Is there a way to manually stop MacBook charging at 80%?

I have the exact same request. And: A general concern about Apple's roadmap planning. I know it's not easy to support MacOS, iOS and iPadOs all together. But why is Apple's product management adding useless complexity?

Lithium Batteries ALL need charging. TRUE for iPhones, iPads or MacBooks.

But here is what Apple Product Management tells us:

1. IF you have an iPhone (iOS), I give you charging optimization. You can choose "optimized charging" based on Apple's artificial intelligence OR use your own intelligence and choose "80 % Limit". Cool - thank you, Apple!
2. IF you have an iPad (iPadOS), I DO NOT give you charging optimization. Strange - but thanks, Apple!
3. IF you have a MacBook (MacOS), I DO NOT give you charging optimization. Even stranger - why this Apple?

This is incoherent and adding useless complexity!

Artificial intelligence and machine learning is nice to have, dear Product Management. But some of your users are experts with batteries - and Yes, they have their own intelligence.

Please, let us use it!

As usual, as soon as I wrote this, I then found an open source app that basically does this. It allows you to set hard charging limits, among other things. It has a paid option, but the free version is good enough, allowing you to set this limit and even discharge while still on battery if needed

The app: https://apphousekitchen.com/

The repo: https://github.com/AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Charge-Limiter

I also express this opinion. There is still a demand for limiting it. Not everyone has a routine use of their Apple device. I don't. My laptop goes days without being touched sometimes. Unplugging it works, but when I'm using my device on a dock, which requires a power-supply to be plugged in to use, it would be great if the laptop could pull power from it, but not charge off of it. I don't want my Macbook sitting on a charger at 100% for a few hours straight while I work on it.

Lenovo and Dell laptops have a feature for it, Samsung phones have it. After having it on my other devices, it would be awesome to see make its way to MacOS.

I think what YanH is asking for is to put a hard stop at 80% charging, not unplug or wait for it to "learn" it. I would gladly do the same; I seldomly use the mac unplugged, and 95% of the time I do, I never go to less that 20% (not even less than 50%), so it's a fair trade-off to optimize for battery life this way. I guess it's not possible, but would be a nice feature

I would never use any 3rd party software that claims to “improve” MacOS. All of them are just scams to take your money to slow down your Mac and provide no positive benefit.

And all Apple silicon MacBooks have sophisticated built in battery optimization. It monitors your usage, and if you leave it plugged in it will hold the battery level between 75% and 80%. It will occasionally charge to 100%, then drain it back to 80% because it also isn’t good for batteries to remain at one charge level for long periods.

YanH wrote:

Thank you. My usage has no constant pattern but never below 60%. It is about a month now but still keep changing to 100%. I will keep plugging in for another month to see what will happen.

If you have no consistent pattern, it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for the system to learn.

If you charge at a regular schedule or leave it plugged in, the Mac will limit charging to 80% after it learns your charging behavior. This could take a week or more if the charging schedule is not regular. I leave my Mac plugged in and it only charges to 80%. The iPhone added a 80% limit option along with the Optimized Charging, but there has been no official word if this will be added to MacOS.

Me too have enabled 'Optimized battery Charging' option under settings -> Battery -> battery health. It's now been more than 1 week since I've been using this Mac. I haven't let the Mac's battery drop below 80%. But if I plug in the Mac, it always charges back to 100%.

I was a Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 user before this Mac. It had a battery limit option. If that was enabled, the battery would only charge up to 50%. I always used that, as I have plugs accessible. But if I had to travel, which is a once in 4-month occasion, I would toggle off the battery protection mode. The laptop would then charge back to 100%. I wish I had that option for this Mac as well.

Interesting, but there is absolutely no benefit to 60% rather than the 80% that Apple has implemented. 80% is pretty much standard for all Lithium Ion battery uses, whether in MacBooks, iPhones, Android phones, or electric vehicles.

YanH wrote:

Thank you. My usage has no constant pattern but never below 60%. It is about a month now but still keep changing to 100%. I will keep plugging in for another month to see what will happen.

