Best way to preserve battery capacity

[MikeyTree]

Batteries naturally lose some capacity over time, but I have no idea what I can do to preserve as much battery capacity as possible, aside from periodically recalibrating the battery. Is it best to always have it plugged in and full? Will running it off of battery shorten the life? Does it shorten battery life if I run my MBP on battery for a few minutes and then recharge, or should I always aim to run the battery to empty before recharging?

[flopticalcube]

Many shallow discharges are preferable to deep cycling (big discharges).

www.batteryuniversity.com

[motulist]

While there may be technical asterisks to this statement that some people will quibble about, in the real world all you need to know is that to preserve battery capacity you should keep it plugged in as often as possible.