HOW TO Make your Mac last longer

1 Make it darker

One of the biggest power drains on any laptop is its display; eke out a bit more life from your battery by turning its brightness down. Unlike recent iPhones, Dark Mode won’t help here: Macs use different display technology.

3 Plug in baby

The settings that work best for long battery life don’t always work for your Mac when it’s plugged in. In the Power Adapter tab, you can specify different settings for your Mac when it isn’t using its battery.

5 Get the cycle count

Select System Report > Power. In the middle of the window, you’ll see a section marked Health Information. This tells you how many charge cycles your Mac’s battery has completed and what condition it’s in.

2 Adjust energy settings

System Prefs > Energy Saver is your friend here. This screen lacks a Battery Health button as this is an old Mac, but we can make changes. Under the Battery tab, disable Power Nap and make the display turn off more quickly.

4 Check the battery

Batteries become less efficient over time. Apple provides a way to check the condition. First of all, click on the Apple menu then on About This Mac. Take a note of the kind of Mac you have, such as the 13-inch Early 2015 here.

6 Check with Apple

Apple has a list of batteries and how many charge cycles they’re good for (the UK one is at bit.ly/macnotebatcc). Simply find your model; in this case, our battery shouldn’t need replacing for another 800ish cycles.