How To Check Battery Health On MacBook Using Terminal App
Battery Health on Mac in Terminal
Did you know that you can check Battery Health on Mac using the Terminal app? A simple command provides all the info about your MacBook’s battery, including design capacity, current Max Capacity, Cycle Count and more!
Battery Health On MacBook Not Available?
In macOS Big Sur, Apple has expanded the Battery Health info to Macs. However, this new feature is only available on the new M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max powered computers.
All Intel-based MacBooks are missing the Battery Health button in System Preferences -> Battery.
How To Check Battery Health On MacBook
Fortunately, there is a way to calculate how healthy the MacBook battery is when compared to its new state. You don’t need any third-party software!
Tip: For best accuracy connect your Mac to a power outlet and let the battery charge to 100%. Keep it plugged in and perform the following steps:
1. Open Terminal app, from Finder or Launchpad.
2. Copy and paste the following command in Terminal: ioreg -l -w0 | grep Capacity
3. Press return to execute. The execution should look like this:
| | “AppleRawCurrentCapacity” = 6705
| | “AppleRawMaxCapacity” = 6705
| | “MaxCapacity” = 6705
| | “CurrentCapacity” = 6705
| | “LegacyBatteryInfo” = {“Amperage”=0,”Flags”=5,”Capacity”=6705,”Current”=6705,”Voltage”=8517,“Cycle Count”=160}
| | “BatteryData” = {“StateOfCharge”=100,”PMUConfigured”=0,”CellVoltage”=(4261,4256),”AdapterPower”=784,”LifetimeData”={“UpdateTime”=1637173843},”SystemPower”=1321,”Serial”=”-“,”DesignCapacity”=7150,”CycleCount”=160,”Voltage”=8518,”Qmax”=(7213,7160)}
| | “DesignCapacity” = 7150
4. Calculate Battery Health using simple maths:
“Design Capacity” represents 100%
“Max Capacity” is x (Battery Health).
The result is x = (“Max Capacity” x 100) / Design Capacity = (6705 x 100) / 7150 = 93.77%
Fact: This means that the current health of the battery is 6.23% less than it was in its original state.
What’s your result? Use the comments section, available below and share it! It would be great if you can also mention Mac model, age and the current amount of charging cycles.
Other Ways To Get MacBook Battery Health
If you don’t own a Mac that’s powered by Apple’s Silicone chip you can also check the Battery age with the help of a third-party app called Coconut. More details are available here.
Related: This article was inspired by the numerous reports regarding Battery Health issues on M1 Macs. Is your battery also aging faster than expected?
Credits: Thanks again Bill for sharing the above Terminal command that provides extended battery details including charging cycles and capacity numbers.
Thanks for the instructions, was looking all over, and your article was like the sixth hit when googling “I don’t have battery health in my Mac”. Silly that not even Apple’s own support pages mention that you need M1 to see the Battery Health button. They are usually quite good at giving instructions on how to solve problems or find information about your devices.
MBP 15″ mid-2015
“MaxCapacity” = 6979
“DesignCapacity” = 8755
Current capacity = 79,7%
And, yes, I am experiencing random shutdowns when device is strained while running on battery. :-(
84% after almost 2 years! Pretty dang good.
If you use it intensively, that’s not too bad.
Mine is 84% after 5 years of heavy usage -_-
That’s not bad at all. What MacBook model?
“AppleRawCurrentCapacity” = 508
| | “AppleRawMaxCapacity” = 9707
| | “MaxCapacity” = 9707
| | “CurrentCapacity” = 50
Thanks for the calculation. Mine is 80.76% after using my MacBook air 2015 since 2017.
Thanks for sharing. How does the battery hold up? Usually below 80% you should notice the degradation. 80.76% after +5 years is not bad, especially if you’re a daily user.
Ok so here’s a question. Came on here for some answers on why my old 2017 15″ touch bar MacBook pro is screwing up. I actually just replaced the battery with a brand new one, but 1900 current capacity against 6769 max capacity! Any idea what might be going on?
Never mind. Figured it out. Just low on charge…..
Thanks for the followup. Glad you did.
I’m confused, does this calculation tell me the general battery health, or the current recharged level of the battery? What are the calculations for each please?
It shows both. Charge it too the max. Current capacity shows the current charge of the battery. Max capacity the maximum that it can currently get, and the Design capacity the maximum that it was designed for when new.