Optimized battery charging issue solved ( MBP 2020, macOS Ventura )

Original orientations from @kivanc48 (first post) worked for me. Thank you

Macbook M1 MAX

6 days plugged via usb-c (I use two monitors as charger via usb-c, not the magsafe adapter), and the battery was at 100% and in green state.

Steps I followed:

• activated sleep mode
• unplugged the monitors (not using magsafe charger here)
• used the computer for 5 mins
• shutdown
• start
• login
• plugged the first monitor (waited image appears)
• plugged the second monitor (waited image appears)
• closed the lid (do not need it as I am using external displays)
• 1 minute later my mac activated the paused state battery (optimized charging)

With all due respect, I don't think you are correct about this.

I use two 2019 16" MacBook Pro laptops, both on 13.4.1(c). Both are plugged in almost all the time in one location. Then they are shut down (powered off fully), moved to another location, where they are then connected to the charger and THEN powered on. Within several weeks, both reverted to a long-term charge level of 80% with "Charging on Hold (Rarely Used Battery)" showing under the battery menu icon. Sometimes the level is 77% or something similar. Periodically, once in a while, they charge up to 100%. Then decreasing back to close to 80%. When the laptop, maybe once a week or so, is removed from the charger and used for a while, it will often charge up to 100%, stay there for a while but if on the power supply for another day or two, will go back to the lower (80%) level.

I have observed these behaviors very carefully because I was concerned at first about this "learning" behavior. When powered off, I almost never power on unless first connected to a charger, which is the opposite of what you suggest. But clearly both the laptops I use (one at work, one is a personal device) have learned to alter the charging behavior to preserve the battery.

My daughter also has a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" and she reports the same behavior as I have seen. These experiences do not match what you are reporting.

You posted in Reddit "that learning doesn't preserve between restarts or updates." From what I have observed on three MacBook Pros, it absolutely does preserve between restarts and updates. It would make no sense if it did not.

kivanc48 wrote:

• Thank you for your informative replay, since there is no explanation from apple about how this feature works with a some technical point of view, we are experimenting with trial and errors. As I do not want my battery to wear off during some unnecessary charging/discharging cycles during learning.

Original poster from reddit explains that he contacted the apple support for this issue and get it is working by doing steps that I summarized.

Although I want to see some details as an engineer the solution I proposed is simple and also helpful for common usage. That is like that:

They will need to put some status indication to battery settings like "refreshing battery" or "learning in progress".

• Or some simple checkbox to indicate the computer is generally on AC power. ( Charger is always plugged )

Then have a few suggestions ;

1 - Get Support Choose a product and we’ll find you the best solution.Start now and open an Apple Support Ticket as they are Apple Employees to deal will these types of issues . 

2 - Product Feedback - Apple and make it known to Apple regarding this ongoing issue or request a Feature Addition

I have found once it goes down to 80% it stays that way until I turn off the MacBook Pro Max and unplug the battery charger, then a few hours later I may plug it in again and turn the MacBook on (I know the solution says to turn it on first before plugging it in, but that is not what I've been doing). It wll stay at 80% for a little while and then charge up to 100%, for part of a day, it seems, and then go back down to 80% and stay there. This last time after doing that it has charged up to 100% and Coconut Battery shows my full charge capacity is only 7 mAh lower than it was when I first got the MacBook four or five months ago. At certain periods it had been down by about 45 mAh. from when it was new. So whatever the routine it's doing is, it seems to be maintaining the health of the battery.

I accept (and expect) that not everyone agrees with me.

Previously, most of us happily went about using our Macs with the supplied chargers and batteries. I have seen varying lifetimes for these older laptop batteries in the past. One on a 13-year old 2010 MacBook Air I have still shows 83% original capacity. Another, on a 2013 MacBook Air, had to be replaced after 6 years.

Apple's introduction of the better battery management methods in its newest laptops and iPhones was a welcome development for most of us users. Made the product better and it was one less thing to worry about.

It sounds like you want to get more insight and even the ability to control that battery charging behavior at the user level. It seems that Apple does not want to do that at present.

