As others have said, keep the battery in the 80%-30% range. Use the `batt` CLI tool to hard limit your max charge to 80%. Sadly, if you're already down to <2hrs, this might not make sense for you. Also prevent it being exposed to very hot or cold temps (even when not in use)
I type this from an M3 Max 2023 MBP that still has 98% battery health. But admittedly it's only gone through 102 charge cycles in ~2 years.
(use `pmset -g rawbatt` to get cycle count or `system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 'Health'` to get health and cycles)
> I type this from an M3 Max 2023 MBP that still has 98% battery health.
That's amazing. I have an early 2023 M2 Max MBP that mostly charges in desktop mode, which limits to 80%. I just looked in battery health and it says 82%. Damn! :(
For giggles, earlier today I asked Apple how much they'd give me for this machine if I traded it in on a brand new $5K M5 Max equivalent. $825. Ouch. I think I will keep it for a few more years. 96GB is enough memory to do anything I want, and it's been such a great performer that it's easily my favorite MacBook ever. I do wish the battery weren't so degraded though.
For anec-science, here goes:
% pmset -g rawbatt
03/03/2026 18:29:51
AC; Not Charging; 76%; Cap=76: FCC=100; Design=6075; Time=1092:15; 0mA; Cycles=63/1000; Location=0;
Polled boot=02/09/2026 07:24:50; Full=03/03/2026 18:24:52; User visible=03/03/2026 18:28:52
% system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 'Health'
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 63
Condition: Normal
Maximum Capacity: 82%
Your battery is defective if it's at 82% after 63 charge cycles. My M1 Pro has 87% capacity after ~5 years and 412 cycles of giving zero fucks and regularly draining the battery all the way down to almost 0% and charging back up to 100% every time. I plug in to charge at like 2% super often. Babying the battery doesn't make any sense IMO.
The option to have a 80% cap is being added in the beta versions of MacOS. I think within a few months it should be available to general users without using extra tools.
I type this from an M3 Max 2023 MBP that still has 98% battery health. But admittedly it's only gone through 102 charge cycles in ~2 years.
(use `pmset -g rawbatt` to get cycle count or `system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 'Health'` to get health and cycles)