Have I gone too far?
Depends what you mean by "long periods." If what I think you mean is "I'll only be using it for short periods during the day and then it'll just be sitting there", then you'll be better off simply letting the computer go to sleep. Sleep mode is one tiny step above completely off as far as power consumption is concerned, so you shouldn't have problems with ruining your battery health. If you mean "I'm gonna store it somewhere for days/weeks/months", then obviously you would turn it off. Also, I believe Apple recommends discharging the battery to about 50% and removing it from the computer if you're storing for extended (days/weeks/etc) periods of time.
Hello, a pc owner and then a mac answer I got googling suggested unplugging and taking my Macbook battery down to 50%, removing when using my laptop plugged in at home and then reinserting, charging back up if I want to take to travel with it.
I almost always just use my laptop at home here in Korea, plugged in. A couple of times it's been accidentally unplugged or I forgot and it went down to 0 but plugging it back in eventually brought it back up to 100%.
I did take the battery out, but after reading this forum, my questions are: when the battery is out, is there no cover plate to put back over the hole where the battery was? and 2. do I need to do this, or is it just a pc thing/or a mac superstition?
I usually have my laptop on a fake plastic chair and so wonder about the bottom exposure without the cover plate. I don't want the laptop to overheat or get dust, etc inside where it shouldn't.
Also, the battery went down to 50% unplugged pretty quickly, maybe 45 minutes or so.
thank you for any insights/info,
Angilu