Should I charge my brand new MacBook Air M4 battery to 100% or to just 80%?

+1 on the others' comments— let your computer deal with it.

I recently retired my 2012 Macbook Pro for a 2024 M4 Pro Macbook Pro 14" and the evolution in automated power management is amazing. My M4 will charge to 80 % and hold that on wall power, yet it takes a very short time to get to full charge if I need to take it with me.

AJ

In addition, unless taking the MacBook with you, leave it connected to power.

Hey VikGC! Congrats on your new MacBook Air M4 - that’s a fantastic machine!

To keep your battery healthy for longer, here are a few tips:

Charging to 100% vs. 80% Apple Silicon Macs are designed to take care of your battery health. By default, macOS uses Battery Health Management to reduce wear by learning your usage patterns and adjusting the maximum charge when needed. You can keep charging up to 100% safely - your Mac will handle it all behind the scenes. However, if you prefer to keep it between 30-80%, that’s totally fine too, especially if you’re not often away from a charger.

Staying plugged in during heavy usage Yes, it’s okay to keep your Mac plugged into MagSafe when you’re doing processor-intensive tasks like coding, Power BI, or Rekordbox. It’s even recommended. When plugged in, macOS may slow down battery usage to extend its life and improve performance.

VikGC wrote:

Hi guys,

I've recently purchased a brand new MacBook Air M4. I want to maintain the battery life on it for as long as I can. Should I charge my MacBook Air M4 to 100%, or should I just keep the battery range between 30%-80%? And, should I keep my MacBook Air M4 connected to the MagSafe charger when doing more processor intensive work (e.g. programming with R on Stata, Python on PyCharm, Power BI, Gideon, Rekordbox, etc.)?

I would highly value your input as I would love my new MacBook Air to last for quite some time.

Generally speaking, there's no need to overthink battery charging. The machine will take care of it better than you could.

Yes, you should keep your MBA plugged in when that's an option. If it's running off the mains, it's not using battery and that means longer battery life overall.

You can see Apple's suggestions here:

Batteries - Maximizing Performance - Apple