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I got a new MacBook Pro. I am trying to limit the charging at 80%. I have the optimized battery charging ON, but it is still keep charging to 100%. Is there is a way that I can decide when to pause charging like Tesla?
Please do not answer like you can turn on the optimized battery charging option. I have it ON.
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:
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!
YanH wrote:
lol. Unplug it!
You said "manually"!
On my Microsoft Surface laptop, if the battery protection is enabled, plugged in, and if the battery is 100%, the laptop will discharge to 50%. Once it reaches 50% level, it will continue to use the AC power supply, keeping the charge level at 50% itself. Thus keeping the battery below 100% charge.
Further, if the AC adapter is unplugged, (using battery), it will discharge down further. If plugging back the AC adapter, it will charge back to 50% only.
If I need to use the full capacity, (to charge back to 100%) I need to manually disable battery protection.
The battery is under stress if the battery is 100% charged or extremely discharged to 0% and near. The 100% charged situation is effectively avoided in Surface laptops by enabling battery protection. It has a battery saver that can be enabled at 20% to save battery from discharging below 20%.
My Samsung S23 Ultra mobile phone also has a similar battery protection option. I have attached a screenshot.
But MBP always charges back to 100%!
I prefer to have similar battery saving settings in MBP to save battery life.
Answer to your question (If you never let it drop below 80%, how is it going to stop charging at 80%? ): MBP should disharge till 80% even if plugged in. It should never charge to 100% untill the battery protection is disabled.
Your point may be a bit too subtle. I think you need to re-iterate the "punchline" for full effect of what you intended to say.
My MacBook Pro with m3 has been plugged into my docking station for 2 months and the charge never settles at 80%. It has never dropped below 100%
steve626 wrote:
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.
Excellent advice!
Looking back on my experience with my last MacBook Air M2, when I simply let the battery health management software decide, I got disappointing results: the software had a pretty poor learning curve and didn't keep the charge at 80% nearly as often as it needed to.
As a result, this computer, in just under 2 years of operation, has already experienced battery wear of more than 10%, which is quite a lot. I control the charging of my current macBook manually and have more than impressive results: after 7 months of use, the battery health level is 100%.
I gained experience in controlling battery charge ranging from 30% to 80% on my iPhones, which I successfully sold in trade-in programs after 2-3 years of operation with battery health of more than 93-94% and always received the maximum possible amount of compensation .
In order to remove my laptop from charging in time, in a couple of days I wrote the BatWiser program for my needs, which I kindly posted in the public domain. Good luck!
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.
60 % would not be practicable with an iPhone which is constantly mobile (in your pocket). But for a PowerBook which is used 90 % of its time sitting on your desktop for probably 70 % of the user: 60 % would be perfect !
Recharging from 60 % to 100% doesn't take long nowadays.
And, people typically know a head if they really need 100 % charge due to traveling or other reasons.
If Apple only would take their own green initiatives seriously, they would deliver this feature right away! ;-)
phil2mac wrote:
My apologies, if this sounded male - I thought "dude" includes males and females. Blame my poor English being German. To your question: The discussion is around constantly plugging in your MacBook to power while using it .
Unplugging batteries is not harmful as such. But the more you use a battery, the sooner it will die. Just think of the motor in your car: If you are constantly driving, it will die soon. If you constantly leave it in your garage, it will live for ever.
Same with batteries. Only - but important - difference to the motor:
A battery is used being discharged and being charged. In general, batteries dislike (are physically stressed) either being fully discharged (0 %) or being fully charged (100 %). Therefore, older MacBooks gave you the possibility to remove battery while working. As long as you were plugged to power, there was no need to use/harm your battery.
Newer MacBooks will (and have for as long as I can remember) stop charging when full. You are not harming your battery by leaving your MacBook plugged in.
So, your suggestion to unplug your iPhone or PowerBook to save your battery is contradictory to what you want to achieve (save lifetime of battery).
No, my suggestion was a slightly flip response to the people who are overthinking this whole thing and who think that leaving the MacBook plugged in above 80% will harm it.
Hope this helps!
Helps what? Modern portable Macs have very sophisticated power management features. If you try to fiddle with them, thinking you know more about how it should work than Apple, you're not helping the battery and are just wasting your time. It is, however, your time to waste. Of course, it will probably cause you battery to age more quickly, too.
And to avoid you presuming again that you are somehow more experienced with Macs than I, my first portable Mac was a PowerBook 100. Not, I grant you, the first "portable" Mac, but pretty close.
I am planning to buy Dell s2722QC as an external monitor to my macbook air m1. It has 65W USB-C display + charging port. I would probably be sitting 8hrs/day on desk using my monitor connected to macbook using this type C. So the monitor would charge my mac whole day. Will this affect the battery health or internal components of my macbook?
PratikAwaik wrote:
I am planning to buy Dell s2722QC as an external monitor to my macbook air m1. It has 65W USB-C display + charging port. I would probably be sitting 8hrs/day on desk using my monitor connected to macbook using this type C. So the monitor would charge my mac whole day. Will this affect the battery health or internal components of my macbook?
No.
Yeah, but apparently the apple solution to this is wonderful, mine is the same, the battery protection software doesn't work, in trying to be smart, apple have demonstrated they are incapable of making even the most simple thing work. Of course it may be that they intend to reduce the life of batteries intentionally cauing people to purchase more product, or am I being cynical (I suspect not)
The 3rd party tool mentioned, incidentally, works perfectly.
Can you tell the sequence please? Because I did stop manually when it charged up to 80%, and then pulled out the cable due to the reason if I keep the cable plugged in it charges further. What I don't like.
So now I was letting the cable in, because the system said that is using cable, but it was charging.. and it went up to 100%.. So now I should leave it in? Because it says The Mac uses charger.. But this way how is it going to go down to 80% and stay there? I hope it makes sense. Thanks a lot!
I have the problem.
I've a big monitor, the monitor is being used by 2 different devices which one of them is a Macbook. The monitor charges Macbook even it's in sleep mode. So I remove its type-c cable from Macbook.
My Macbook Pro 16 M2 Pro is 5 months old and the battery health is already 96% and 28 cycles with enabled optimization.
I used it for work and 99% with plug in a charger. When I take a break for 5-10 min the Macbook always charges from 80 to 100 percent.
My MacBook Pro 16 M2 pro after 5 months using the battery life is 96% and 28 cycles. Worked with 99% with plug-in the charger. When I take a break for 10 min, my Mac always charges from 80 to 100, then again drop to 80 and again charges to 100 and so 5 times a day
Is there a way to manually stop MacBook charging at 80%?
