Taking care of the battery of our Mac is essential so that it gives us the maximum duration for the maximum possible time. A fundamental indicator of the state of health of this battery is the number of charge cycles it has performed. Information that can be viewed very easily, let’s see how.
An important count, but not the only one to assess the health of our battery
Every time we charge or discharge the battery, it loses some ability to hold charge. That’s a minimal loss, but it ends up impacting how many hours we can use our Mac without plugging it into power. The number of battery cycles shows us the number total number of times the battery has been fully discharged and charged
This number of cycles therefore indicates the use that we have given to the battery, so we can deduce the degradation that we expect from it. There are other metrics to consider when it comes to health, but cycle count is very easy to interpret when it comes to getting a feel for the condition of our battery. Viewing this metric is very easy
- In the Apple menu () we choose About this Mac.
- We played on System report.
- In the sidebar of the new window we choose Food.
- On the right side we are looking for the section Number of cycles.
We will see that a value appears next to this section that indicates the number of cycles the Mac’s battery has completed. Information that should be taken into account when, for example, get a used mac
As we said, the number of battery cycles is not the only metric we need to pay attention to. A computer that is always plugged into the mains will not accumulate cycles, but it will wear out a little. That said, older Macs can be expected to go over thousands of cycles. A value that we have easy access to to make the most appropriate decisions regarding the maintenance of our battery.
