Apple Silicon Battery Charge Limiter

If you keep your MacBook plugged in most of the time, you’re unknowingly shortening its battery lifespan. Lithium-ion batteries degrade faster when kept at 100% charge for extended periods. Battery Charge Limiter (https://github.com/actuallymentor/battery) is a free, open-source tool that solves this by keeping your Apple Silicon MacBook at a healthy 80% charge.

It’s lightweight, stays out of your way, and works even when the app is closed or after a reboot.

Key Features

🔋 80% Charge Limit by Default

The app intelligently manages your charging:

Discharges your battery until it reaches 80%, even when plugged in
Disables charging when your battery is above 80%
Enables charging when your battery drops below 80%
Maintains this limit automatically, so you don’t have to think about it

🔧 Custom Percentage via CLI

Want a different charge level? The included command-line tool lets you set custom percentages:

# Maintain battery at 80%
battery maintain 80

# Maintain battery between 70-80%
battery maintain 70-80

🚀 Always Active

The limit stays engaged:

After rebooting - no need to reopen the app
After closing the app - the background service keeps running
Automatically - just set it and forget it

🆓 Free & Open Source

No subscriptions, no premium tiers, no hidden costs. The tool is completely free and will remain that way. The source code is available on GitHub for anyone to audit or contribute to.

Requirements

⚠️ Apple Silicon Macs only - This tool uses features specific to M1/M2/M3/M4 chips and will not work on Intel Macs.

If you have an Intel Mac, consider Al Dente as an alternative.

Get Started

Choose your preferred installation method:

Option 1: Homebrew (Recommended)

brew install battery

Option 2: Download DMG

Download the latest release from the GitHub releases page.

Option 3: Command Line Only

If you prefer the terminal and don’t need the GUI:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/actuallymentor/battery/main/setup.sh | bash

This installs the battery CLI tool and the required SMC utility to /usr/local/bin.

Note: The first time you open the app, it will ask for your administrator password to install the necessary system components.

CLI Commands

The command-line tool offers additional control:

# Check battery status
battery status

# Enable/disable charging manually
battery charging on
battery charging off

# Charge to a specific percentage
battery charge 90

# Discharge to a specific percentage
battery discharge 40

# Calibrate battery (discharge to 15%, charge to 100%, hold 1 hour)
battery calibrate

# Update to latest version
battery update

Run battery without parameters for the full help menu.

🔗 Website: github.com/actuallymentor/battery

Why This Tool Rocks

Completely Free: No paid tiers, no feature restrictions, no ads
Open Source: Full transparency, you can see exactly what the code does
Lightweight: Minimal resource usage, lives quietly in your menu bar
Persistent: Works even when the app is closed or after system restarts
Privacy-Friendly: No data collection, no cloud connections
Better Than Optimized Charging: Unlike macOS’s built-in feature, this gives you full control over when and at what percentage to limit charging

Crepi il lupo! 🐺