Damn! I need this. I was on the edge of writing my own "battery driver" sp to speak. I presently use Endurance, but it doesn't prevent charging past 80%. Thanks for sharing this info. Life saver!
Aldente is an amazing app. I keep it set at 80% and then do 2 drains per month (down to 15% and back to 100%) to keep battery calibration readings on point.
@@thomas_xsg That's where Aldente comes in. You literally nail your battery percentage to 50% all the time. Not float it between 50% to 80% or 50% to 0%. Just 50%. Then have control when you want it to charge all the way to 100% at your jurisdiction.
i was reading on reddit that al dente causes problems to macbook. sometimes it'll shut down your computer in the middle of something. so I removed it and just monitor it manually
More specifically, being closer to 100% or 0% damages the battery and it has to lower its own capacity to stop itself from... you know.. becoming a spicy lil fire pillow!
Mac already does this with “optimized charging” by trickle charging after 80% and capping max capacity to extend battery longevity. This would’ve been useful 2 years ago tho
PLEASE READ THIS ANYONE WHO IS PLANNING ON DOING IT: Every 2 months, allow your battery to go to 100% and drain it to around 5% so it can calibrate itself. If you do this FOREVER, it will actually do more harm to your battery
Have actually done this for past 4 years and at least for me, this is not true. I've had my battery mostly between 40-60% and battery healthy is excellent. Couple times a year I would charge it to full but never to empty. I just use it at home 99% of the time. There is theory and then there is actual results. What you said might be true and it couldn't hurt to follow your advice.
@@NicholasCoulter System settings > Battery > Battery Health > Optimized Battery Charging When it's active, It'll say Power Source: Power Adapter in the menu bar Battery pane The app is likely using part of the script implemented for this feature to swap the power source from Battery to the Power Adapter.
@@NicholasCoulter It's whenever you frequently charge, it creates an ML model for predicting your charging patterns and activates it when you charge frequently. It also slows charging between 80% and 100%. This coupled with the fact that the 100% you see on the software is not the actual 100% of the battery (as is true for most devices nowadays) makes apps like this and other battery saving regimens completely unnecessary and obsolete. Maybe these were necessary in the early 2000s and 2010s, but software has outgrown all these limitations.
If you are using your macbook just on a desk plugged or just turned off its best to keep it around 55 to 60 percent , more only if you will take it away from charger at some point
I hate to burst everybody's bubble but manufacturers usually take these things into account when designing the device. There are other anticonsumer practices that they do that no app can really fix.
I’ve been using Al Dente since I got my MacBook Air more than a year ago. I typically keep the charge at around 50 % and only charge it up to 60 or 70 % when I need to take it to university or somewhere else where I cannot charge it. It’s currently at 99 % battery health, which I think is quite good for a battery that’s more than a year old. (My old Asus laptop fell below 80 % battery health after like 3 years of being at 90 - 100 % most of the time.)
@@MonsieurGuy Not always, i keep it often between 50-70 when mostly at home (still only used on battery, barely used on AC only under long render load with the 140W original power brick), but when im going to university for a longer day or so i give it 100% as well, 80-90% at least in case i really need it. I think i preserved the battery the most by using a 20W iPhone power brick 99% of the time to charge the MacBook Pro, always charged unused btw and used on battery.
@@MonsieurGuy because using the 16" macbook with the 20W iphone brick is even harming the battery, the battery is used as puffer battery for the power spikes the 20W brick cant deliver. But without using the MacBook, the 20W power adapter give the battery with a nice and healthy charge with 0,2C. I would just avoid charge speeds above 0,5C (or
@@MonsieurGuy But i also have to say... its already at over 210 cycles and the health is actually at 91%, once dropped even down to 87%. Still i dont feel any runtime reduction, it still holds up easily 5-15 hours on a full charge in real world use and the main battery drainer is the display (in hdr brightness)
basically we limit ourselves to 80% battery so that in 2 years it'll be at 80% . when I saw a person stat it as this I stopped worrying about it, plus I have apple care so in few years if battery is issue ill just replace it.
This is now built in to the OS, they take your battery down to 80 and even 60 percent when you’re at a desk, leaving it charged for multiple days at a time.
this is very helpful. i usually have to leave it plugged in for weeks at a time to get it to lower to 80% while plugged in. apple should just add this capability 🙄
They should. Like many things on Windows you don't need an app. Most PC OEMs offer the ability to not charge past 80%. Samsung offers it in their phones too.
