like this LG Ultrawide will keep charging your MacBook Pro


If battery duration during the day is important to you, don't use Chrome. It remains a resource hog. Firefox is less so, but the least impactful of all all is Safari.

And if you have any peripherals like an external mouse or anything like an SD card that's plugged into the MacBook, take them out as soon as you're done with them.

On the shelf

The same thing applies to the MacBook itself. Shut it down if you know you're not going to be using it for a protracted period -- but don't store it for a long time with a battery at 0%.

A battery at 0% isn't completely depleted. There is still some stored energy that the battery needs for both chemical health, and startup power. Idle Batteries lose charge either because of a system clock, or just time, so you could put away that old MacBook in a drawer, and come back to it a few months later with a completely dead battery and no signs of life from the computer.

But, most of the time, a battery can appear to be dead when really it isn't, it just hasn't got sufficient charge to power up the device its in. Even though that means you may well be able to revive it by leaving the MacBook plugged in for a time, don't put it or yourself in that position because this kind of deep drain is bad for the battery.

MacBooks have an advantage over, say, AirPods, in that their batteries are physically bigger. There is just more battery there to deal with, and the result is that the effects of depletion are less marked.

Best and worst

If all of this care and attention doesn't get you to three years of a functional battery, nothing will -- and actually, maybe nothing can.

Use your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air to get the work done that you need, and if that means your battery takes more of a hammering, know that there is also a solution at the end of it all.

If you have a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with built-in batteries, Apple will replace the battery for around $130, and if your keyboard needs replacing, you get a battery replacement as part of the same procedure. Let's just make that as rare a service repair as we can.



