Determining Battery Cycle Count
Apr. 29, 2007 @ 03:48 PM Filed in:
Mac Tips
This tip describes how Mac users with portable computers running Mac OS X 10.4.x or later can determine the number of cycles on a battery.
- Open Apple System Profiler (Choose About this Mac from the Apple menu and then click on the More Info button).
- Click Power in the Contents list (under the Hardware section as seen below).
- Cycle Count is listed under the Battery
Information section.
Notes
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A properly maintained Apple notebook battery is designed to retain up to 80 percent of its original capacity after 300 full charge and discharge cycles.
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A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle.
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