How to check battery cycle count on a Mac, and what it means

To check your Mac's battery cycle count, hold the Option key, click the Apple menu and choose System Information. Click Power in the sidebar, under Hardware, and read Cycle Count under Health Information. The Condition line just below it tells you whether the battery is Normal or needs service.

The cycle count measures how much the battery has been used, not how healthy it is. On its own it tells you less than people expect, so read it next to the condition, and next to maximum capacity if your Mac shows it.

Where to find the cycle count

In System Information

1. Hold down the Option key and click the Apple menu. About This Mac at the top changes to System Information. Choose it.
2. In the sidebar, under Hardware, click Power.
3. Under Health Information, read Cycle Count and Condition. On some Macs you may also see a capacity reading here.

You can also open System Information with Spotlight: press Command Space, type System Information and press Return.

Through About This Mac

If you'd rather not hold a key, choose Apple menu > About This Mac. In recent versions of macOS, click More Info, which opens System Settings > General > About, then scroll to the bottom and click System Report. In older versions, the About This Mac window has a System Report button of its own. Either way you land in System Information, and the steps above take over from step 2.

In Terminal

One line prints both readings:

system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -E "Cycle Count|Condition"

You get back two lines, one with the count and one with the condition. It is the same data System Information shows, and it is handy if you look after several Macs or want to paste the result into a message.

What is a battery cycle?

A charge cycle is a full battery's worth of use, and it doesn't have to happen in one go. Apple's own example: use half the battery one day, charge it back up, use half again the next day, and together that counts as one cycle. Top up from three quarters to full, and you have used a quarter of a cycle, not a whole one.

A few things follow from that:

• Plugging in doesn't use up a cycle. What counts is the energy you take out of the battery, not how many times you connect the charger.
• A Mac that lives on a desk adds cycles slowly. While it is plugged in, the Mac runs mostly from the adapter, so the count barely moves.
• A Mac that travels adds them faster. If you use roughly one battery's worth on each workday, that comes to about 260 cycles a year: five a week, for 52 weeks.

What is a good battery cycle count for a MacBook?

Apple rates the batteries in recent MacBook models for a maximum of 1,000 cycles, and it publishes the figure for each model on its support site. Some much older models were rated for fewer. Apple says its notebook batteries are designed to keep most of their original capacity up to that rated count.

Reaching the rated count doesn't mean the battery stops. It means the battery has done the work it was designed for, and from then on you can expect it to hold noticeably less. Plenty of MacBooks carry on past it, with shorter days on battery.

So there isn't a single good number. What matters is the count alongside the condition:

Why condition and maximum capacity matter more

The cycle count tells you how much a battery has worked. It doesn't tell you how well it has held up, because batteries wear in more than one way. Lithium-ion batteries lose capacity with age even when they are barely used, and heat speeds that up. Two MacBooks with the same count can be in very different shape.

Two readings answer the real question:

• Condition. In System Settings > Battery, next to Battery Health, macOS shows Normal or Service Recommended. Older versions of macOS used other labels, such as Replace Soon and Replace Now.
• Maximum capacity. Click the small i beside Battery Health. On Macs that report it, Maximum Capacity shows how much charge the battery can hold compared with when it was new. The lower it is, the shorter your time between charges.

And the simplest test of all is the day itself. If the Mac gets you through the hours you need on battery, the numbers are background. MacBook battery health explained covers both readings, and what wears a battery out, in more depth.

How to check a used MacBook's battery before you buy

The cycle count earns its keep when you are buying secondhand. Ask the seller to show you, or check yourself if you see the Mac in person:

1. The cycle count and condition, in System Information > Power, as above.
2. The maximum capacity, in System Settings > Battery, if the Mac shows it.
3. The Mac's age. Compare the count with how long the Mac has been in use. A low count on an older Mac usually means it lived on a desk, plugged in, which is fine. A very high count on a young Mac means heavy use.
4. The case. It should sit flat on a table, and the trackpad should click normally. A bulging bottom case, a raised trackpad or a gap along the edges can mean the battery is swelling. Walk away from that one, or have it seen to before anyone uses it.
5. A real run on battery. Unplug it and use it for a while. The percentage should fall at a steady pace, without sudden drops or a shutdown while it still shows charge.

If the battery is near or past its rated count, or reads Service Recommended, allow for a battery replacement in what you offer.

Should you try to keep the count low?

Not really. A battery is there to be used, and avoiding it to save cycles defeats the point of a laptop. A few habits help it age well without any fuss:

• Keep it cool. Heat does more harm than cycles. Don't leave a MacBook in a hot car or charge it under a duvet.
• Leave Optimized Battery Charging on. It may hold the charge at 80 percent when it expects you to stay plugged in, so the battery spends less time full.
• Stay plugged in at a desk if you like. macOS manages the charge, and it saves cycles. MacBook charging myths goes through the rest of the advice you can ignore.
• Plug in when it gets low, rather than letting the Mac run all the way down and shut itself off.

That last habit is the one Notchpals can help with. Of the characters it sends down from your Mac's notch, the Tech care ones don't read the cycle count, the condition or the maximum capacity, and they don't change how the Mac charges. They watch the charge level. If Juice, a battery with a flair for tragedy, is in your crew, it slides down once the charge falls under 20 percent with no charger attached.

JuiceThis is it. My farewell speech. Unless you plug me in. You will, right?

If the charge keeps falling, Juice is back below 8 percent. Plug in after a warning and the mood turns.

JuiceBack from the brink! Cancel the farewell tour. I'm staying!

Juice never raises the alarm while the Mac is charging or already full, so a MacBook that lives on the desk will rarely hear about it. On a MacBook that travels, the visits arrive about when they should: just before running low turns into running out.