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«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    Nice article with good explanations. If I have an old MacBook that Apple can’t service anymore do you have a recommendation where to get a legit and safe battery? 2011 15” MBP. Thanks!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 30
    I'm still on original battery in mid-2009 13-inch MacBook Pro running 10.6. I believe I'm around 400 cycles; the computer has been giving me "Service Battery" warning for last few years. There were a few years in middle that it didn't get much use, but last couple of years it has been used regularly for taking notes and writing stories. A fully charged battery yields about 5-5 1/2 hours of use with screen mostly dimmed and wifi off. Keep on Rocking in the Mac World!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 30
    My mid 2015 15in MBP is normally on mains power all the time.
    After 4 years, the battery health is
      Charge Information:
        Charge Remaining (mAh):    8754
        Fully Charged:    Yes
        Charging:    No
        Full Charge Capacity (mAh):    8824
      Health Information:
      Cycle Count:    26
      Condition:    Normal
    The battery is at about 99% of its original capacity. I was amazed ay how low the cycle count is.
    Thanks for the article.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 30
    No mention of heat exposure negatively effecting battery lifespan? That's one of the major concerns for a portable.
    caladaniandysamoriawatto_cobravaulttechgirl
  • Reply 5 of 30
    Nice article with good explanations. If I have an old MacBook that Apple can’t service anymore do you have a recommendation where to get a legit and safe battery? 2011 15” MBP. Thanks!
    I've had excellent luck with various parts from Other World Computing.
    razorpitfruitstandninjaseanismorrisdoozydozenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 30
    After I had some batteries on Apple products die on me (and had to spend obscene amounts of money replacing them, because on top of Apple repairs being expensive, my country has some of the highest tax rates in the world piled on top), and being an electrical engineer, I decided to do some research on the scientific literature with regards to what could prolong the battery lifetime. Here is the executive summary: 1. Temperature: the main killer of batteries. Do everything on your power to keep the computer (and hence the battery) as cool as possible. For instance, using your phone for navigation in the car, which by itself heats the phone a lot due to GPS usage, plus having the sun shining directly on it, is just awful. If you do this often, try to leave the phone in the shade or right in front of the car's A/C vents to cool it. The inductive chargers I'm familiar with dissipate a lot of heat so I don't use those for the iPhone. 2. State of charge (battery percentage) and depth of discharge. Batteries degrade faster if fully charged. Some of the research indicates they'll also degrade if nearly depleted, and it appears a good compromise is about 60% charge. Too bad Apple won't allow you to connect the power adapter but disable charging (more on that at the end of the post). It might be very useful for those who don't need the full battery range, like me. Also some of the research indicates, as pointed out in the article, you should have shallow depths of discharge, i.e. 5 discharges from 60% to 40% are better than 1 discharge from 100% to 0%, although technically both are counted by the gas gauge IC as 1 cycle. 3. Charge rate. Try to charge the device as slowly as possible. Although the research isn't clear on the point of diminishing returns, one thing is certain: fast charging is harmful to the battery, so avoid it (the worst example being USB-C to an iPhone). This is probably what kills Apple Pencils so quickly -- at least the 1st gen, non-inductive-charging one (I speak from experience, having had one replaced with 9 months of very light use on it). I wouldn't even recommend using the iPad 12 W charger, but rather the iPhone 5 W one, even to charge the iPad. An interesting trick: you can use your iPad USB-A charger plus a USB-A to USB-C cable to charge the newest MacBooks very slowly if not in use (if in use, it'll at best maintain the charge with very light use, or deplete it at moderate to heavy use). 4. Cycle count. Best thing to do would be not to put in the cycles if possible, although if points 1 and 2 are not respected, even a battery that hasn't been cycled at all will eventually die. This one is simple: try to connect the charger as often as is feasible. Even if you're taking it out for a quick half-hour session, leave the charger connected. For MacBooks, there are also some settings to be used with the pmset command in Terminal to make sure the computer goes to standby, since it is not unusual to lose 10% charge (i.e. 1/10 of a cycle) over less than a day if you close the lid but don't go to standby. The computer will take a bit longer to wake up but depending on your usage patterns, it pays to do this since it could add up to as much as 30 cycles a year, which is far from negligible -- it's about half what I put on my computer over a year of use. I have written an app for MacBooks that is able to keep the computer at the desired charge level with the power adapter connected but not charging. I use it to keep my computer at 60% charge following point 2. I thought of releasing the app, but I'm certain that as soon as I do it, someone at Apple will take notice and close the API I use to do it (same reason why I'm being intentionally vague here). The point is, the capability is there, but Apple has a long history of stopping at nothing to prevent users from doing legitimate things with the devices they paid hard-earned cash for. This same API could be used on iOS but unfortunately it requires root access and I'm not willing to jailbreak my phone over it, if it's even still possible. Hope this helps someone.
    minicoffeeking editor the grateblurpbleepbloopprismaticsmobirdcaladanianmacmikeyt00dysamoriadoozydozenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 30
    JanNLJanNL Posts: 328member
    My mid 2015 15in MBP is normally on mains power all the time.

