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Make Your MacBook Battery Last Longer With This Setting

On my MBP 16 M1 this setting (I chose 80%) is only enforced, while the device is running. Once I power it down and it is plugged in, it fully charges to 100%. Is this the normal behaviour?
 
While this is theoretically true, tests that were done right here at MacRumors show that the long-term advantages of keeping the battery capped at 80 % instead of 100 % are minor and not worth the inconvenience.
 
averagenerd81 said:
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.
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80% is really more of a consumer acceptable level, but if you're plugged in ALL the time, per battery university you want a charge at roughly 3.6v which corresponds to around 60-65% to keep battery at minimal stress, esp. during times of load. So there still is a value for things like Al Dente. It's not a huge difference, limiting at 80% is still giving you most of the benefit, it's just not ideal.
 
artifex said:
Someone mentioned in an earlier thread that you could put it on a smart plug, then use automation to turn off the plug when your battery hits 80% and turn it back on at 20%. Good luck 😉
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That's a bad approach - you're needlessly using up battery cycles while plugged in. If you're mostly tethered to the wall, you'll kill your battery much quicker than doing nothing at all.

Please use software management for this, which takes the battery mostly out of the loop when topped up and plugged in.
 
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Beau10 said:
80% is really more of a consumer acceptable level, but if you're plugged in ALL the time, per battery university you want a charge at roughly 3.6v which corresponds to around 60-65% to keep battery at minimal stress, esp. during times of load. So there still is a value for things like Al Dente. It's not a huge difference, limiting at 80% is still giving you most of the benefit, it's just not ideal.
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Yup, just better to have it not at its max or drained, but 60-65% would indeed be quite happy.
 
snipr125 said:
Ideally there should be the option to completely turn off Battery charging when plugged in.
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YES. I have no idea why this still isn't a feature. I have to manually turn off charging with third-party apps just to not ruin battery health.

That is by the way similarily stupid as the fact that you still cannot control different audio output sources and that you can still not control HDMI audio volumes.
 
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🤷‍♂️ I tried the macOS charge limiter setting for a few days and wound up back using Al Dente (I have a lifetime license). It bugged me how the charging LED stayed amber when I limited macOS charging....LOL, stupid reason, but it was so distracting to me. When using Al Dente (in my case limiting charge to 70%), the LED is green at 70% charge level. Guess I'm just so used to this I'm being a curmudgeon and unwilling to change, hahaha.
 
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Jeeve Stubbs said:
While this is theoretically true, tests that were done right here at MacRumors show that the long-term advantages of keeping the battery capped at 80 % instead of 100 % are minor and not worth the inconvenience.
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This was for phones, not MacBooks. Phones are usually utilized immediately after unplugging and don't sit plugged in for long periods of time. And it was just one "study" - whereas in my own observations, 80% has had a pretty significant impact on my phone battery health (but ... again ... my phones spend a lot of time plugged in because I work a desk job).
 
This setting makes me neurotic. I think the Mac should be smarter than me when it comes to how to manage the battery.
 
My M1 MBP never used this setting and I am still at 88% with 52 cycles. I don't use it on battery often so the battery condition is to be expected. My M3 MBA is one year old with 97% battery with 5 cycles. Never used the battery settings either. My intelligence 2019 MBP is at 96% after all these years.
 
Killbynumbers said:
My M1 MBP never used this setting and I am still at 88% with 52 cycles. I don't use it on battery often so the battery condition is to be expected. My M3 MBA is one year old with 97% battery with 5 cycles. Never used the battery settings either. My intelligence 2019 MBP is at 96% after all these years.
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88% after 52 cycles is crazy bad. (But as it is a M1 I guess it was plugged for years so it probably is normal in this case.)
 
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I have a MBP M4 base for 1,5 years now. Pretty much always connected to a second monitor through USB-C that also charges the battery. Battery is still 100%, 80 cycles.
 
ignatius345 said:
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.
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Apple charges $200 to replace the batteries (because it requires replacing the whole top case in certain models)

Cursory check on the official site, a ThinkPad battery is only $78
 
lars666 said:
88% after 52 cycles is crazy bad. (But as it is a M1 I guess it was plugged for years so it probably is normal in this case.)
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Yes, it's always plugged in so that is normal. But as I said, my Air is only 97% after a year. Remember that it's not just usage that affects batteries but age.
 
numberfive said:
helping with what? testing didn’t show any noticeable difference in battery degradation of normal phone usage between on/off setting
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Having many prior iPhone models and charging to 100%, after a year the battery capacity/health would have dropped to around 96-98%. My experience with my present and limiting to 80% charge has me still at 100% battery health after 18 months.

One could say it could be attributed to battery chemistry changes or software optimization but there is no way for me to test it out on prior phones as I don’t have them anymore and battery chemistry may have differed. On the other hand Apple may have changed how battery health is reported as well.

In my situation it has not limited my usage.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
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.
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I don’t know if the AlDente license I still have has a name, but it have still worked just fine for a while without upgrade, but I couldn't change the precent I wanted it to charge to.
So I welcome this new setting in macOS 👍
 
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Though it is good to have this setting, sometimes it is better not to worry too much about the battery. MacBook batteries last long and think battery replacement will not be required at least in the first 4 to 5 years of ownership.
 
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