How to check battery cycle count on Mac?

I’m now the happy owner of a laptop with a 100% healthy battery. But not long ago, I was struggling with an old 2018 Mac that could barely last a few hours without a charge. That’s when I learned a few hacks that helped me squeeze the most life out of the battery.

Let me walk you through how to check battery health on a MacBook, how to interpret the data, and, most importantly, how to extend your battery life.

What’s Mac battery cycle count?

If you read anything about Mac batteries online, you might often see the notion of a MacBook battery cycle count. What does this MacBook cycle count mean?

A cycle count simply represents the number of times your MacBook Pro battery has used up its 100% battery charge. Since every time you charge your laptop your battery capacity decreases, a high MacBook cycle count is a good proxy for the overall health of your battery life.

According to Apple, 1,000 cycles should reduce your Mac’s battery capacity to about 80%, after which you’re likely to start seeing notifications about servicing your battery.

How to test your MacBook’s battery

There are lots of things that can go wrong with your MacBook battery, but most are simply the result of the battery cycle count being too high. Here's how to check battery cycles on MacBook:

Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac...
Click More Info...
Scroll down and click System Report...
Find the Power tab on the left pane and view Cycle Count.

How to check MacBook battery health? Take a look at the next row, Condition. If it's Normal, you're good to go.

If you're looking for a simpler and more comprehensive approach, try Usage. It creates handy widgets right on your desktop, and you'll have both the number of battery cycles and key information about its health at your fingertips. Here's what I have right now:

As I mentioned above, a general rule of thumb is to consider everything lower than 1,000 as normal. But often knowing cycle count and battery condition isn’t enough — you need a more detailed solution.

iStat Menus is an advanced system monitor that gives you real-time information about every aspect of your Mac right from the menu bar. On the battery front, iStat Menus meticulously tracks the battery level in your Mac over time, provides you with exact battery capacity in mAh, monitors time spent on charger, and much more.

Besides, iStat Menus is an indispensable tool to track your CPU, GPU, RAM, network, sensors, and any other aspect of your Mac, right at your fingertips.

How to fix Mac battery problems

Once you notice there’s a problem with your Mac’s battery (maybe you’ve already got the service battery MacBook warning), there are a few things you can do.

Customize screen and battery settings

Since most of your battery life goes to your screen, try these:

Dim your screen. Dimming it by just a few bars (use F1 key) might give you another 30 minutes or more of battery time as a result
Switch to Dark Mode. Do it in System Settings > Appearance. Displaying dark pixels takes less energy.

Additionally, see how you can adjust your battery settings (System Settings > Battery).

Low Power Mode. Select Always.
Optimized Battery Charging. Near Battery Health, click the i icon and toggle on Optimized Battery Charging.
Other optimizations. Scroll Down and click Options... Toggle on Slightly dim the display on battery and Optimize video streaming while on battery.

Identify power-hungry processes

Before you spend any money on replacing MacBook Pro battery, though, why not take some quick actions that might resolve the problem. First, see what’s actually taking up battery life in your Mac. Just click on iStat Menus and it’ll show all the apps using significant energy. You can get some information with built-in Activity Monitor, too:

Open the Applications folder.
Navigate to Utilities > Activity Monitor.
Switch to the Energy tab.

It’s likely that your worst battery life offender is your browser, especially if you use Google Chrome – just like in my case. Try finding a lighter substitute. Mozilla Firefox or Safari consume much less battery, for example.

Reset SMC

If your battery won’t charge at all, first, try a different charger (almost always works) or try resetting your SMC:

Turn off your Mac.
Hold Shift + Control + Option for seven seconds.
Keep holding and press the power button too.
Hold for seven more seconds.
Release, wait a few seconds, and turn on your Mac.

Note that resetting SMC only works for Intel-based Macs. You can read more on resetting SCM, PRAM/NVRAM in our guide.

Replace the battery

Generally, if your Mac is relatively new and has under 1,000 battery cycle count, it might still be covered under Apple’s warranty or AppleCare+. In this case, you can just bring your Mac to any Apple Store, and they will fix it at no cost. To check the warranty status of your Mac:

Click the Apple logo in the menu bar > About This Mac.
Copy your serial number.
Visit checkcoverage.apple.com.
Paste in your serial number and enter the code > Continue.

If your Mac is out of warranty, you could still go to Apple and pay for a MacBook battery replacement. Depending on your model, this will cost around $250. Go to support.apple.com/mac/repair to get a repair estimate.

How to replace MacBook Pro battery yourself

When it comes to Apple MacBook battery replacement, it might be worth paying Apple (or an authorized service center) to do the work and save the risk of seriously damaging your Mac.

However, if you still want to do the Apple MacBook Pro battery replacement yourself, check that you have an old enough MacBook first. For battery replacement MacBook Pros and MacBooks from around 2008–2009 are perfect, as they simply require you to unscrew the bottom and take the battery out. However, it’s nearly impossible to replace the MacBook Air battery or any new MacBook models.

How to extend MacBook Air battery life in seconds

It’s worth noting that the most effective service battery MacBook options are not in physical tinkering with the battery at the risk of breaking your Mac but rather using simple apps designed for this purpose.

Endurance is a unique tool designed to seamlessly extend your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro battery life by up to 20%. The app uses just a few simple tricks automatically in the background: slowing down the processor, pausing web browsers, shutting down Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, dimming your screen, etc. You can set the battery level at which Endurance will turn on and enjoy extra hours of productivity without pressing a single button.

OneSwitch is the utility you need if you’d like to control what’s happening with your Mac. Using a simple on-and-off toggle, you can turn on Dark Mode, put your display to sleep, connect to Bluetooth devices, clear your Desktop, empty trash, and so much more. OneSwitch not only saves your battery life but also significantly cuts down the time it takes to perform repetitive tasks.

Track your MacBook battery health to extend its life

Now you know how to check battery health on MacBook and even a few tricks for prolonging your Mac’s battery life manually. If you want to automate these processes, I strongly recommend using Endurance, which can extend your battery life by up to 20%. And it's hard to find a better way to monitor your battery health than with iStat Menus.

You can try these apps for free during a 7-day trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 240 apps for macOS and iOS. Other apps that I mentioned here – OneSwitch, Usage, and Novabench – are also part of this subscription.