Keep Tabs on your MacBook’s Power With Battery Health [OS X Tips]

By

Battery Health Double

Let’s face it, having the best laptop in the world doesn’t exempt us road warriors from having to deal with reality. Batteries are so much better these days, sure, but they’re still the failure point for most of us traveling types. In between charges and external battery boosters, it’s up to us to keep an eye on how fast the old power cell is draining. The app in today’s tip should help with that very thing. Go figure, right?

Battery Health is a free app in the Mac App Store. Head on over to download it, and it will install into your Applications folder by way of your Launchpad. Click on the Battery Health icon and you’ll launch the single window. Hopefully, you’re doing this on a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air, as it won’t work with your desktop Mac.

The app tells you your battery’s current charge, the current and original max charge of the battery (current laptop batteries only have so many full charges in them), and the time remaining, in terms of the current usage or hypothetical use situations, like INternet Browsing or watching Movies. The bottom of the window shows more Details, including the age and temperature of your battery.

Click on the Tips button at the bottom and you’ll get a full page of tips on keeping your battery healthy and maximizing your time from charge to charge. Some are stuff you already probably know, like turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but others might surprise you, like ejecting Discs from the DVD drive, and minimizing the use of your iSight camera.

Bottom line, this seems like a pretty good app for the current price of FREE.

Got an OS X tip? Need help troubleshooting OS X? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.