Find Out If Your MacBook Battery Needs Replacing: Here’s How To Check
Like smartphones and most other consumer technology devices, laptops, including Apple’s MacBooks, use lithium-ion batteries. If you’re not familiar, these batteries degrade over time due to their chemical nature. This degradation results in reduced battery capacity and therefore shorter battery life as the battery ages and goes through multiple charge cycles.
While most laptops don’t readily provide information on battery health or charge count, MacBooks, like iPhones, have a battery health indicator. You can even check the number of power cycles.
Apple recommends replacing the MacBook battery when it drops below 80%. If you’ve noticed that your MacBook’s battery life is no longer acceptable or it’s draining faster than before, it’s a good idea to check the battery’s health to make an informed decision.
Before proceeding, please note that this guide is for MacBook models running macOS Sonoma; the process for your model may vary.
Here’s how to check your MacBook’s battery health:
- Open Settings on your MacBook model.
- Next, go to the battery section.
- Here you will see the “Battery health” indicator. If the battery is in good condition, it will look “normal”.
- Click the i button to check the exact condition of your laptop battery.
You can set the number of battery charging cycles as follows:
- Go to Settings > General > About.
- Scroll down and find “System Report”.
- In the hardware category, find the Power tab.
- In the battery information, you can see the number of cycles of the MacBook laptop.
Based on the specific model number of your MacBook, you can make an informed decision. However, as a general rule of thumb, if the battery status shows Maintenance Recommended, the battery unit should be replaced to restore optimal performance.
