You can charge your AirPods to 100% and get more battery life out of them by switching off the default setting, which limits them to 80%. The charge limit can help preserve your AirPods’ battery to extend their useful life. But that comes at the expense of more frequent charging every day. And if you find yourself in a situation where you need that extra battery life, this tip lets you unlock it — for one day or forever.
If you want to squeeze as much battery life out of your AirPods as possible, and you don’t mind upgrading every few years, here’s how to change the setting. Keep reading or watch our quick video.
How to charge your AirPods to 100% instead of 80%
Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries have been the standard for personal electronics for the last 25 years or so. Compared to older nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, lithium-ion batteries have a much higher energy density, longer lifespan, faster charging speed and more consistent power output.
But lithium-ion batteries still degrade over time. After a thousand or so cycles (fully discharging and fully recharging), a battery may only retain 80% of its original capacity. And performance can rapidly decline after that point.
That’s why only charging your devices to 80% can improve their longevity. The sweet spot for a battery is between 20% and 80%. Letting a battery die completely, or charging it all the way to 100%, stresses it more.
Still, the shorter battery life can become a problem if you’re a heavy AirPods user or you’re on a long trip. Luckily, changing the setting is easy.
Table of contents: How to charge your AirPods to 100% instead of 80%
- Temporarily charge your AirPods to 100%
- Change your AirPods’ charging settings
- The trade-off: Battery life vs. battery longevity
- More AirPods tips
Temporarily charge your AirPods to 100%
You don’t need to turn off optimized charging permanently. If your AirPods currently have the default Optimized Charging Limit setting enabled, you might see a pop-up screen with a Charge to Full Now button when you open your AirPods case. You can tap that to charge your AirPods to 100% one time, ignoring the limit temporarily.
This is ideal if you don’t want to turn off the battery-saving setting indefinitely.
Change your AirPods charging settings
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
If you always want your AirPods to charge to 100% rathern than 80%, you can change the settings when you connect your earbuds to your iPhone, iPad or Mac. (Oddly, you cannot change charging settings from a Vision Pro.)
Once connected, open the Settings app. Your AirPods should show up at the top. (On a Mac, it’s at the bottom of the sidebar.) Then, scroll down to Battery, tap that, then tap disable Optimized Charge Limit. When you turn off this setting, Apple gives you a choice:
- You can Turn Off Until Tomorrow, which removes the 80% limit for the next day. This is handy if you have a long trip coming up, but you don’t want the feature off forever.
- Turn Off will disable the optimized charging limit until you turn it back on yourself. Your AirPods will charge to 100% every time you put them on a charger for long enough.
- Cancel will leave the 80% limite in place.
The trade-off: Battery life vs. battery longevity
Charging your AirPods and their case to 100% will gain you a few extra hours of battery life, but it may come at the cost of longevity. Still, if you wear your earbuds for long stretches of time, the trade-off might be worth it for you.
If you like to always have the latest models, and you upgrade any time new AirPods come out, you probably don’t care about maximizing their lifespan.
Just make sure you don’t drop them a lot, either. A hard fall can degrade battery cells. It’s especially noticeable on devices with tiny batteries like the ones in AirPods and their charging case.
More AirPods tips
- Top 10 ways to maximize AirPods Pro 3 for work and play
- How to clean your gross, waxy AirPods
- 6 hidden tips and tricks for AirPods
- 3 more simple AirPods tricks everyone should know
- How to get the perfect fit for your AirPods Pro 3 ear tips
D. Griffin Jones is a writer, podcaster and video producer for Cult of Mac. Griffin has been a passionate computer enthusiast since 2002, when he got his first PC — but since getting a Mac in 2008, he hasn’t turned back. His skills in graphic and web design, along with video and podcast editing, are self-taught over 20+ years. Griffin has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has written several (unpublished) apps for Mac and iOS. His collection of old computers is made up of 40+ desktops, laptops, PDAs and devices, dating back to the early ’80s. He brings all of these creative and technical skills, along with a deep knowledge of Apple history, into his work for Cult of Mac.
