Most Apple products like MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch use a battery. With time, the battery degrades and drains power quite often. Many things affect the battery lifespan of your Mac. Work with minimum screen brightness and in places with extreme temperatures. Here are tricks to help you prolong the battery life of your MacBook.
Use Shutdown Timer on Mac
The Shutdown Timer allows you to set a time on your Mac for shutdown or screen lock. You can customize it to restart, sleep, or hibernate your MacBook. When you want your computer to hibernate after a specific time, open the shutdown Mac command and set the time. It can be 10 minutes, half an hour, or several hours later. It helps to power off your Mac to avoid draining the battery when your laptop is not in use.
Observe battery charging best practices
Observe Mac’s charging best practices to prolong its battery life.
- Use power adaptor from Apple: The official power adaptor for Mac is from Apple. It is designed to optimize the long-term health of your battery.
- Plug to power when charging other devices: Charging other Apple devices via USB drains your battery power fast. Plug to power before plugging the devices.
- Do not charge your battery to full capacity: Every time you charge your laptop to full capacity, you reduce the battery life span. It is safer to charge up to 80%.
- Never drain the battery to zero: When using your Mac, never let the battery drain to zero. Use up to 30% and then recharge it.
- Use optimized charging feature: Optimized charging feature is an app by Apple that tracks your charging routine.
- Do not keep your MacBook plugged in all the time: Even if your power level is below 80%, avoid keeping your laptop plugged in all the time. It causes overheating of the battery which reduces its lifespan.
Keep screen brightness to the minimum
The screen of your MacBook uses most of your battery power. Higher brightness drains power fast and thus demands charging often. The lifespan of your battery reduces with each charge. Keep the brightness lower to keep battery power for longer and extend its lifespan.
Stay away from extreme temperatures
Extreme temperatures are not good for the health of your Mac. It affects its hardware lifespan, including the battery. For instance, extreme cold might cause delicate metals in the battery to crack. Extremely high temperatures make the batter hot and affect its power retention abilities. Avoid extreme temperatures to improve the lifespan of your battery.
Keep your macOS up to date
Outdated OS and other software can cause your Mac to overwork. The software might have bugs or viruses which slow down the performance of your computer. To preserve your battery, keep your OS and Mac apps updated all the time. The latest macOS contains features that help you save energy.
Avoid opening too many apps
With every app that you open, you increase the usage of your RAM, processor, and power. The macOS, browsers, apps, and documents use power to run. If you are used to opening too many windows, your laptop will keep draining power faster. Close all apps that are not in use and only open the ones that you need.
MacBook batteries are built to last for many hours daily. Its capacity reduces every time you recharge. You can increase the battery life of your Mac by observing several best practices. Never recharge to full capacity or discharge to zero. Minimize screen brightness and minimize the number of open apps.