    Sounds logical that's less "wear" for the battery (and for you it shows), but is this generally recommended? Or maybe once in a while using the battery?
    mwhitewatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 30
    I’ve read that keeping the battery in a 70ish degree Fahrenheit environment and not charging it past 80% is best for lithium. At least the larger ones used for UPS type of setups. What I don’t know is if this applies to the smaller laptop batteries. 
    caladanianwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 30
    My late 2013 MacBook Pro battery failed on me a few weeks ago. It got swollen and started to affect the shape of the case dramatically. Apple refused to service it with their advertised 209€ battery replacement program, thanks to them! I ended up with a third party Apple repair facility which charged me 350€ to change the battery. This was so insane that I ended up getting an iFixit battery replacement kit (the complete one with tools) for 109€, shipping included, and changed my battery in two hours (waiting times included). I guess I was lucky cause being swollen, the battery may already be partially « unglued » but this kit was worth it none the less. On top of that, the case got its original shape on its own, it is like new! If you feel ready to service your own MacBook. Just take your time and read the instructions carefully a few times. Also, by viewing a video, I discovered I could omit a step (unplugging the speakers from the motherboard), which was a good thing. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 30
    swineone said:
    After I had some batteries on Apple products die on me (and had to spend obscene amounts of money replacing them, because on top of Apple repairs being expensive, my country has some of the highest tax rates in the world piled on top), and being an electrical engineer, I decided to do some research on the scientific literature with regards to what could prolong the battery lifetime. Here is the executive summary: 1. Temperature: the main killer of batteries. Do everything on your power to keep the computer (and hence the battery) as cool as possible. For instance, using your phone for navigation in the car, which by itself heats the phone a lot due to GPS usage, plus having the sun shining directly on it, is just awful. If you do this often, try to leave the phone in the shade or right in front of the car's A/C vents to cool it. The inductive chargers I'm familiar with dissipate a lot of heat so I don't use those for the iPhone. 2. State of charge (battery percentage) and depth of discharge. Batteries degrade faster if fully charged. Some of the research indicates they'll also degrade if nearly depleted, and it appears a good compromise is about 60% charge. Too bad Apple won't allow you to connect the power adapter but disable charging (more on that at the end of the post). It might be very useful for those who don't need the full battery range, like me. Also some of the research indicates, as pointed out in the article, you should have shallow depths of discharge, i.e. 5 discharges from 60% to 40% are better than 1 discharge from 100% to 0%, although technically both are counted by the gas gauge IC as 1 cycle. 3. Charge rate. Try to charge the device as slowly as possible. Although the research isn't clear on the point of diminishing returns, one thing is certain: fast charging is harmful to the battery, so avoid it (the worst example being USB-C to an iPhone). This is probably what kills Apple Pencils so quickly -- at least the 1st gen, non-inductive-charging one (I speak from experience, having had one replaced with 9 months of very light use on it). I wouldn't even recommend using the iPad 12 W charger, but rather the iPhone 5 W one, even to charge the iPad. An interesting trick: you can use your iPad USB-A charger plus a USB-A to USB-C cable to charge the newest MacBooks very slowly if not in use (if in use, it'll at best maintain the charge with very light use, or deplete it at moderate to heavy use). 4. Cycle count. Best thing to do would be not to put in the cycles if possible, although if points 1 and 2 are not respected, even a battery that hasn't been cycled at all will eventually die. This one is simple: try to connect the charger as often as is feasible. Even if you're taking it out for a quick half-hour session, leave the charger connected. For MacBooks, there are also some settings to be used with the pmset command in Terminal to make sure the computer goes to standby, since it is not unusual to lose 10% charge (i.e. 1/10 of a cycle) over less than a day if you close the lid but don't go to standby. The computer will take a bit longer to wake up but depending on your usage patterns, it pays to do this since it could add up to as much as 30 cycles a year, which is far from negligible -- it's about half what I put on my computer over a year of use. I have written an app for MacBooks that is able to keep the computer at the desired charge level with the power adapter connected but not charging. I use it to keep my computer at 60% charge following point 2. I thought of releasing the app, but I'm certain that as soon as I do it, someone at Apple will take notice and close the API I use to do it (same reason why I'm being intentionally vague here). The point is, the capability is there, but Apple has a long history of stopping at nothing to prevent users from doing legitimate things with the devices they paid hard-earned cash for. This same API could be used on iOS but unfortunately it requires root access and I'm not willing to jailbreak my phone over it, if it's even still possible. Hope this helps someone.
    This program of yours seems really really interesting...
    caladanianmacmikeyt00doozydozenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 30
    JanNL said:
    My mid 2015 15in MBP is normally on mains power all the time.

