Taking care of the battery of our Mac is essential so that it offers us the maximum duration for the maximum possible time. A fundamental indicator of the health status of this battery is the count of the charging cycles it has carried out. Information that we can consult very easily, let’s see how.
An important count, but not the only one to evaluate the health of our battery
Every time we charge or discharge the battery it loses some capacity to retain charge. It is a minimal loss, but that cumulatively ends up having an impact on the number of hours we can use our Mac without plugging it into the power. The battery cycle count shows us the number total number of times the battery has been fully discharged and charged, even if we have done it in small increments.
This cycle count indicates, therefore, the use that we have given to the battery, so from here we can deduce the degradation that we expect from it. There are other metrics to take into account in health, but the cycle count is very easy to interpret when it comes to getting an idea of the state of our battery. Consulting this metric is very easy, The steps to follow are those:
- In the Apple menu () we choose About this Mac.
- We played on System report.
- In the sidebar of the new window we choose Feeding.
- On the right side we look for the section Number of cycles.
We will see that a value appears next to this section, this indicates the number of cycles that the Mac’s battery has carried out. Information that must be taken into account when, for example, get a second-hand Mac or consider a replacement of the battery of our equipment.
As we have said, the battery cycle count is not the only metric we need to pay attention to. A computer always plugged into the power will not accumulate cycles, but it will do some wear. That said, older Macs can be expected to exceed thousands of cycles. A value to which we have easy access to make the most appropriate decisions about the care of our battery.