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docking station charging and MacBook Pro

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vikky2426

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 24, 2013
53
35
If I plug in a docking station that provides power to my MacBook Pro and use it all day... won't this impact the batter of my MacBook? I mean once it's 100% changed should I remove the cable and plug it again once it needs charging or keep the cable plugged in all the time?

I always thought that you should charge your device 80 to 90% to protect battery life. If you keep the power cable plugged in even after 100% batter charge will have a negative impact on your device batter.

Any thought?
 
You are right that leaving it plugged in 24/7 will wear out the battery over time. In System Preferences --> Battery there is an option for "Optimize battery charging" that is supposed to help with this. However in typical Apple fashion it has no settings and instead is supposed to 'learn your daily charging schedule' and adjust as needed. I got tired of my laptop being pegged at 100% for days on end.

I recommend a program called AlDente that does the same thing but allows you more control. Mine now hard caps at 80% max charge then automatically charges / stops charging to help keep the battery healthy.
 
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Fear12 said:
You are right that leaving it plugged in 24/7 will wear out the battery over time. In System Preferences --> Battery there is an option for "Optimize battery charging" that is supposed to help with this. However in typical Apple fashion it has no settings and instead is supposed to 'learn your daily charging schedule' and adjust as needed. I got tired of my laptop being pegged at 100% for days on end.

I recommend a program called AlDente that does the same thing but allows you more control. Mine now hard caps at 80% max charge then automatically charges / stops charging to help keep the battery healthy.
Click to expand...
how does it stops charging automatically when your power cable is still plugged in? Can this be done via software? I always assumed that this has to be done manually...
 
vikky2426 said:
This is great - Apple should develop this feature by default but then this will reduce their battery replacement revenue so I don’t think they will be implementing this.
Click to expand...

Apple already has such a feature, called Battery Health Management.

If you leave your MacBook plugged in for extended periods of time (e.g. a week), it will shallow cycle the battery (e.g. discharge to 80-90% daily). If you keep in plugged in for even longer, it will hold charging the battery completely at around 70%.
 
JPack said:
Apple already has such a feature, called Battery Health Management.

If you leave your MacBook plugged in for extended periods of time (e.g. a week), it will shallow cycle the battery (e.g. discharge to 80-90% daily). If you keep in plugged in for even longer, it will hold charging the battery completely at around 70%.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed that when I was using my macbook charger, it took a week, then I saw the charging stop until 80%.
Few days ago I started using a new dock from OWC, it doesn't need the macbook charger now but I always get 100%, the macbook never discharges, I suppose it should be similar like using the macbook charger, right? so I'll wait a week to see if it preserve the battery.
 
diegoveloper said:
Yeah, I noticed that when I was using my macbook charger, it took a week, then I saw the charging stop until 80%.
Few days ago I started using a new dock from OWC, it doesn't need the macbook charger now but I always get 100%, the macbook never discharges, I suppose it should be similar like using the macbook charger, right? so I'll wait a week to see if it preserve the battery.
Click to expand...

Yes, the system resets when you move from charger to charger but should go back to the holding behavior shortly.
 
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