Is keeping your MacBook Pro charger connected unhealthy?

[sultanoflondon]

Hi all,

Over the weekend, when my MacBook Pro is on my desk at home, I keep it connected to the power socket and do not disconnect it at all. I keep it between 50% and 80% charge by switching the wall socket on and off. Often, there is a non live connection to the MacBook Pro from the wall.

Is this healthy for the MacBook Pro's battery and computer in general? Or should I physically disconnected the USB-C cable from my MacBook Pro whenever it has finished charging?

Thank you!

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Entirely up to you. Generally, if you need it on battery then use it on battery. If you can plug it in then plug it in.

There's no need to deliberately invoke power cycles, as this will artificially decrease the life of the battery.

When your computer reaches 100% it will obviously stop charging, so there's no worry leaving it plugged in. There is debate over the 80%-100% battery capacity stress factor. But in all honesty you could spend several years making sure it is never over 80%, and doing things like you said about keeping it deliberately within a certain range, and it'll make little to no difference.

If you did everything you read on the internet, you may get 6 years as opposed to 5.5 years. If you think 6 months battery life is worth all that hassle then go for it. There's also a huge number of other factors which play a part in the battery life, mainly temperature, stress, and humidity. For instance if you run it on battery using high CPU loads then it'll be under more stress than simply browsing the internet. So personal use case also comes into play.

For these reasons you'll read that some people have had it for 8 years with no issue, and others for 2 years before it failed. Maintaining a certain charge is only one of several criteria, which is why I recommend you don't do anything deliberate. Just use it as you normally would, and this will, by the law of averages, give you the best use case for the battery.

 

[jerryk]

It sound not be an issue with modern computer battery management and LiIon batteries. This was an issue with older NiCad based computers.

 

[BenTrovato]

^

Just here to say.. listen to new Mac smell. /thread

 

[ZapNZs]

Around half charge is "ideal". But the effort required to constantly keep the battery at about half capacity (plus the loss of run time should you need to use it and not have the time to charge it fully) IMO completely negates the gain.

It's safe to leave it constantly plugged in and charged as the charging terminates at a said voltage (although it would be nice if we could easily set out own cutoff voltage). It will degrade at a slightly faster speed than if you could set the cutoff charge around half capacity. But IIRC it's only $150 to replace the battery. Even if you can double the lifespan, at only $150, is it really worth the effort?

 

[Gonzbull]

I’ve a 2009 MBP that I use as a media server. Been plugged in constantly for at least the last 2 years and it’s running sweet. It only gets a reboot with os updates which happens rarely as I’m still on El Capitan.