Make Your MacBook Battery Last Longer With This Setting

[BigMcGuire]

Great, if this works, I don’t have to re-new my licence to AlDente.

My only comment would be that I'm seeing a lot of benefit from keeping my battery at 60-70% with AlDente. Yes, 80% is good but even less is better if your laptop spends most of its time connected to the wall like mine. (How much better? Good question).

I got grandfathered into my AlDente license - so I think I pay $5/year. I think right now it's $13/year or $24.99 lifetime. But yeah, the 80% is free 😛

Basic charge limiting is free.

 

[Beau10]

I have never had any issues with charging to 100% my phones and macbooks for decades, not sure how much of a difference this would make.

Not denying this "Lithium-ion batteries generally degrade fastest when held at a high state of charge", but just that maybe the difference is not noticeable for most users? I'd like to see some stats/tests about how much more batteries degrade when fully charged vs 80% etc (any info/links are appreciated)

Tons of stuff here: https://www.batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries/

 

[Rob9874]

I never understood this logic. "Your battery may decrease to only 80% capacity, so be sure to set your charge cap to 80%."

Aren't you forcing the result you're trying to prevent? I know, "but the battery will retain the ability to charge to 100% when you need it." I get it, just sounds counterproductive.

 

[Beau10]

My only comment would be that I'm seeing a lot of benefit from keeping my battery at 60-70% with AlDente. Yes, 80% is good but even less is better if your laptop spends most of its time connected to the wall like mine. (How much better? Good question).

I got grandfathered into my AlDente license - so I think I pay $5/year. I think right now it's $13/year or $24.99 lifetime. But yeah, the 80% is free 😛

The biggest thing for the lower state of charge is when you're doing high load activities (games, video compression, etc). Anything that spins the fans up consistently.

The biggest threat to long-term lithium longevity is heat + high voltage together.

Also to note, that Al Dente Pro has other really cool features - in particular I routinely use the Power Flow feature to track actual system power load when I'm on battery most of the day. Super useful as a software dev to see that something is amiss... runaway process or that I inadvertently have my screen on torch mode and didn't realize it.

 

[mexa]

I have the opposite issue. I want my M1 Pro MBP to finally drop below 80% before my AppleCare+ renewal in October but it's just not happening! At this point I feel like they stop it from dropping further intentionally

I had the same feeling with my Apple Watch. I dropped pretty fast to 83%, then 81% and stayed sooo long at 80%. Fun fact: even after the battery replacement a had to charge it twice a day and felt the same like how it was at 80%...

 

[Beau10]

I never understood this logic. "Your battery may decrease to only 80% capacity, so be sure to set your charge cap to 80%."

Aren't you forcing the result you're trying to prevent? I know, "but the battery will retain the ability to charge to 100% when you need it." I get it, just sounds counterproductive.

To be fair, charging to 100% isn't really that big of a deal. The battery management trickle charges up to full voltage and it's fairly benign. If you're the type that lives on battery and plug in simply to charge, it's splitting hairs.

The bigger deal is when you leave the machine plugged in for long stretches of time, esp. if you're doing high load activities. Heat + high voltage stresses it heavily, and having it parked at lower voltage is better for long term health.

 

[falkon-engine]

Al Dente has been Sherlocked...

 

[hans1972]

I have never had any issues with charging to 100% my phones and macbooks for decades, not sure how much of a difference this would make.

Not denying this "Lithium-ion batteries generally degrade fastest when held at a high state of charge", but just that maybe the difference is not noticeable for most users? I'd like to see some stats/tests about how much more batteries degrade when fully charged vs 80% etc (any info/links are appreciated)

My understanding is that when a modern Mac or PC is connected to power, the battery is bypassed with minimal drawing from the battery. So the battery isn't constantly charged.

Reducing the max charge to below100% should only be used for MacBooks which are almost always on power, i.e. being used as a desktop computer most of the time.

 

[BigMcGuire]

The biggest thing for the lower state of charge is when you're doing high load activities (games, video compression, etc). Anything that spins the fans up consistently.

The biggest threat to long-term lithium longevity is heat + high voltage together.

Also to note, that Al Dente Pro has other really cool features - in particular I routinely use the Power Flow feature to track actual system power load when I'm on battery most of the day. Super useful as a software dev to see that something is amiss... runaway process or that I inadvertently have my screen on torch mode and didn't realize it.

Agreed. Heat is the #1 killer. I am a huge fan of AlDente and use it on my work and personal laptops. 🙂

 

[GumaRodak]

I dont know if i do somwthing wrong but if i set manualy to 80% for example, optimized charging turns off

 

[platinumaqua]

Many spicy batteries could've been avoided had this feature been available earlier. The optimized charging algorithm often doesn't work to detect always plugged in usage.

My work's IT department says they get a lot of returned laptops with puffy batteries. I set the charge limit (Dell laptop) and the battery didn't puff up when it's been plugged in for months at a time.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I dont know if i do somwthing wrong but if i set manualy to 80% for example, optimized charging turns off

This makes sense. Optimized charging is for when you set charging to 100% and it "learns" your charging habits and keeps the charge at 80% overnight, then right before you need it, it will charge to 100%.

So, yes, this is very confusing, but that's how Apple does this. Optimized is meant for 100% (it'll try to not charge your device to 100% until it thinks you need it (if you have consistent charging habits)).

One would think Optimized Charging would mean ... what it says, lol.

 

[joshwithachance]

I personally don't feel like this is all that necessary in laptop sized batteries, but if it helps you sleep better at night then by all means...