Use this link to offer suggestions:

Product Feedback - Apple

P. Phillips actually suggested this some posts earlier, but your response was that it would be "futile." All I can say to that is: if you don't ask, the answer is guaranteed to be "no." We have seen some bugs fixed and features added when people provided feedback. Was it because of the feedback? We may never know, but it doesn't hurt to provide feedback and might be helpful.

Keep in mind that large companies prioritize new or changed features in the operating system. There is significant cost to any such change. These changes have to be soak tested thoroughly at significant expense before release. My guess is that security updates are a high priority. As might be adding features that many users want. I am guessing that allowing users to modify the optimized battery charging settings might be desired by a small minority of advanced users, but the vast majority of millions or billions of Mac users would not care, they just want their batteries to last. But if no one provides feedback to Apple, they will never know how many users want such features.

I have a MacBook M3 Pro Max, 16 inch, with Sonoma, which I always keep plugged in to the charger, except when I store it in the closet for a few hours maybe once a week. When I put it on optimized battery charging it took about two weeks before it started slowly going down to about 94%, then it charged up again. Then a few days later it went down more quickly to 89% I believe, for a few hours and then charged up again to 100%. I think a few days after that it went down to 80% and stayed there for quite a while, maybe a week. When I took it off charger and put it in the closet, I noticed that it charged back up to 100% after I restarted and plugged it in, in that order. Eventually it went down to 80% again. The next time it had been shut down and off charger for a few hours, I plugged it in before restarting and it stayed 80%. So I agree, it seems to work the opposite of what the initial post says. Lately however for the few days to a last week it has been staying more on 100% charge and I'm not sure why. I noticed that when new, the maximum charge capacity was 242 mAh above the design capacity, which I suppose is a good thing. After it had been on 80% charge for a while, and maybe it became accidentally disconnected from battery and went down to maybe 60% one time, the maximum charge capacity dropped about 40 mAh from its initial maximum charge capacity, but after it had been charging up to 100% for a while it went back up about 20 mAh. I suspect that the program periodically charges it to 100% for some reason, perhaps because that also helps preserve the battery. I noticed after one OS update involving downloading and installing, that the battery charged up to 100% and stayed like that for about four hours and then started going down to 80%.

Interesting that this thread is still somehow active after 8 months!

Here's my perspective. Apple and other companies probably have entire laboratories dedicated to figuring out how to maximize device battery lifetime. They have resources for this that no individual users here have access to.

I have read various users here saying things like, "I unplugged this, restarted that, then connected in this order, and now things are better." Or maybe suggesting new GUI or buttons to manually manage a battery.

I remain skeptical. Unless someone can convincingly prove to me and other interested users that they have come up with something that can be quantitatively shown to extend battery life, I am going with the Apple default of Battery Health Management event.

Problem is, even if you use your device (Mac, iPhone ...) in the exact same predictable way day after day after day, providing convincing proof that your approach has extended battery life is a tall order. You really would need to run hundreds of independent trials to statistically prove this. And even if you could prove this, it might only work for your very specific individual routine: how can you then prove that it also works better for other users with very different use patterns.

Apple's Battery Health Management actually learns from each individual's use pattern how to optimize battery lifetime. And if that pattern changes, the Health Management will adapt.

As for elaborate schemes to monitoring individual cells in the battery ... it's just a battery! They all wear out, it's a matter of when, not if. How many hours is it worth spending on this? A new battery for most laptops from OWC costs $50 to $100. How many hours are people willing to dedicate to this? What is their time worth?

Now " the gate is open " on this topic.

The more persons and user who provide feedback the greater the chance Apple Will Listen

If everybody sits on their respective hands waiting for the Other Person(s) to do it , nothing will get done

Above is a personal opinion.

Batteries are considered Consumable Products. Over time it will degrade to a point where it needs to be replaced. The usage is normal as the capacity will go up and down all the time and never stay always at 100%. Apple Batteries are rated for 1000 Full Battery Cycles and / or 80% Capacity before needing Evaluation or replacement.

For additional reading on Battery and Apple Computers this link may help. About battery health management in Mac notebooks and especially for the M1 / M2 and Big Sur  & Monterey  and Ventura If battery charging is paused or on hold on your Mac

Depending on the Age of the computer, some aspects from the above links, may or may not apply to your computer.

