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How can I get my new M2 MBA's battery to stop charging at 80%?

ozziegn

ozziegn

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 16, 2007
1,321
886
Central FL Area
I just got a 15" MBA and I'm wondering if there's any way to tell my laptop to stop charging once it gets to 80%? I'm a firm believer in the battery charging rule about not going below 20% and not going above 80% unless you plan on using the battery shortly after. I know its not good for the battery to be constantly at 100% while being plugged in all the time. I rarely use my laptop off my desk. My previous M1 MBA would stop charging at 80% unless I needed more.

Is there anyway I can do this on my new laptop?
 
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ozziegn said:
I just got a 15" MBA and I'm wondering if there's any way to tell my laptop to stop charging once it gets to 80%? I'm a firm believer in the battery charging rule about not going below 20% and not going above 80% unless you plan on using the battery shortly after. I know its not good for the battery to be constantly at 100% while being plugged in all the time. I rarely use my laptop off my desk. My previous M1 MBA would stop charging at 80% unless I needed more.

Is there anyway I can do this on my new laptop?
Click to expand...
It will do it automatically if you leave it plugged in long enough.
 
poorcody said:
Couple of choices:

1. Go the Settings -> Battery -> Battery Health and click the little (i). In the pop-up window, select "Optimize Battery Charging". More info on what that does here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102338#:~:text=Your Mac learns your charging,macOS Big Sur or later.

2. Use an app called "Al Dente" for more explicit control.

I think there is another popular app too maybe someone can suggest...
Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion. I installed Al Dente on my new Air.
 
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One more question. Should I turn off the optimize charging option in the battery settings since I'm now using Al Dente or just leave it on?
 
Torty said:
How long do I need to have it plugged in? And if I plug and unplug it in a very short time then it’s charging it again to 100%?
Click to expand...
I don’t know the exact time and yes if you unplug it then it resets that time. It’s meant for people who use their MacBook as a desktop and never unplug it.
 
My 15" M2 MBA always charges to 100% even though I have Optimized Battery Charging enabled. With my normal usage a 100% charge lasts two or three days. I guess it hasn't learned how much of a charge I really need. I've installed Battery hoping it does the job.
 
It shows 100% but if you check coconut you see that the battery isn't charged all the time and it has dropped a bit which is good.
 
Already said but it seems Al Dente is the best solution for now. I think it's a joke that Apple hasn't implemented an 80% limit on all their devices. It's on the 15 series iPhones. It just goes to show how out of sync Apples operating systems are. Put it on macOS, WatchOS, and iPadOS.

Buadhai said:
My 15" M2 MBA always charges to 100% even though I have Optimized Battery Charging enabled. With my normal usage a 100% charge lasts two or three days. I guess it hasn't learned how much of a charge I really need. I've installed Battery hoping it does the job.
Click to expand...
I think optimized battery charging only works in certain situations. On iPhone i think it only kicks in if you're charging overnight. The idea is that it will learn from your routine/habits and charge to 80% then wait to charge to 100%.

So say you put your phone on charge before you go to sleep at 10PM it will probably charge to 80% by about 11PM. It'll hold at that until ~6AM and start charging to 100% assuming you wake up ~7AM.

Also, you need to have certain location settings enabled as it goes by that too.

The only product that OBC works for me is Airpods :p It's useless for me on my Watch as i like to wear it when sleeping to track it.
 
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My old 2012 MBP' battery (once replaced, prod date dec 2018) is still at almost 95%. It was almost always connected to power supply. So I think Mojave did a good job in battery management. It only recharged to 100% if battery dropped below 95%?

Seems this keeps the battery in better state than a lot of cycles.
 
Buadhai said:
My 15" M2 MBA always charges to 100% even though I have Optimized Battery Charging enabled. With my normal usage a 100% charge lasts two or three days. I guess it hasn't learned how much of a charge I really need. I've installed Battery hoping it does the job.
Click to expand...
Just a heads up. After installing Battery and reading up a bit more on battery charging I decided to uninstall it which I did via the Manu Bar menu item. It uninstalled with no error.

This morning the MBA was down to 25% so I decided to charge it. When I checked it about 90 minutes later it was still at 25% and the Battery Menu Bar item said connected to power but not charging. No idea why.

After rebooting the machine it began charging as normal and went up to 100%, as usual.
 
Nice it now tells that charging stopped:

1711999004479.png
 
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