 

[BigMcGuire]

I personally don't feel like this is all that necessary in laptop sized batteries, but if it helps you sleep better at night then by all means...

I've owned MacBooks since 2011. Ever since my ability to limit charging to 60-70% (with AlDente) I've seen a 20% increase capacity retention (battery health) over a 2 year period doing this vs not. But I also spend a lot of time plugged into the wall all day.

 

[Nickerbocker]

I've used this from day one on my iPhone 16 Pro and it is still at 100% capacity. It is easy to turn off when I go on trips and need the full battery just in case, but in day-to-day use I don't find 80% to be a problem whatsoever. If it forced me to charge my phone in the middle of the day, I wouldn't use it.

If 80-90% gets you through the day just fine without any added hassle, seems like a no brainer to turn on. Especially if you leave your device plugged in a lot.

 

[Nickerbocker]

I never understood this logic. "Your battery may decrease to only 80% capacity, so be sure to set your charge cap to 80%."

Aren't you forcing the result you're trying to prevent? I know, "but the battery will retain the ability to charge to 100% when you need it." I get it, just sounds counterproductive.

If you need 100% or more battery every day, then the setting is not for you. If you don't use 100% of your battery every day this is one way to help preserve it for when you do need it and extend the life of your battery in general.

Also, batteries will keep degrading below 80% capacity, not sure where you got the info from that they only decrease to 80%.

 

[TwoPlus]

Wasn‘t there a real life experiment on MR with this setting on iPhone that concluded the trade off is not worth it at all? You lose 20% of your battery capacity but gain battery anxiety just to be almost exactly at the same point in the longterm like someone who conveniently used the complete battery capacity to its full extent. Battery degradation is completely natural even without charging so you can’t avoid it over the years by simply limiting yourself and your usage by 20%. Live your life to the fullest, use your devices to the fullest.

I think there’s a difference between phones and laptops. Phone almost always go through a deep drawdown on the battery daily. You pick it up in the morning and you use it during the day and then you charge it overnight. Obviously, some folks drawdown the battery before noon and need to recharge then, but the point remains, it’s charge, drawdown, charge, drawdown, etc. Laptops are often plugged in for long periods. For them, it’s nothing but charge, charge, charge. Again, some folks unplug frequently and drawdown deeply, but many don’t. For those of us who are plugged in most of the time, limiting the battery to 80% can help preserve battery life for those times that we do need it.

 

[ignatius345]

I've had my 16" MBP M1 since October 2021 and I have used this setting since it was available - I have it set to 80%. My laptop is plugged in 100% of the time as it serves as my desktop. Battery health is still 100%.

View attachment 2621388

Eventually you may see something like this below, which I spotted on my grandmother’s M2 MacBook Air recently. She leaves it plugged in 24/7/365. This is on Sequoia, no battery management software installed. The OS will at some point recognize the usage pattern and limit the charge to 80% and keep it there unless you manually override it.

When I replaced her previous MacBook, which was maybe 5 years old at the time, it had like 3 charge cycles on it, most of them racked up when I was visiting and insisted on unplugging it for a while to give the battery some action.

 

[JohannesO]

How do you have so many energy modes? Is it just from the M1 Max?

I have no idea 🤷‍♂️

 

[NicosAccount]

Wasn‘t there a real life experiment on MR with this setting on iPhone that concluded the trade off is not worth it at all? You lose 20% of your battery capacity but gain battery anxiety just to be almost exactly at the same point in the longterm like someone who conveniently used the complete battery capacity to its full extent. Battery degradation is completely natural even without charging so you can’t avoid it over the years by simply limiting yourself and your usage by 20%. Live your life to the fullest, use your devices to the fullest.

This isnt for people with battery anxiety or heavy users. I normally end my days around 40-60% even with a charge limit at 80 (on an air even omg!). For me it's just whatever

 

[ignatius345]

Wasn‘t there a real life experiment on MR with this setting on iPhone that concluded the trade off is not worth it at all? You lose 20% of your battery capacity but gain battery anxiety just to be almost exactly at the same point in the longterm like someone who conveniently used the complete battery capacity to its full extent. Battery degradation is completely natural even without charging so you can’t avoid it over the years by simply limiting yourself and your usage by 20%. Live your life to the fullest, use your devices to the fullest.

Apple’s prices for replacing batteries are also not insane. It’s a consumable part, ultimately. IMO not worth obsessing about, especially given that the Apple Silicon Macs are so much more energy efficient and rack up way fewer cycles over time.

 

[ronno]

my iPhone 15 PM battery is at 70% health... so sure enough I wish I had used these settings back then.

Any idea what it should be set to on the Macbook airs? 90%

It would likely be at 72% instead of 70%.
And there would’ve been a bunch of days where you ran out of battery because it was not charged tp 100% by the time you left the house.

 

[x-evil-x]

What’s the cutoff year for this? Assuming ny 2019 wont be able to get this

 

[John-Paul Hunt]

Plops down a 27 inch apple display saying build a battery pack into the back of this and then the iMac m4 after with a 5g chip in it for a rainy day in case the power goes out. Moving on.

 

[averagenerd81]

I have never had any issues with charging to 100% my phones and macbooks for decades, not sure how much of a difference this would make.

Not denying this "Lithium-ion batteries generally degrade fastest when held at a high state of charge", but just that maybe the difference is not noticeable for most users? I'd like to see some stats/tests about how much more batteries degrade when fully charged vs 80% etc (any info/links are appreciated)

My M2 Pro 14 battery was toast after a year since it sat at 100% most of the time. Setting it to 80% has saved my M4 Pro .. still excellent battery life.

The whole 80% thing is an established practice for batteries.