Hugely recommended. I have a MacBook with slightly below average battery at purchase (Coconut battery). Now, after Al Dente for a year, it is way above average
@@DerangedScout To clarify, on purchase my battery level was slightly below the specification. To confirm, I checked with Coconut Battery who have an online comparison graph (where they collate all the battery levels of CB users) and, according to this, mine was at the lower end of the graph. Now, after a year and a bit, my battery has degraded little from its initial level, but other comparable MacBooks have degraded substantially such that my existing level is now near the top end of the 2 graphs (level vs age & level vs cycles). So, yes, there is degradation, but it seems Al Dente has minimised it.
Mac does this already natively in the settings where it doesn’t charge the machine past 80% when enabled unless you manually tell it to charge to 100%.
Just curious: I happened to watch your video on battery management for MacBook yesterday, and if I remember correctly you advised to avoid external app and rely on MacOs optimization, is the situation changed?
Yes, I have changed my mind on Al Dente in particular. At the time I wasn't sure if it was something I could recommend. However, that video was made over 2 years ago, and while the information within that video is still correct, I now have no issues recommending Al Dente (either the free or paid version) if you want to keep your battery at a certain percentage for whatever reason. It's open source and hasn't caused any issues in the several years it's been available. macOS will "try" to optimize charging and keep the battery at an optimal percentage, but again, in the 2 years since that video I've realized it often doesn't work very well... Rarely do I see it occurring on my own MacBook. It works best if you have a set routine, e.g. use your MacBook until 10pm at night, put the MacBook to sleep, start using it again at 8am etc. If you use it randomly throughout the day, optimized charging will struggle. So really no major difference between either strategy. Al Dente will allow you to have complete control if you want. Or, you can trust macOS to do it's thing.
i dont believe it, 9 years ago, macbook use intel cpu and has the same battery life as a normal laptop, i would believe you if its android or iphone, stii using my old samsung phone after 8 years, it has 4gb of ram and 128GB internal and everything is fine minus the screen cracks, bought it in 2015, updated to android 9 pie.
No it will not stop wearing it down, batter wear happens regardless of what you do. Please don’t worry about your battery health from “overcharging” cycling your batter happens regardless of what you do. The big things you want to avoid is extremely heat and extreme cold. That WILL damage your battery.
Used the 20-80% rule on my 14 pro max but I eventually just gave up on it. I'm not gonna sweat over it honestly, there are way worse things you can do to a battery anyways. Don't stress over the little things, use what you spent your hard-earned money on and take advantage of all features and battery life.
Here's my experience: MacBook Pro 17, used AIDente for 6 months, constantly plugged in at 80%, just to "preserve the battery". Eventually, my battery got swollen. It was a brand new one. Also, when the actual battery percentage was 1%, the percentage displayed on screen was 23%, which led my Macbook to shutdown unexpectedly, this is because the power supply is not capable of providing enough power (most of the time when MacBook is connected to an external monitor). I would definitely not recommend using either of these applications. Don't worry about conserving your battery, it will still lose capacity over the years, no matter how much you care about it. Most importantly: NEVER KEEP YOUR MACBOOK CONSTANTLY PLUGGLED IN!
@@djrkm9281 I’ve teashed two Apple batteries because constant plug-in (but it was plugged about half-year or whole year, almost never working on battery). One of battery was swollen over time. It’s good to work on battery from time to time.
Youre not very smart are you? The actual battery percent of none of your devices are ever "1%". Lithium batteries cant actually go to 0% or else theyll never turn back on. Also this isnt 2013, devices know how to manage voltage
I tried using Al dente for 6 months in 2021 when I got the m1 MBA. I'm pretty sure it messes with your built in MacBook battery management becuz after 6 months my battery health dropped to 93% from 100%, even though I rarely outside of 20-80%
Been using Al Dente since I got my M1 MBA as well, and after more than a year my battery health is sitting at 99 %. What did you set the charge limiter to?
@@azizcalskan5662 IMHO, it doesn't matter what the limit is. It's the sailing mode that matters the most. I guess the OP uses the free version and made a stoopid complain
@@azizcalskan5662 I typically charge it just a little over 50 % and then set the limit to a value below 50 %. This way I’m very close to 50 % but don’t experience trickle charging (I use the free version so I don’t have access to the sailing mode). Whenever I need to go somewhere I just set it to about 60 or 70 % a few hours before heading out.
Bruh this video is literally bullshit because Macbooks also have this setting in the system menu by default. My macbook never exceeds 80% when it’s on power cable, and it knows what time I usually take it with me, so it charges up to 100% automatically shortly before I leave so i have a full battery for the day. This app is literally useless unless you want it to NEVEr be over 80%
No matter how much you do this the battery will still degrade so don't inconvenience yourself attempting to perfect charging and discharging just enjoy your device.
