MacBooks can be so addictive due to their fascinating features. You will be tempted to use them all the time, a habit that drains their battery faster. This will tempt you to leave your MacBook charger plugged in to keep the battery levels stable.
It is not a good idea to keep your MacBook charger plugged in. This can affect the battery life and damage your MacBook’s charging system. Therefore, it will be better if you unplug your MacBook charger after the battery is fully charged. Only plug it in when the battery needs charging. This will help regulate the battery levels and maintain its durability. Knowing how to handle your MacBook battery will go a long way in safeguarding it.
Understanding MacBook Batteries
Generally, laptops are as good as their batteries. Taking good care of your MacBook battery is crucial for its durability and ensuring it can retain a charge. Constantly leaving your MacBook charger plugged in could affect your battery and trigger other factors like excessive heat. Such factors can worsen your battery life. Keep in mind that their different types of batteries.
In most cases, MacBooks use lithium-ion batteries. These batteries don’t suffer from the harmful “memory effect,” unlike their nickel-based counterparts. This means that when you discharge and recharge lithium-ion batteries, you won’t cause significant damage to their durability. Once a laptop battery is fully charged, it automatically stops charging. Therefore, the risk of a damaged battery is significantly low.
Know When to Unplug
Note that your MacBook battery can only avoid damage when you leave them plugged in and not using them. However, when you use them while they are charging, the chances of battery damage are high. Therefore, you should only leave the MacBook charger plugged in when not using the device to avoid damage.
If your MacBook uses lithium-ion batteries, you should avoid discharging them completely then recharging them fully. This process is commonly referred to as “deep cycle,” and only works on nickel-cadmium batteries. In simpler terms, a deep cycle is using your laptop until the battery is 0%, then recharging it to 100%. This habit can be harmful to lithium-ion batteries.
Perform a Deep Cycle Regularly
However, you are advised to perform a deep cycle once every two months to help recalibrate the battery. This is important because it allows the battery mechanics to remain accurate when showing the battery charge. Avoid deep cycling regularly because it will damage your MacBook’s battery life.
Apart from damaging the battery life, leaving your MacBook charger plugged in results in excessive heat that is dangerous for your device. Processor-intensive apps like games trigger excessive heat levels. Your MacBook could also get overheated when you have many programs running simultaneously.
The Risk of Leaving the Charger Plugged In
Leaving your MacBook charger in such cases can damage your device significantly. Therefore, you should unplug the charger, switch off the device, and let it cool down. This will go a long way in preventing heat damage. If you want to perform a deep cycle, start by charging your MacBook battery to full capacity.
Then, let it cool down for around two hours to get rid of the heat. It would help if you then unplugged the charger and set the device’s power save settings to 5%. The cycle will start once the battery level drops down to five percent. As mentioned earlier, deep cycling should only be done once in two months.
