I own the 2013 13’’ Retina MacBook Pro. I want to ask 2 questions:
1-When the light on the charger is green, does the laptop still run on it’s internal battery or does it use the power from the charger?
2-Is it good for the health of the battery to use the computer in desktop conditions, always plugged in or does this ruin the battery overtime?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
1 - runs off the power supply and charges the battery
2 - neither, plugging in in only charges the battery. discharging and recharing the battery is what affects its life span.
When the power is plugged in the MBP runs on the power from the charger while charging the battery
It is a good idea to run the battery down to 15-20% once a month then fully recharge it. Do not run it fully empty.
It s ok to leave it plugged in most of the time, it can not overcharge.
Leaving it plugged in will not ruin the battery, though it is good to unplug periodically and exercise the battery.
The charging circuit has over-charge protection, when you reach 100% the circuit switches to using line power for the MacBook Pro (what is happening when you see the green LED). When the charge drops to 93-95% the circuit starts charging again to top up the battery (the LED is amber then).
Discharging the battery to the point of shutdown is not good for the battery and does nothing in the way of calibrating the battery. Lithium-Ion batteries do not have a memory and cannot be calibrated, no matter what you may hear to the contrary. The only calibration that can be done is to the charge reporting circuit.
Discharging the battery to 50% and recharging will give 3 to 4 times longer battery life than full battery discharge to shutdown, so use the battery half way and recharge to get a battery that will be healthy longer.
When you're plugged into mains and you've the green light on the adapter, the battery is only being used a tiny, tiny bit. You needn't worry about your computer's battery when it's plugged up.
You should give your battery a rest at times. I use my MacBook Pro largely as a desktop, but I've a reminder to, every two weeks, disconnect from mains and run on battery only until I'm at about 20-40% before plugging back up. This keeps the ions flowing and the battery healthy.
Good luck - just set a reminder to disconnect from mains about every two weeks.
Clinton
Here are a list of authoritative Apple support articles on Apple batteries. Read the first two and they should answer your questions.
https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro/batteries_power/
Ciao.
thank you guys verry much for all of the answers 🙂
Does using a MacBook plugged in ruin it's battery?