A feature introduced into Big Sur & Monterey and Ventura was to preserve the number of Full Battery Cycles - there was an Algorithm coded into the macOS.

It is perfectly Normal for Big Sur , Monterey, Ventura to Pause / Suspend charging the battery beyond 80% and hold it at that level.

One can nudge / over-ride this by clicking the Battery Icon on Desktop Top Bar and allow charging beyond 80%. From observations, it will Pause / Suspend again once reading 90%.

Same procedure to over-ride and will charge to 100%

In my case, it took about 6 months for the Slow Learner Algorithm to kick in ( humour here )

kivanc48 wrote:

• Thank you for your informative replay, since there is no explanation from apple about how this feature works with a some technical point of view, we are experimenting with trial and errors. As I do not want my battery to wear off during some unnecessary charging/discharging cycles during learning.

Original poster from reddit explains that he contacted the apple support for this issue and get it is working by doing steps that I summarized.

Although I want to see some details as an engineer the solution I proposed is simple and also helpful for common usage. That is like that:

They will need to put some status indication to battery settings like "refreshing battery" or "learning in progress".

• Or some simple checkbox to indicate the computer is generally on AC power. ( Charger is always plugged )

The solution you proposed does no harm, but it is inconvenient as it requires multiple menus and clicks. For something that Apple has designed so the user does not need to do anything in order to maximize battery life. My anecdotal experience with 3 laptops is that 3 for 3, all three have "learned" to preserve batteries by staying long term at a lower charge, with the user having to do ... nothing.

I am also an engineer and do respect that some companies prefer not to release their proprietary algorithms, I see this all the time, I accept it. Especially where the algorithm appears to work.

In any case, you may be over-worrying the battery situation. As P. Phillips points out, batteries are a consumable, the wear out over time and use, no matter what. Apple has implemented a scheme to maximize battery life, and does something similar with iPhones as well.

As for worrying about unnecessary charging/discharging cycles during learning, that is probably insignificant, these batteries are designed for 1000 cycles.

As I do not want my battery to wear off during some unnecessary charging/discharging cycles during learning.

Personally, I would not be interested in the added complexity. It's just a battery! I prefer the current Apple set up. I doubt you or I could do a better job than the Apple algorithm anyway. Most users simply use their laptops and replace the battery when it wears out and probably do not care to micromanage the precise charging modes or patterns. The new Apple battery management probably means the batteries will last longer than they used to. Most Mac users replace their laptops before they have to replace their batteries.

There are many other posts from readers impatient for their Mac to "learn" a new battery management charging pattern faster. In all cases that I have seen, if the user is patient, the laptop does learn eventually. It may take weeks or months. But if the laptop is used occasionally off the charger, holding the charge level to 80% may not even be necessary, since the battery is already being periodically discharged and charged.

This is a user community, not Apple employees. Your approach may be interesting to some readers, but only Apple can implement it.

Product Feedback - Apple

Update: it's been about 20 hours since I re-plugged in and restarted my MacBook, and it's still on 100% charging. But the interesting thing is the full charge capacity, and the current charge which matches it now, have gone back up to the highest they were when I first got the MacBook in November, which was 243 mAh higher than the design capacity. If those Coconut Battery readings are accurate that means whatever the optimized battery charging is doing is actually preserving the battery and restoring it--I don't know how.

kivanc48 wrote:

What are you sayin 6 months to learn :) I believe we talked this before, I remembered that.

Yes you are right about sending feedback to Apple but regarding to my past experiences It is hard to find someone who has a grasp on the subject.

To achieve that level of would probably require having a Developers Level to communicate with the Apple Software Engineers

When I heard about the word "algorithms" I usually laugh because when you do not know about how it works or may not want to explain the details you generally use the sentences like "there are algorithms for solving these kind of problems"

By the way do you agree that this functionality was much better on Monterey ?

I can say with great certainty - the newest addition being a M2 machine purchased March 2023 that originally came with Ventura 13.0 and upgraded up to Ventura 13.5 is Still Learning

The Battery Capacity, as measures in Amps / hour, is still reporting 100 % to 102 % of Designed Capacity with about 5 Full Battery Cycles

Hope you find this information informative or at least helpful