How to fix charging on hold on Macbook
MacBooks have great battery life but like any battery, its charge capacity will reduce over time until it can no longer hold a charge. The life of a battery depends on how many charge cycles it has been through where a charge cycle is a full charge and discharge of the battery.
MacBook: Charging on hold
MacBooks are some of the most portable laptops and because their battery last so long on a single charge, users tend to use them on the go more often. Of course, there is also an intrinsic desire to prolong battery life so users of laptops, Macbooks or not, try to manage how often the battery is fully charged and discharged to reduce the number of charge cycles that it goes through.
If you see the ‘Charging on hold’ message while your MacBook is plugged in, it’s not a bug. It is a feature added to macOS Big Sur.
Fix MacBook: Charging on hold
The Charging on hold feature in macOS manages battery charging and prevents your battery from being ‘overcharged’ or charged once it’s full. macOS learns when you use the system plugged in, and when you use it on battery. It will make sure your system is fully charged when you need to unplug but it will stop charging when it reaches 80% if it knows you won’t be working on a go.
If you do not like this charging hold, you can disable it. It’s a feature that can be disabled if you do not like it.
- Open System Preferences.
- Go to the Battery preference.
- Select the Battery tab.
- Uncheck/disable the ‘Optimised battery charging’ option.
Your MacBook will now charge to 100% when you connect it to a power source. It won’t wait until it is nearly time for you to get up and unplug the MacBook.
Conclusion
Optimized Battery Charging aims to reduce battery wear. If you turn the feature off, you may or may not get more use out of the battery. It depends on how you use your system, and how often you use it on battery. The feature improves the battery’s life but there is nothing that will make it last forever. Even with Optimized Battery Charging enabled, your battery will eventually depreciate to a point where it does not hold as much charge as it did before. If you’ve often found that the battery doesn’t charge to 100% when Optimized Battery Charging is enabled and it’s time for you to get up, you can toggle the feature and it will learn your schedule again and adapt to it.
