So I'm wondering how to take care of the battery in the best way? On my old 2011 15" MBP the battery wouldn't accept a charge after about 6-7 years of use. I'm looking to take better care of this battery. My use case is such that I need to use the battery for a few hours most days, but essentially I don't expect to run down the battery more than perhaps 50% before I could recharge. Should you plug it in when you can and try to use the battery as little as possible or is it a good idea to run the battery down to like 20% every now and again?
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How to best take care of the battery (16" 2019 MBP)
- Thread starter fishmoose
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If you see Service Recommended on your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro - Apple Support (IN)
Find out how to check the health of your battery and resolve charging issues.
Batteries
Maximize the life and lifespan of the lithium-ion battery in your iPod, iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. Learn how to service and recycle it, too.
www.apple.com
Here is some info from Apple on batteries.
Just use it on battery when you need to and otherwise leave it plugged in.
No matter what you do the battery will just wear out eventually. 6-7 years on your last one actually sounds pretty good to me.
I plan to keep it always plugged in when I can - so that the battery cycles will be limited.
My 2014MBP has 646 cycles so far and design capacity of 85% (only). It drains much faster than it did a year ago. I think I used it off the battery a whole lot more than I plan to do with my 2019 16"MBP.
But @Weaselboy is right - battery does have a shelf life. You can extend it some by being judicious on battery cycles, and following apple's advice here -
support.apple.com
and
support.apple.com
My 2014MBP has 646 cycles so far and design capacity of 85% (only). It drains much faster than it did a year ago. I think I used it off the battery a whole lot more than I plan to do with my 2019 16"MBP.
But @Weaselboy is right - battery does have a shelf life. You can extend it some by being judicious on battery cycles, and following apple's advice here -
If you see Service Recommended on your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro - Apple Support
Learn how to check the health of your battery and resolve charging issues.
and
Determine battery cycle count for Mac laptops - Apple Support
Learn how to determine the number of cycles your Mac laptop's battery has.
Thank you for posting this because I had the exact same curiosity. However, I don't see anything in the Apple support links above that states leaving the computer plugged in or limiting the cycles helps prolong the battery's life. I would be interested in seeing more articles that explain the bet ways to extend the life of the battery.
Apple previously had a support article that suggested "exercising" the battery occasionally by running on battery. They removed that information from the current support articles and added some information explaining about charge cycles. So I think it is safe to assume if Apple wanted you to exercise the battery, they would not have removed that from the support article.
True - in fact I went looking for that article and couldnt find it. I had used that article in the past to "recondition" my battery so that coconutBattery would show a better Design Capacity. In fact, I remember it going up from 75% to 85% after doing what they had suggested. It went something like:
1. Charge your battery to 100% and leave it on outlet power for 1-2 hours AFTER it has reached 100%. Dont use the laptop during this time.
2. Now unplug the power source from wall
3. Use your laptop - let it discharge all the way to 0%. The laptop will turn itself off at that point.
4. Charge the laptop once again to 100% and leave it on outlet power for 1-2 hr more after it has reached 100%.
Check your coconutBattery Design Capacity - it should hopefully be higher than before.