Help me do right by this Mac's battery

[glycerine00]

Long story long, I bought one of the MacBook Air retina's when they first launched in November 2018.
It was a base model (8/128gb).

I don't know what I did wrong to it but my battery is not good anymore. At 239 cycle counts, the design capacity is 74%. The battery needs servicing (and probably a new battery). I have an old rMacbook from 2013 with better battery health.

Anyways, because I have been looking at buying a new MacBook Air for some months, I took it as a sign to just get a new one. Price wise in the EU my budget only allowed for another M1 (16/256gb).

I want to keep this battery as healthy as possible, and would like to keep the laptop over 4 years..
So where did I go wrong?

- During the day I usually let it sit on the charger
- In the week during the night I took it off the charger to another room to use it some more
- On the weekend it stays fully plugged int (apart from an odd hour of transport each Sunday)

I'm going to guess this is bad? But I read cases and people were saying that it doesn't matter if it's plugged in all the time or not. So where did I go wrong, and do you have any tips for me? I'm scared that if I treat this laptop the same way, the battery will go down even faster or as fast.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Technerd108]

Well batteries have technology to tell when they are charged and stop charging thus preventing over charging but leaving them plugged in and thus not allowing the battery to discharge can degrade battery health.

Basically it is good to use the batteries. Charge to about 80% then let the battery discharge to around 20% and then charge again to 80%. Repeat this cycle during the lifetime of your battery and you will extend the life.

Running your machine until it is completely empty and charging it to 100% are not good for the battery and leaving it plugged in all the time is not good for it.

Your battery needs to cycle. If you charge it to full a few times and let it fully run down a few times in the life of the battery is not a problem but doing that all the time is bad and I believe draining a battery completely is pretty bad as well.

Hope that helps.

 

[glycerine00]

@Technerd108 thanks for your input! I never let it drain to 0, but I never even let it drain to 20%. And I always fully charged it to 100%. I will try your method, thank you!

 

[Technerd108]

@Technerd108 thanks for your input! I never let it drain to 0, but I never even let it drain to 20%. And I always fully charged it to 100%. I will try your method, thank you!

I am no expert so take my advice with a grain of salt but I have looked up lithium ion battery longevity and what to do to increase lifespan of a lithium ion battery. You might want to search up how to extend the life of a lithium ion battery. I am sure there are sites and articles that explain what I have said in better detail and I may be forgetting some points. I tired to summarize what I had learned and what I practice.

I used to keep my laptop plugged in most of the time, specially in the days of windows laptops with hungry Intel processors that would lose half their performance on battery. Now with M series chips being plugged in to get every ounce of performance is no longer needed.

 

[jdb8167]

Long story long, I bought one of the MacBook Air retina's when they first launched in November 2018.
It was a base model (8/128gb).

I don't know what I did wrong to it but my battery is not good anymore. At 239 cycle counts, the design capacity is 74%. The battery needs servicing (and probably a new battery). I have an old rMacbook from 2013 with better battery health.

Anyways, because I have been looking at buying a new MacBook Air for some months, I took it as a sign to just get a new one. Price wise in the EU my budget only allowed for another M1 (16/256gb).

I want to keep this battery as healthy as possible, and would like to keep the laptop over 4 years..
So where did I go wrong?

- During the day I usually let it sit on the charger
- In the week during the night I took it off the charger to another room to use it some more
- On the weekend it stays fully plugged int (apart from an odd hour of transport each Sunday)

I'm going to guess this is bad? But I read cases and people were saying that it doesn't matter if it's plugged in all the time or not. So where did I go wrong, and do you have any tips for me? I'm scared that if I treat this laptop the same way, the battery will go down even faster or as fast.

Thanks for reading.

Apple has a setting in newer notebooks called “optimized battery charging”. This allows you to keep your notebook plugged in without damaging the battery. If your MacBook stays mostly plugged in, the battery will only be charged to 80%. If you use your MacBook unplugged on a regular schedule, the battery will be charged to 80% until just before you normally unplug it when it charges to 100%.

This is how Apple is solving the battery charging problem. There are also third party tools which do similar things to preserve your battery. I don’t use them but others do and will probably chime in with recommendations.

If you do leave your MacBook mostly plugged in it is still a good idea to use it on battery once in a while. While optimized battery charging will slowly allow your battery to discharge and then charge back to 80% it is still better to use the battery regularly.

Tip: I would edit the title of this post to add the word battery somewhere. You’ll get more relevant replies that way.

 

[glycerine00]

Tip: I would edit the title of this post to add the word battery somewhere. You’ll get more relevant replies that way.

Thank you for the advice! And thank you, I changed the title.. Hopefully no error in the title, a little rusty on the English 😂

 

[Isamilis]

Get Aldente. Setup and forget.