Quickly spot-check your laptop battery's health

Jun 21, '13 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: LexFriedman

Though it's come up in a comment in the past, we've never specifically called out a handy, quick way to check how healthy your Mac laptop's battery really is.

If you hold down the Option key before you click on the battery status icon in the menu bar, an additional entry appears in the menu: Condition. You're hoping to see "Condition: Normal." (The Condition line won't appear if you hold down Option after you've already clicked on the menu.)

The other options besides Normal are Replace Soon, Replace Now, and Service Battery, which reflect progressively more serious battery woes. In each of the two Replace modes, your battery is still functioning normally, though it holds less charge than it used to (or significantly less, in the case of Replace Now). But even in Service Battery mode, which may not impact how long the battery lasts but could indicate other under-the-hood problems, you can continue to use your laptop's battery without fear of causing long-term harm.

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