    Sounds logical that's less "wear" for the battery (and for you it shows), but is this generally recommended? Or maybe once in a while using the battery?
    From the article: "If you're doing this, you're not letting the battery deplete, you are off-and-on recharging it a tiny, tiny bit at a time. It's been a long time since we had NiCad batteries where this would degrade them over time -- and this behavior in this day and age won't harm the battery to any appreciable level."
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 30
    irelandireland Posts: 17,800member

    Bit of a hack, but if you want to give your MagSafe-Mac power, without charging the battery, you can place a small piece of paper here. Your battery will still climb in power slightly over time. If you keep this Mac plugged in for extended periods of time—days or weeks, it is one way to help prevent it falling to 0 or reaching 100. I have found if you plug in around 40%, that’s a good starting point. Got the tip online from someone who studies battery chemistry. 
    edited August 2019 caladaniandoozydozenwatto_cobrawillcropoint
  • Reply 13 of 30
    JanNLJanNL Posts: 328member
    JanNL said:
    My mid 2015 15in MBP is normally on mains power all the time.

    Sounds logical that's less "wear" for the battery (and for you it shows), but is this generally recommended? Or maybe once in a while using the battery?
    From the article: "If you're doing this, you're not letting the battery deplete, you are off-and-on recharging it a tiny, tiny bit at a time. It's been a long time since we had NiCad batteries where this would degrade them over time -- and this behavior in this day and age won't harm the battery to any appreciable level."
    The answer to my question isn't in the article, it's not about off-and-on recharging, my question is about keeping the battery always charged and connected...
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 30
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,239member
    A lot of words here but not much solid advice about how to prolong the useful life of a lithium-ion battery, no matter what portable device it's in.
    If you live on battery much of the time, when you recharge, stop at anything above 90% if you see it. That last 10% to fill the battery to 100% goes very slowly and is hard on the battery. Don't ruin your life for the sake of your battery, but if you see it at 90% or more, you can feel good about unplugging it then.
    If you have a 15" MacBook Pro, be sure you use it with a power supply that delivers the 87watts recommended, not the ~60watts provided by the 13" model power supply. Otherwise you may be unwittingly discharging the battery every time you do anything compute intensive while plugged in, even if it's only briefly.
    Don't store your device fully powered off for a long time with a fully charged battery... 50-75% charge is better for storage.
    Yes, do discharge the battery at least occasionally and sometimes run it 'til near dead.

    edited August 2019 watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 30
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,453member
    As far as extending battery life, if you have a dGPU, you should install this which will tell you when and what is triggering your dGPU to be active (and draining your battery):

    https://gfx.io/


    watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 30
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 13,103member
    cpsro said:
    A lot of words here but not much solid advice about how to prolong the useful life of a lithium-ion battery, no matter what portable device it's in.
    If you live on battery much of the time, when you recharge, stop at anything above 90% if you see it. That last 10% to fill the battery to 100% goes very slowly and is hard on the battery. Don't ruin your life for the sake of your battery, but if you see it at 90% or more, you can feel good about unplugging it then.
    If you have a 15" MacBook Pro, be sure you use it with a power supply that delivers the 87watts recommended, not the ~60watts provided by the 13" model power supply. Otherwise you may be unwittingly discharging the battery every time you do anything compute intensive while plugged in, even if it's only briefly.
    Don't store your device fully powered off for a long time with a fully charged battery... 50-75% charge is better for storage.
    Yes, do discharge the battery at least occasionally and sometimes run it 'til near dead.

    Or, just use it and charge it when it needs to be charged and don't worry about any of that crap. Been doing it for over a decade with my MBPs; by the time the battery is beyond usefulness I'm either done with the laptop, or I only use it while plugged in until I am. Feels great not to worry about it and get it serviced or replaced when needed.
    fastasleepradarthekatwatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 30
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,453member
    Also, this thing is a little friendlier than the system profiler:

