Having just bought a new battery for my MacBook, posting an article on calibrating it seems like the right thing to do. Not many people know that properly exercising and calibrating your battery will result in a much longer life span. The process is easy, so easy in fact that you will probably not even realize you’ve actually done anything at all.
First i recommend downloading Coconut Battery. This simple application will tell you about your battery’s current charge, maximum charge, and load cycles (the number of times you’ve charged and discharged your Mac). You can get this little gem for free here.
Once you run Coconut Battery, you should see a screen like the one bellow. Keep this in mind and run it every couple months to keep up to date on your battery’s health.
To calibrate your battery, just perform the steps bellow:
- Plug in your laptop, and charge it until the light turns green, and the status indicator on the menu bar indicates your battery is fully charged.
- Let your battery stay fully charged like this for two hours (you may use your computer in the meantime.
- Now disconnect the power adapter and run your computer until the battery runs low. The computer should notify you of this when the battery is getting critically low.
- Once you have been notified your battery is critically low, save all your work, and continue using the computer until it goes to sleep.
- At this point you should either turn your computer off, or allow it to sleep for 4-5 hours.
- Once you have finished waiting, plug the charger back in and leave it connected till the battery is completely charged.
This process is so easy, there’s no reason anyone couldn’t do it every 2-3 months. By doing so you’re exercising your battery, and telling the internal software about the state of your battery and how much charge it can actually hold.
If you have any questions or suggestion, leave a comment.
