You can replace a battery yourself or pay Apple to do it, but you should check its health.

Any battery life issues youre having could be due to a runaway process or just heavy use.

Every modern Mac battery is rated for 1000 cycles; some older models (pre-2010) are rated for 500 or 300 cycles.

While the battery wont suddenly fail when it reaches its limit, it will start to hold less and less charge as it approaches that limit.

Eventually, youll need to keep your Mac connected to its power cable to use it.

If you dont hold down the Option key, youll see an About This Mac command, instead.

The Cycle Count entry is under the Health Information section.

The battery doesnt need to be replaced yet, but it probably will need to be done later this year.

If there is a problem with your battery, the Condition entry (which shows Normal in our example) will display something like Service Battery.

For example, it tells you your batterys current maximum capacity but not its original capacity.

Battery Health Check App Free App CoconutBattery

If you want a little bit more info thats easier to understand, download the free app coconutBattery.

Losing 15 capacity over almost three years isnt too bad at all.

With either System Information or coconutBattery, you can quickly see how much capacity its lost and whether it needs to be replaced.

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Free Battery Health Check App For Mac