How to keep your laptop battery healthy

The rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power most of our laptops may be the most practical battery technology we have today, but they naturally degrade over time as ions flow back and forth—that’s their An unavoidable consequence of the way it is constructed and used. Eventually, the battery couldn’t hold that much power.

Most modern laptops now have some sort of smart charging technology built into them to limit the number of full charges. How this is done varies between laptops – I’ll discuss this, along with other ways to ensure the battery on your MacBook or Windows laptop stays healthy for as long as possible.

As with smartphones, fully charging or fully discharging puts more stress on the battery and shortens its life due to chemical reactions inside the laptop battery. Microsoft said that for the long-term health of the battery, it is not recommended to keep laptops at 100% charged, so users are advised to avoid full charging and full discharge.

Then there’s temperature: both too much heat and too much cold are bad for your battery’s health. They can affect the chemistry inside the battery and increase internal wear, so make sure your laptop is as far away from a scalding car or an icy balcony as possible – if you do let your laptop get too hot or cold, slowly cool it down. It drops to a more normal temperature. (This also applies to long periods of intense use – if your device starts to get too hot, take a break.)

If you’re going to store your laptop for a while, you’ll also want to consider temperature and charging. Make sure to store it in a cool, moisture-free place and charge the battery to 50% before turning off the laptop. This will limit the possibility of damage from a complete discharge.

Even simple steps like keeping your case fan clean can help: The better the airflow inside your laptop, the cooler the components will operate and the less power they will use.

You may also want to lower the brightness of your screen and make sure all software is up to date – newer versions of programs and operating systems are often more efficient and less demanding.

Apple MacBook uses a built-in feature called Optimized Battery Charging to charge the battery above 80% only when it is deemed necessary. According to Apple, temperature and previous charging mode help make this decision.

Macs with Apple Silicon (but not Intel processors) come with optimized battery charging turned on by default. If you want to turn it off for any reason:

• from apple menu, select System settings…,
• superior Battery tab, click the little “i” next to Battery health.
• You’ll see an “Optimize Battery Charging” on/off toggle.

If your Mac has an Intel processor, the default feature may still be enabled, depending on your operating system. If you want to check or turn it on/off:

• Choose from the Apple menu System Preferences > Battery
• Go to Battery > Battery Health
• looking for Manage battery life and turn it on or off.

You can further reduce battery stress by Battery Tab: click Options For example, when you’re running on battery power, you can dim the screen and stream video at a lower quality (less stress on the system).

There’s also a special low-power mode, although Apple hasn’t revealed much, other than that it reduces energy consumption. choose low power mode A drop-down menu that you can set to always be on, only when you’re relying on battery power, or only when you’re using a power adapter.

To further reduce energy use:

• choose lock screen tag entry System settings.
• Use the following command to choose when to turn off the display of an inactive laptop Turn off the monitor on battery during inactivity drop-down menu.

Another thing to consider is reducing the number of apps you have running at any one time: the less power you use running apps you don’t need, the less often you’ll need to recharge your battery. Reducing the number of programs launched by macOS can help in this regard.

Windows offers a feature called “Smart Charging,” which is equivalent to the Mac’s “Optimized Battery Charging,” but whether and how it works depends on the individual laptop manufacturer. You must check with your specific system manufacturer to find out whether your laptop has this feature and whether it can be turned on or off.

There are other power management settings on your computer that can save energy:

• Launch Settings from the Start menu.
• choose System > Power & Battery.
• Click Screens and sleep Set how long the system waits before turning off the screen.
• choose power mode Tells Windows whether to prioritize performance or battery life.
• Click Save power Have Windows’ Low Power Mode turn on when a certain battery level is reached, or leave it on indefinitely.
• Battery usage Lets you know how your battery is doing and how much power your apps are using.
• You may also have a file named energy advice at the top Power supply and battery page; it doesn’t hurt to click on it and check out some of the suggestions.

As with macOS, making sure you’re only running the apps you need to run will further reduce battery stress – it’s a good idea to double-check the programs that launch with Windows to make sure there aren’t anything running in the background that you don’t know about.