battery life on MacBook m1

Batteries are a wear item, like the soles of your shoes or the brakes and tires on your car. They deteriorate with heavy use and high temperatures, but also just by age. They often (but not always) last three years, but can last longer if you are both kind to them AND lucky.

Your battery will eventually need to be replaced -- they do not last forever.

So yes, that assessment seems correct. Your battery is behaving as expected.

Apple has not recommended "exercise" for your computer battery for several years. "Battery Health Management", if available on your model of MacBook Pro, takes care of all of that and more.

Research shows that these lithium polymer batteries need to spend most of their life between 20% and 80%. Apple’s own software is supposed to learn your style to make that happen by not charging above 80% until 2 hours before you are likely to take it somewhere to run on battery. Of course if you never take it off the charger, then it will never learn anything. You are probably better off starting the day off the charge, and then charging again if it drops to 20%. Then the mac will do what it's supposed to do.

Hope this helps. It seems counter to normal thinking that it would lose its charging energy by being fully charged most of the time, but it's true. It's designed to be discharged, and if you never do that, it just plain deteriorates.

There is also an app called Al Dente that you can buy that will do this for you. its not available at the Apple Store, partly because Apple software does it, if you let it learn how you work without being on the charger.

Your Mac will manage the charging system. You can leave your Mac plugged in when convenient to do so. Neither the computer nor the battery will be damaged by leaving it plugged in. You do not need a third party app to manage charging. Let the MacOS do its job.

Yes the Mac will do it. But if you leave it on the charger 24/7 365 days a year, then the mac’s system for dealing with the battery will not be engaged because you never use the battery.

Obviously, your battery has lost its charge by 7% while you never used it. These batteries, and mac’s systems for dealing with the battery have to be engaged, or they won’t work. As they say, “Use it or lose it”.

https://www.grepow.com/blog/prolong-lithium-polymer-battery-life/

This is a good description of how to use your battery. See the last paragraph for someone who never takes it off of the charger. Apple won’t tell you any of this.

zarathu--

That is an interesting article, But Apple Computer, Inc does NOT recommend "exercise" for their batteries nor deep discharge for calibration or any other purpose at any time during their life, Not when new, Not when old.

To the best of my knowledge, the authors of that article, Grepow do not make the batteries used in the MacBook Pro.

zarathu wrote:

Explain to me perhaps exactly where Apple Computer recommends anything, other than “leave it to us”.

Why are you so insistent that that Macs need manual micro-managing of their charging system or that a third party app should be used? A lot of experience here is advising otherwise.

That's incorrect. The M1 MacBook, when left plugged in 24/7, will periodically and automatically shut off charging and switch to battery power to exercise the battery. You need to leave it plugged in for some time before it will start doing this, and you may also need to have battery health management enabled.

It's not. But it does depend on how you use computer. If it goes below 80% in the first year Apple will replace it.

Explain to me perhaps exactly where Apple Computer recommends anything, other than “leave it to us”.

Forget it. Just leave it to Apple.