Anyone Ever Replaced their Own MacBook 12" battery?

[DaneTheGr8]

I have a 12" MacBook and it's battery is tempermentently weird. Obviously becomes of it's age it is "Service Recommended" by the Battery Indicator. The MacBook also struggles to hold its battery even in standby mode. Lately it would switch itself off anywhere from 20% - 70% depending on the day without warning.

Problem is in my country we do not have an official Apple Store rather an approved Apple Reseller. However due to the age of the MacBook 2015 and being marked as obsolete, they cannot offer a Battery Replacement.

Now the point of using this MacBook 12" is the portability factor but really looses it's charm when I need to hunt down a wall socket for power incase it dies quickly on me.

I have managed to find an exact new Battery for this model replacement - I am just wondering if anyone's every attempted with this specific 12" Macbook 2015 to replace their own battery and at was ease/or difficulty was it.

My technical levels are sort of higher than average, so simply wondering could it be self done or even advised to do so.

 

[rovostrov]

I have a 12" MacBook and it's battery is tempermentently weird. Obviously becomes of it's age it is "Service Recommended" by the Battery Indicator. The MacBook also struggles to hold its battery even in standby mode. Lately it would switch itself off anywhere from 20% - 70% depending on the day without warning.

Problem is in my country we do not have an official Apple Store rather an approved Apple Reseller. However due to the age of the MacBook 2015 and being marked as obsolete, they cannot offer a Battery Replacement.

Now the point of using this MacBook 12" is the portability factor but really looses it's charm when I need to hunt down a wall socket for power incase it dies quickly on me.

I have managed to find an exact new Battery for this model replacement - I am just wondering if anyone's every attempted with this specific 12" Macbook 2015 to replace their own battery and at was ease/or difficulty was it.

My technical levels are sort of higher than average, so simply wondering could it be self done or even advised to do so.

The battery for that model looks difficult to replace. Not sure if I would try it.

Retina MacBook 2015 Battery Replacement

Use this guide to remove and replace the glued-in battery from your 12-inch MacBook with Retina Display. This is best done with the help of an...

www.ifixit.com

 

[GMShadow]

Friend of mine did years ago on a 2015 - it's annoying but doable. Removing the adhesive is the biggest pain, but the rMB is a little easier than the same-era Pros since the keyboard isn't under the battery.

 

[staceyu]

It's relatively straightforward using the ifixit guide, but the repair is a bit of a pain in the ass. The only downside is the amount of adhesive that is used on the battery. It takes forever to undo the glue, and it took quite a bit of isopropyl + scraping away at the adhesive to finally undo the battery. By far, it's the worst repair to do on this little machine and I've done every repair outside of swapping out the keyboard.

 

[Minghold]

Apple, the company that used to love its customers by permitting them to remove a battery by screwdriving a fat latch with a coin, now actively despises them with glued-in batteries. (Not even Hewlett-Packard, despite its strong inclinations, has the chutzpah to be this evil.)

It's relatively straightforward using the ifixit guide, but the repair is a bit of a pain in the ass.

No kidding. It's a 102-step layer-cake dissassembly guide (which omits the 51 steps of reassemby) including gems such as "...you'll apply liquid adhesive remover along the edges of the battery cells. Keeping part of the MacBook elevated will help the adhesive remover flow underneath the battery...."

Do not do this. What to do instead: install CoconutBattery (so you can get a non-Apple opinion), and backgrade the OS to Mojave/HFS+ (which will sip power in comparison to Catalina & newer). Research how to use the Terminal to disable Spotlight-indexing and MRT. Reduce reliance upon newer bloated corporate "suite" software that stuffs the Library/Launch-deamon folders full of running-in-the-background telemetry.

The only downside is the amount of adhesive that is used on the battery....

No, the major downside is the risk of permanently destroying your small-form-factor intel-chip laptop of a type you cannot buy anymore. Even with a totally dead battery, it's still a more ergonomic pseudo MacMini with a built-in screen, and thus worth hanging onto.

 

[staceyu]

Obviously you remove the logic board before squirting isopropyl everywhere. Also, ifixit has the battery for $119 with a full set of tools and everything needed to complete the repair. Not hard, just annoying with the amount of adhesive. And

Apple has been better about reparability with their newer products, and I'd doubt we'll ever see a return to a form factor like this again due to the sacrifices done to make this form factor possible (Special/fragile keyboard layout, odd battery replacement, poor thermal management, poor port selection.) And honestly if I could run MacOS on a iPad Pro, I wouldn't make an effort to hang on to the 12 rMB.

 

[varezhka]

I'd doubt we'll ever see a return to a form factor like this again due to the sacrifices done to make this form factor possible

You can say that again. While I loved my 12" MacBook m5 and its form factor, it was also the best money spent on AppleCare+ of all the Apple products I've had. Within my 3 year warranty period, I've gone through 3 keyboard replacement, 2 battery replacement, and 1 logic board replacement (following what I think was a bad battery replacement work). Few out of warranty fixes too before being told that it's obsoleted.

It's time to move on. Frustration related to keeping this machine going is not worth it.

 

[Minghold]

I have a (problem)

See end of this post for solution.

You can say that again. While I loved my 12" MacBook m5 and its form factor, it was also the best money spent on AppleCare+ of all the Apple products I've had.

I picked up a 2012 11" Air from a recycler for $10. It's the lightest laptop Apple ever made (weighs less than iPad+wireless keyboard), and has a battery you can replace in five steps rather than 51, and can take a generic battery rather than a x10-priced OEM. Nicely runs the same Mojave/HFS+ I put on every i-series Mac.

Within my 3 year warranty period, I've gone through 3 keyboard replacement, 2 battery replacement, and 1 logic board replacement (following what I think was a bad battery replacement work). Few out of warranty fixes too before being told that it's obsoleted.

The MacBook m5s came out in 2016, and are arguably the worst products Apple has released since the Late-2011 i7 thermal paste-gate mass-barbeque.

It's time to move on. Frustration related to keeping this machine going is not worth it.

He can solve his problem for under fifty bucks with a pair of these and any USB3orC-to-MagSafe2 connector off Amazon (there are lots of cheap generic options). See also this thread.

 

[StoneJack]

Mine's battery life was getting close to 80% so I got it replaced by a generic one for about 80 dollars. Now battery life is close to 5.5 - 6 hours in ideal conditions, mainly listening to music and browsing, some Youtube. I installed Ventura and not thinking about other versions. Works fine.