Batteries of the type used in these laptops can last longer if "exercised" from time to time. That means the charge decreases from 100%, say from using it on the battery, or if it remains at some medium charge (could be between 40% and 80%) for some period of time, and then periodically charges up to 100%. For laptops always attached to chargers, instead of allowing them to stay at 100% all the time, the Apple battery management allows that charge to reduce to 80% and it may stay there for some time. This is done if the battery is never "exercised."

It sounds like you are actually "exercising" your battery where it goes down to 60% and is used between 60% and 100% and then charges up to 100% at times. Apple's proprietary software (meaning we don't get to see the exact algorithms) seems to force the laptop to stay at about 80% if the battery is never exercised, but the algorithm might sense your pattern is better for the battery than keeping it at 80%. So I would let the battery management decide. Forcing your laptop to stay at 80% manually probably won't hurt it but it might not be as good adjust using it as you normally do.

By the way, that algorithm doesn't just keep it at 80%. I have several MacBook Pros, both Intel and M3 models, and sometimes they stay at 70% or 76% or some other value, sometimes 80%.

I would not worry about this. The differences between Apple's algorithm for battery management and what you are trying to do might make a difference of a few percent in the lifetime of the battery, maybe one way it lasts for 10 years and the other way it lasts for 10 years and 1 month ... but it is unclear which one is actually best. I would simply let the health management software decide.

phil2mac wrote:

Fully agree! And talking feature request:

Ideally, macOS would allow you to put a hard stop at 60 % rather than 80 % on iOS.

Why?

Because this is the load stage in which you typically process (long term) storage of batteries. Then you could work with your plugged PowerBook without having to think about health issues.

You might want to rethink that.

"A laptop battery could be prolonged by lowering the charge voltage when connected to the AC grid. To make this feature user-friendly, a device should feature a “Long Life” mode that keeps the battery at 4.05V/cell and offers a SoC of about 80 percent. One hour before traveling, the user requests the “Full Capacity” mode to bring the charge to 4.20V/cell."

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Apple's health battery management does exactly that. People often post here who are impatient but if you always have the power supply connected, eventually that battery health management will settle on about 80%. I see it on scores of Mac laptops at work, on laptops in people's offices always connected to power..

People will post here and impatiently ask why theirs haven't settled yet on 80%. It will, they are just impatient. The 80% always guideline is for laptops that are always connected to a charger. It doesn't have to be exactly 80%. If the laptop is used even a little off the charger, that will change things. As for 60% being better than 80%, show me peer reviewed publications documenting that and I might be convinced.

The beauty of Apple's algorithm is that it settles on industry best practices, but the user doesn't need to "do something." Others will post here wanting to actually "manage" a battery themselves. They may buy utilities, software, etc., some of which fail to work after a future MacOS update ... but they are doing something that I call "churn." This is just a BATTERY. They ALL wear out, and Apple's algorithm appears to be close to optimal. There may be better things to channel one's energies on. But to each his/her own ...

Of course this is BS, my '23 MBP after the last OS update has gone to 80% charge limit once in a month, despite it being plugged in 99% of the time. A useless apple solution OR more likely apple wasting peoples batteries.

I don't own another device which doesn't allow me to say - I don't need 100% charge, stop at 80%, other than my costly MBP

The reason people keep asking about this is because the apple solution doesn't work or is so **** it's indistinguishable from something that doesn't work.

Could be. So the punchline is “did you buy a computer, or a battery charger?"

You said that you never let the computer drop below 80% charge. Using it like that, it's never going to learn anything.

And, all your micromanaging of the battery is unlikely to extend your battery life more than Apple's algorithm. But, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

And, all your micromanaging of the battery is unlikely to extend your battery life more than Apple's algorithm. But, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

In my college years I worked in a high end audio shop. Some customers would compare speakers by looking at their frequency response specs, or by actually measuring the frequency response with audio oscillators and calibrated microphones. The shop owner, Sid Zimet, would ask are you listening to speakers, or to music? Which ones sound best with the music you like to listen to?