Does leaving my macbook on alle night damage the battery?

Hi,

Today’s lithium ion batteries are completely different than batteries of the past, and some people still live in the past regarding battery care, such as advising you to “calibrate” your battery, which is totally unnecessary, or don’t leave your Mac notebook plugged in all the time. Given that, there are vastly differing opinions on how to treat Mac batteries.

If you run using the power adapter as much as possible, then you're saving "cycles" of which your battery has limited amount of (Apple claims “up to 1000” cycles). Age will also take its toll on a battery, no matter the usage. Some people will recommend running the battery down about 75% at once a month to keep it "exercised" which Lithium Ion batteries do need some of, but Apple has built that in to their charging circuit; after charging to 100% the battery won't charge anymore until it runs down to about 95% (which will occur naturally over time even with it plugged in), then charge it back up to 100%, etc.

Apple doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with leaving your Mac notebook plugged in all the time, nor do they say you need to discharge it ever (unless you’re not going to use your Mac portable long term) so they don’t think it’s a problem either: http://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

If, on the other hand, you want/need to use your battery with any frequency, go ahead, that’s why it’s there, to make your Mac portable and able to run out in the field with no power supply available.

You can run your Mac on battery for a little bit, then charge it back up to whatever level you want, and repeat this as many times as you want.

Although, in general, "common knowledge" is that it's not good to run down lithium-ion batteries all the way until they die, Apple doesn't say there's anything wrong with running your battery down to the point the OS puts your Mac to sleep.

In short, you can use the battery any way you want to.

Just leaving your Mac notebook running on battery overnight or any time will not "damage" the battery. It shouldn't damage the battery even if you are charging the notebook with the supplied power brick. However, it is best NOT to leave the charger connected constantly as the battery is designed to be fully discharged/recharged over time.

You need to daily since you keep it plugged in daily like that - MAKE SURE you use battery power to drop below 80%, I would go to 50% and below that occasional to 24-40% and recharge ie when you fall asleep leave it plugged in... in addition I would also once a month allow it to drain until it turns off and then wait 5 hours and fully charge a couple hours after the green light goes back on.

You can leave the computer plugged in all the time if you wish. Advice not to leave the computer plugged in as it will damage the battery or charging circuitry is based on old outdated information. I leave mine charging all the time when near a power source.

This could absolutely effect your battery health due to over heating but I think that the larger impact is on the monitor and other components.

If you keep your notebook on the charger, you would generally be running off of that power and shouldn't have a serious effect.

If your fans are running then you are likely pushing your processor and/or your gpu rather hard.

I definitely don't recommend it.

Overheating batteries are always something to be aware of. Whether powered or not. Just making that point first and foremost.

Then I proceeded to point out more likely issues with doing the above.

Not sure why anyone would have a problem with that?

Additionally, due to the trickle charge nature of these setups, there is always some power being circulated. If Netflix is being run and the processors and heating up the battery can too, no matter the setup.

Mac_slide wrote:

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS, their worship of false gods is evident.

Fact is fact: I've been using Mac notebooks of various kinds since the Powebook 100, mostly plugged in. I've had one battery fail.

I left my 09 MBP in England, then events transpired that stopped me from going back for it, I had Danny ship it back to me fairly recently. It was on charge all the time I was here until the day that Danny unplugged it and shipped it back to me. Its battery is fine (93%).

Mac_slide outputs nothing but fantasy.

Mac_slide wrote:

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS, their worship of false gods is evident.

I don't doubt that you had a battery go bad, but that does not mean because it was continually plugged in.

FACT IS FACT - My 7 year old Macbook Air has been plugged in almost continuously for it's entire life, and the battery life on the rare occasion when I use it mobile is as good as it was when new.

ROTFLOL

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS. You can't deny it.

Mac_slide wrote:

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS. You can't deny it.

No one is denying that you had a battery go bad. It can happen. But, your assumption that it must have been because you kept the computer plugged in all the time is just that, an assumption. It has no basis in fact. The fact that you have latched on to this correlation as the only possible explanation for the problem is demonstration of shoddy logic.

If leaving the computer plugged in made the batteries go bad, I probably would have had a lot of them (about a dozen) go bad. I've had one. The computer was about 6 years old.

Mac_slide wrote:

ROTFLOL

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS. You can't deny it.

I believe that it happened to you, I know that it did not happen to me, and that I am not alone in that.

Because if you don't bow to the apple gods and worship them and their failed mantra - then you are 'persona non grata' and likely to have your posts removed for some LAME excuse... when they are guilty of the very thing YOU are called out for.

FACT IS FACT - that I have had more than one battery on a LATE MODEL MACBOOK pro with i7 core - GO BAD & under a couple hundred cycles because it was continually plugged in. It HAPPENS, their worship of false gods is evident.

Why would the battery overheat when it is not powering the Mac, (you did think this through I assume)

Because your information is as bad as your advice.