    https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/


    watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 30
    sreesree Posts: 153member
    swineone said:
    After I had some batteries on Apple products die on me (and had to spend obscene amounts of money replacing them, because on top of Apple repairs being expensive, my country has some of the highest tax rates in the world piled on top), and being an electrical engineer, I decided to do some research on the scientific literature with regards to what could prolong the battery lifetime. Here is the executive summary: 1. Temperature: the main killer of batteries. Do everything on your power to keep the computer (and hence the battery) as cool as possible. For instance, using your phone for navigation in the car, which by itself heats the phone a lot due to GPS usage, plus having the sun shining directly on it, is just awful. If you do this often, try to leave the phone in the shade or right in front of the car's A/C vents to cool it. The inductive chargers I'm familiar with dissipate a lot of heat so I don't use those for the iPhone. 2. State of charge (battery percentage) and depth of discharge. Batteries degrade faster if fully charged. Some of the research indicates they'll also degrade if nearly depleted, and it appears a good compromise is about 60% charge. Too bad Apple won't allow you to connect the power adapter but disable charging (more on that at the end of the post). It might be very useful for those who don't need the full battery range, like me. Also some of the research indicates, as pointed out in the article, you should have shallow depths of discharge, i.e. 5 discharges from 60% to 40% are better than 1 discharge from 100% to 0%, although technically both are counted by the gas gauge IC as 1 cycle. 3. Charge rate. Try to charge the device as slowly as possible. Although the research isn't clear on the point of diminishing returns, one thing is certain: fast charging is harmful to the battery, so avoid it (the worst example being USB-C to an iPhone). This is probably what kills Apple Pencils so quickly -- at least the 1st gen, non-inductive-charging one (I speak from experience, having had one replaced with 9 months of very light use on it). I wouldn't even recommend using the iPad 12 W charger, but rather the iPhone 5 W one, even to charge the iPad. An interesting trick: you can use your iPad USB-A charger plus a USB-A to USB-C cable to charge the newest MacBooks very slowly if not in use (if in use, it'll at best maintain the charge with very light use, or deplete it at moderate to heavy use). 4. Cycle count. Best thing to do would be not to put in the cycles if possible, although if points 1 and 2 are not respected, even a battery that hasn't been cycled at all will eventually die. This one is simple: try to connect the charger as often as is feasible. Even if you're taking it out for a quick half-hour session, leave the charger connected. For MacBooks, there are also some settings to be used with the pmset command in Terminal to make sure the computer goes to standby, since it is not unusual to lose 10% charge (i.e. 1/10 of a cycle) over less than a day if you close the lid but don't go to standby. The computer will take a bit longer to wake up but depending on your usage patterns, it pays to do this since it could add up to as much as 30 cycles a year, which is far from negligible -- it's about half what I put on my computer over a year of use. I have written an app for MacBooks that is able to keep the computer at the desired charge level with the power adapter connected but not charging. I use it to keep my computer at 60% charge following point 2. I thought of releasing the app, but I'm certain that as soon as I do it, someone at Apple will take notice and close the API I use to do it (same reason why I'm being intentionally vague here). The point is, the capability is there, but Apple has a long history of stopping at nothing to prevent users from doing legitimate things with the devices they paid hard-earned cash for. This same API could be used on iOS but unfortunately it requires root access and I'm not willing to jailbreak my phone over it, if it's even still possible. Hope this helps someone.
    1. Please try a little bit of formatting, like paragraphs and newlines. They are useful to the reader

