MacBook Air M4 getting hot to touch

When doing things like exporting video In Final Cut it can become hot indeed, but it should never become so hot that you cannot touch it without getting burned. If that is happening, you might want to have it looked after under warranty

If it becomes warm but you can still touch it, that is normal as you have mentioned the Air is fanless so with heavy loads it is difficult for the air, especially in warm environments

If you're en/transcoding video on a MacBook Air, it's going to get very warm and that's normal. Your Mac will manage its thermal performance, meaning if needed it will throttle back the processors to keep the heat from getting too high. Even during 'normal' use it will likely get a bit warm (in that normal web browsing often means a bunch of video ads playing).

General advice would be to use your Mac on a hard surface, not on your lap or a blanket but on a desk, table or lap desk. Even though there is no fan, there are openings to allow cooling by convection and those should not be blocked by a soft surface (which also adds to the problem by insulating the bottom of the computer). There's a reason Apple calls these notebooks not laptops.

Regarding your title moderation, presumably 'hot to touch' has a potential legal implication (remember the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit?).

cmh1885 wrote:

Can the moderator who edited my title incorrectly explain why they have done so please? This does not reassure me at all.. Why would you edit my title to suggest something that is clearly not the case?..

None of this site's participants can edit titles. All we can do is guess as to the reasons they become edited. Sometimes those edits make sense and clarify the concern, sometimes they don't and just complicate it.

Personally I suspect Apple AI is doing it with no human involvement, but as I wrote that's just a guess and as worthless as any other.

If you have questions or concerns regarding that particular subject I encourage you to post that question in the Using the Community - Apple Community.

Can the moderator who edited my title incorrectly explain why they have done so please? This does not reassure me at all.. Why would you edit my title to suggest something that is clearly not the case?..

Mods do not reply in open forums. I suspect whomever (or whatever) retitled this based on your first line:

I purchased an M4 Mac book air a few months ago.

That was obviously not needed but I suspect there was no ill-intent involved

FYI: Posting in the "Using the Communities" section will still be handled by other end users, not moderators. If you did not get an email from the moderation team saying why the post was retitled, the only way to contac them is through the email address posted several places in the Use Agreement document:

Apple Support Community Terms of Use

cmh1885 wrote:

So I should not be concerned about the longevity of the device, despite the heat? Assuming the dissipation of heat to the chassis could be a good thing?

No need for concern. Your Mac monitors the internal temperature (not sure about the M4 MacBook Air, but my M4 Pro MBP has over two dozen different temps monitored, including the palm rests. If the temps become warm enough to negatively affect components, the processors will be throttled back to let things cool down.

The Apple Silicon Macs run cooler than the Intel Macs – during export of RAW photos or a video transcode, the CPU temps on my Intel i9 could approach 100 °C (with jet engine-type fan noise to go with those temps).

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