How to optimize MacBook Pro battery health?

You should have Optimized Charging tuned on, since it is the default. You can check at  > System Setting > Battery Health, then click the info button. This will charge the battery to 80% and leave it there after learning that you are leaving your Mac plugged in. At times it will charge to 100% to maintain accurate battery estimates. It may take a week after leaving it plugged in to learn how you are using your Mac.

About Optimized Battery Charging and Charge Limit on Mac - Apple Support

The same is true for the iPhone for using Optimized Charging. The difference is that the iPhone should be charged all night, every night since it is a mobile device and it will also learn that charging behavior to know when you normally take the phone off the charger. It is only when your charging is unpredictable that it would constantly charge to 100%.

About Charge Limit and Optimized Battery Charging on iPhone - Apple Support

I don't bother with the Charge Limit and most here just see that as a gimmick because users requested that feature since it was seen on other platforms. It is there if you want to use it, but I have seen no reports where it offers any additional benefit when it comes to your Battery Health. On the iPhone, you may even find that it increases your Charge Cycles, especially if you are not charging all night, every night.

I retired an Intel Macbook Pro 13" in March 2025 in favor of an M4 Pro Macbook Pro. That old Intel veteran of many road trips still lives here, is powered up, and ready for use if needed.

It has its original battery and I did nothing to "baby" it through its working life. I used the computer on battery once a week (±) and the rest of the time on the charger meaning it was at 100% change most of the time. Today it has between 80 and 85% health and still delivers usable runtime between recharging.

Here's the rest of the story: I bought that Macbook Pro and put it in service in June 2013. 😱

Is 13 years "healthy as long as possible?" [Your mileage many vary]

Remember that health is neither exact nor is its rate of decay linear. My old Macbook Pro's "health" has wobbled between 77 and 85% for at least two years.

My advice:

— use the computer as you must. It will learn your usage patterns.

— do not obsess over an inexact and non-linear metric. Save obsession for something more important.

— do not take actions recommended in generic "battery maintenance" sites. They too often recommend acts like "calibration" the can damge Apple batteries.

Offered for your consideration,

Allan

putreaksa wrote:

Hello Apple Community,

Is it better to keep my MacBook plugged into the charger while I’m using it at my desk every day

Yes.

or should I let the battery discharge and recharge regularly?

No.

If I keep it plugged in most of the time, the battery stays at 100%. Is this harmful to the battery’s long-term health?

The battery will eventually drop to 80%. The operating system manages this. Unless you seriously abuse the battery, by say letting it discharge completely many times over the years, you will discard the computer before the battery degrades.

Do you have any recommendations or best practices for maintaining battery health for someone who primarily uses their MacBook at a desk?

Leave it alone. With Apple devices, the more you mess with their internal configuration, the worse they perform.

An iPhone is not a MacBook. It runs iOS, which is not macOS.

Even with Optimised Battery Charging stopping at 80%, the iPhone does not bypass the battery and run directly on mains power the way a MacBook can under certain conditions.

MacBooks can enter a state where the system is powered primarily from the charger while the battery is held at a lower state of charge. This is part of Battery Health Management and is possible because macOS has more advanced power routing and thermal headroom.

(Even my older 2018 15" MacBook Pro still does that today when I use it. I keep it plugged in all the time while I’m using it, and even when I’m not for a long while. When I haven’t used it for, say, a month or so and then switch it on again, it’s still holding its charge. Maybe it loses 3–5%, and that’s about it. They really did know how to build MacBooks back then! I use a Mac Mini for daily work now.)

iPhones, however, are designed differently:

• They always run off the battery, even when plugged in.
• The charger supplies power to the battery, and the battery supplies power to the phone.
• There is no “direct-to-system” power bypass mode like on MacBooks.

So even at 80% with Optimised Charging enabled, the iPhone is still technically operating from the battery, not directly from the charger.

What Optimised Battery Charging actually does on iPhone

Optimised Charging:

• Learns your charging routine.
• Pauses charging at 80% to reduce time spent at high voltage.
• Finishes charging to 100% shortly before you typically unplug.

But it does not change the fundamental power path.

The battery remains in use the entire time.

iOS isn’t macOS; it’s designed for always-on mobile devices. If someone is worried about “battery cycles”, they shouldn’t use a mobile phone at all.