    2. I only want to contest Point 3-charge rate. I have used my ipad air 2 charger on my iphone 6 through out its life, and after 4yrs of daily usage the iphone6 battery still has 91% capacity. And I live in tropical areas, so no cooling benefits either. So, I think the faster charging causing degradation of battery is just a myth.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 30
    sirozhasirozha Posts: 801member
    sree said:
    swineone said:
    After I had some batteries on Apple products die on me (and had to spend obscene amounts of money replacing them, because on top of Apple repairs being expensive, my country has some of the highest tax rates in the world piled on top), and being an electrical engineer, I decided to do some research on the scientific literature with regards to what could prolong the battery lifetime. Here is the executive summary: 1. Temperature: the main killer of batteries. Do everything on your power to keep the computer (and hence the battery) as cool as possible. For instance, using your phone for navigation in the car, which by itself heats the phone a lot due to GPS usage, plus having the sun shining directly on it, is just awful. If you do this often, try to leave the phone in the shade or right in front of the car's A/C vents to cool it. The inductive chargers I'm familiar with dissipate a lot of heat so I don't use those for the iPhone. 2. State of charge (battery percentage) and depth of discharge. Batteries degrade faster if fully charged. Some of the research indicates they'll also degrade if nearly depleted, and it appears a good compromise is about 60% charge. Too bad Apple won't allow you to connect the power adapter but disable charging (more on that at the end of the post). It might be very useful for those who don't need the full battery range, like me. Also some of the research indicates, as pointed out in the article, you should have shallow depths of discharge, i.e. 5 discharges from 60% to 40% are better than 1 discharge from 100% to 0%, although technically both are counted by the gas gauge IC as 1 cycle. 3. Charge rate. Try to charge the device as slowly as possible. Although the research isn't clear on the point of diminishing returns, one thing is certain: fast charging is harmful to the battery, so avoid it (the worst example being USB-C to an iPhone). This is probably what kills Apple Pencils so quickly -- at least the 1st gen, non-inductive-charging one (I speak from experience, having had one replaced with 9 months of very light use on it). I wouldn't even recommend using the iPad 12 W charger, but rather the iPhone 5 W one, even to charge the iPad. An interesting trick: you can use your iPad USB-A charger plus a USB-A to USB-C cable to charge the newest MacBooks very slowly if not in use (if in use, it'll at best maintain the charge with very light use, or deplete it at moderate to heavy use). 4. Cycle count. Best thing to do would be not to put in the cycles if possible, although if points 1 and 2 are not respected, even a battery that hasn't been cycled at all will eventually die. This one is simple: try to connect the charger as often as is feasible. Even if you're taking it out for a quick half-hour session, leave the charger connected. For MacBooks, there are also some settings to be used with the pmset command in Terminal to make sure the computer goes to standby, since it is not unusual to lose 10% charge (i.e. 1/10 of a cycle) over less than a day if you close the lid but don't go to standby. The computer will take a bit longer to wake up but depending on your usage patterns, it pays to do this since it could add up to as much as 30 cycles a year, which is far from negligible -- it's about half what I put on my computer over a year of use. I have written an app for MacBooks that is able to keep the computer at the desired charge level with the power adapter connected but not charging. I use it to keep my computer at 60% charge following point 2. I thought of releasing the app, but I'm certain that as soon as I do it, someone at Apple will take notice and close the API I use to do it (same reason why I'm being intentionally vague here). The point is, the capability is there, but Apple has a long history of stopping at nothing to prevent users from doing legitimate things with the devices they paid hard-earned cash for. This same API could be used on iOS but unfortunately it requires root access and I'm not willing to jailbreak my phone over it, if it's even still possible. Hope this helps someone.
    1. Please try a little bit of formatting, like paragraphs and newlines. They are useful to the reader

    2. I only want to contest Point 3-charge rate. I have used my ipad air 2 charger on my iphone 6 through out its life, and after 4yrs of daily usage the iphone6 battery still has 91% capacity. And I live in tropical areas, so no cooling benefits either. So, I think the faster charging causing degradation of battery is just a myth.
    Elon Musk would tend to agree. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 30
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,928administrator
    JanNL said:
    JanNL said:
    My mid 2015 15in MBP is normally on mains power all the time.

    Sounds logical that's less "wear" for the battery (and for you it shows), but is this generally recommended? Or maybe once in a while using the battery?
    From the article: "If you're doing this, you're not letting the battery deplete, you are off-and-on recharging it a tiny, tiny bit at a time. It's been a long time since we had NiCad batteries where this would degrade them over time -- and this behavior in this day and age won't harm the battery to any appreciable level."
    The answer to my question isn't in the article, it's not about off-and-on recharging, my question is about keeping the battery always charged and connected...
    It is, though. When the cable is plugged in constantly, this is what you're doing. Tiny, tiny discharges and recharges.
    watto_cobra
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