Thanks for the tip, but that’s a baiting headline if I ever saw one, especially waking up to it when I’m about to return an Intel iMac while I tear my hair out trying to decide on what Apple Silicon laptop to buy.
Generally its fine to load to 100% if youre using it right away. You just shouldnt store it fully charged for longer periods. More important is that you dont fully discharge. Generally between 20 to 30% of charge should be remaining if possible. Research has found that for lithium ion batteries its best to load to 75% max and discharge to only 65%. Of course thats not realistic
MacOS will still assume you want to operate within the full range of capacity, it just tries to plan charging adaptively so the battery spends a minimal amount of time below 20% and above 80%. Aldente is a more aggressive lockout that you have to manually override. It will be MUCH better for the battery in the long run (lithium batteries basically don’t degrade at all when kept in that range), but you use it with the knowledge that you’re completely cutting out about 40% of battery capacity. Apple would probably catch a lot of PR flack by making your power management behave like this, even if it were hidden behind a setting.
So far I cannot confirm that it makes any difference having the min/max charges at 20/80 or 0/100 in terms of battery durability. But it does make a difference in terms of battery endurance. Using 100% of your avaliable cycle drastically increases the endurance compared to using only 60% of your cycle.
I own an ASUS laptop and my brother has an HP laptop. Both buyed at the same time and 90% of the time plugged to the charger. My laptop is configurated to charge only at 60% while my brother cannot activate that funtion ddue HP limitations. After 3 years my laptop has no issues with the battery (A 60% lasts 3 hrs, i havent fully charged since i got it so im assuming a full charge must last 7-8 hrs) My brothers HP laptop the battery died after one year and it has an anoying message on the start up notifying that the battery is not working properly. So by this i can say that this option makes a huge difference. I got the feeling that my battery could last another 3 years without issues.
If the MacBook will start using power from the adaptor then it means it is okay to keep the laptop running via power adaptor/cable which brings me to question ❓ are there any downside to keep the MacBook "always" plugged in to the electricity. ⁉️
I actually have my capacity at 100% by letting the battery down to 20% then recharge it to 100%. Never had capacity go down. As long as you don’t recharge it halfway or keep charging it randomly.
AlDente or not, baterry will loose capacity no matter what. When it does, just replace it. Theres no magic hocus pocus to magically save battery from getting older.
This is literally a thing normal laptops have had built into the bios for the last 10 years. The fact you need an application for this on a mac is absolutely ridiculous.
@@telephoto i dont know about crap tier laptops, but Lenovo thinkpads definitely have that built into the bios, just like dell latitudes, precisions even inspirons. I cant speak for msi or asus, but if they are missing this feature in bios then its definitely just as embarrassing as apple.
Sounds unnecessary. I use my MacBook 80% docked which keeps it at 100% all the time. It’s not about three years old and the capacity is around 89% which is pretty solid
Or maybe your battery died faster is because you use your MacBook with power hungry apps like doing editing, etc. with only battery which usually sucking out your battery faster then recharging it again. I think it’s common sense when using a laptop and using apps that drains your battery faster. It’s best to leave it plugged in while using it.
My 10 year old Aser laptop still lasts 30 minutes on a single charge after all this time. A replacement costs 20 bucks. "They dont make them like they used to"
have an old 14 y.o. laptop that lasts an hour on a charge, I only ever use it as a media player and to test OSs, otherwise modern applications would kill the poor nugget.
Please don't do this and be picky about the battery. Use it how you need to and charge it before it hits low battery at night. Been doing that with the past 5 MacBooks I've owned and they've been perfectly fine aside from the normal battery degradation over the years
Please dont do what? AlDente is great for this purpose, you just have to beware of some possible issues (balancing of the cells and proper charge level indicator)
Most modern devices manage the battery using software/hardware. The 20/80 technique is far less relevant now as the solution in the video is already built into the OS (operating system)
Isn’t this effectively already built into your Apple device/MacBook? Pretty sure Apple has some sort of smart charging where it will charge up to 80% and trickle charge to 100% contributing to battery longevity improvements. And whatnot. I don’t think an app to make using your MacBook only have 60% of usable battery will improve anything except be more of an inconvenience
I dont understand why it always operates on battery. My old Sony Vaio would work when powered on via power cord. It also had twi batteries. I do miss that comp. It was a desktop powered beast with 17 inch screen.
@@Alexthereek Yeahh but Mac do it automagically if you turn on “Optimised battery charging” which is on by default and you don’t need to instal shady programs which can make more harm than good.