(For example, I now have an iPhone 17 with its battery capacity still at 100% and 22 cycles. Before that, I had an iPhone 11 that worked brilliantly for six years, with over 1500 cycles, and the battery capacity stayed at 81% fairly consistently for nearly two years. And I sold it for good money too. 😀)

Keep your device plugged in when using if power is available. You can leave it plugged in 24/7 with no harm.

Ditto! Plugged in 24/7 if you have power available.

Another recommendation is to update to MacOS 26.5.2. There have been a large number of security improvements made since Mac OS 26.3.1.

chdsl wrote:

An iPhone is not a MacBook. It runs iOS, which is not macOS.

Even with Optimised Battery Charging stopping at 80%, the iPhone does not bypass the battery and run directly on mains power the way a MacBook can under certain conditions.

(For example, I now have an iPhone 17 with its battery capacity still at 100% and 22 cycles. Before that, I had an iPhone 11 that worked brilliantly for six years, with over 1500 cycles, and the battery capacity stayed at 81% fairly consistently for nearly two years. And I sold it for good money too. 😀)

• The phone will not discharge the battery when it is plugged in. It is the discharge of a full capacity battery that produces a singe charge cycle. When a phone is not plugged in overnight, you are wasting your charge cycles.
• I agree if you are constantly worried about charge cycles, a phone or any device using a battery is not for you. Replace it when it falls below 80% Battery Health and enjoy your device however you wish.
• For maximum performance on an iPhone use Optimized Charging and charge your phone all night, every night. Midday charging at irregular times just means Optimized Charging will not be working for you. Being that it is a mobile device it is not expected you would always have mains to leave it plugged in throughout the day and irregular charging throughout the day, just mean you are not taking advantage of Optimize Charging where the device only charges to 80% until you normally take it off power with it at 100% for maximum usage throughout the day.
• I have an iPhone 8 that I now use solely for testing on app development that is left plugged in for the majority of the time since it is not needed for mobile use and it has been 8 years on the original battery where the Battery Health is just now at 80%.

Mac Jim ID wrote:

The same is true for the iPhone for using Optimized Charging. The difference is that the iPhone should be charged all night, every night since it is a mobile device and it will also learn that charging behavior to know when you normally take the phone off the charger.

Bit off topic, but about Optimised Charging. Why should a new iPhone be charged all night? I charged it when the charge falls down to ~40%, and it always charge up to 80%.

chdsl wrote:

Bit off topic, but about Optimised Charging. Why should a new iPhone be charged all night? I charged it when the charge falls down to ~40%, and it always charge up to 80%.

Because Optimized Charging learns when you normally take your phone off the charger and for most that would be in the morning. That way the phone will charge to 80% automatically and only charge to the full 100% until just before you normally take it off the charger.

Another reason is that if you are not leaving it plugged in overnight, your battery in continually being used to power Cellular, Wifi, and perform background processes that are scheduled to be run when you are not actively using your device.

The result is that you are actually increasing your Charge Cycles and will result in your Battery Health being degraded faster. A charge cycle is not actually how many times your phone has been charged, it is how many times you have discharged the full capacity of your battery. The iPhone 15 or later are designed to last 1000 charges cycles, while earlier models are expected to last 500 charge cycles before the battery should be replaced when it drops below 80% battery health.

Mac Jim ID wrote:

• The phone will not discharge the battery when it is plugged in. It is the discharge of a full capacity battery that produces a singe charge cycle. When a phone is not plugged in overnight, you are wasting your charge cycles.

As I’m most of the time sitting at a desk, I could keep the iPhone plugged in. In a way, it can stay connected all the time, apart from when I’m out. Even so, I tend to plug it in at irregular times, as the battery charge drops to around 40% at those times. I’m not too bothered about charge cycles, as long as the phone performs well. I do hope it keeps performing as well as my iPhone 11 did for six years. 😀

Anyway, I’m going to test your idea of plugging it in overnight for the next few weeks, just to see how much the cycles change. In a given day, the charge drops by roughly 40%, based on how I use it. So, if I kept it plugged in all night every night, the daily charge loss of about 40% would work out to around 2½ days for a full cycle. So the cycles would add up quickly. It looks as though, whether I plug it in overnight for all night or at irregular times, as long as it’s using Optimised Charging, I should get roughly 146 cycles in a year. That way, my iPhone should last for around six-plus years. I believe that by then, the battery level should be around 85%. Considering how long and well the iPhone 11 lived on.

I also noticed that even when I had it plugged in the car, it didn’t go above 80%—the optimised level.