Sign up for our newsletter
- macOS 26.4 has introduced a new feature to protect your battery
- It allows you to set a charge limit that stops your battery from overcharging
- The limit can be set between 80% and 100% and reflects a feature from iOS
Apple users have been able to set charge limits on their iPhones for some time now – and now the feature will finally make the jump to Macs in macOS Tahoe 26, allowing users of the top Macs to protect their devices from battery wear.
The Charge limit feature has just been revealed as part of the macOS 26.4 update, which is currently available for beta testing. We don’t know when the full version of macOS 26.4 will be released, but Apple’s .4 releases tend to fall somewhere in the spring (or sometime between March and May).
When your Mac is running macOS 26.4, you’ll be able to set a charge limit from 80% to 100% in 5% increments, meaning you can define an 85% limit if you want. This would ensure that your MacBook would stop charging when it reached 85% instead of the usual 100% limit.
Why would you do this? Well, it is believed that regularly charging your laptop up to full can add extra wear and tear to your battery, which in turn shortens its life. By stopping your MacBook’s charging process at a lower limit, you can potentially slow down your battery’s degradation and help your laptop last longer.
This is a feature that has previously been offered by third-party apps like AlDente, but now Apple is finally baking it into its Mac operating system.
How to set a charge limit
To get macOS 26.4, sign up for Apple’s macOS 26 beta program. Then open the System Settings app and go to General > Software Update and download the beta from there. Once that’s done, you can find the new charge limit feature by going to System Preferences > Battery, clicking the ‘i’ button next to Charging, and then setting a charge limit using the slider at the top of the window.
Interestingly, Apple also added a new feature to the Shortcuts app in macOS 26.4 that lets you build a charge limit into your workflows. For example, you can create a shortcut that automatically sets a higher or lower charge limit depending on which focus mode is in effect – if you need to be busy or away from a charger and know you need more power, you can set a work or travel focus mode, trigger a higher charge limit and get more juice out of your battery. This shortcut is also available in iOS 26.4.
The fee cap has a notable exception. As Apple says on its website, if your charge limit is below 100%, your device will “occasionally charge to 100 percent to maintain accurate estimates of the battery’s state of charge.” That’s Apple’s guidance for the iPhone, but it’s expected to be the same for the Mac as well.
And now that the Mac has feature parity with the iPhone in this regard, you have ways to extend your device’s battery life, no matter what Apple product you use. If you’re worried about your battery giving up too soon, setting a charge limit might be worth a try.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
