Is it okay to leave the laptop plugged in all the time? Does it affect the battery in any way? What, in your opinion is an ideal way for a longer battery life?

Thanks for asking this! I'm curious to hear the reviews. 🙂

Actually it shouldn't, atleast in apple laptops. But unfortunately, my top end MBP got it's battery buldged when I used it on closed-clamshell mode with external monitor, when you close the lid and connect monitior you should always connect it to power inorder for it to work. Thankfully my laptop was covered in iCare, they had to change keyboard, trackpad, whole lid's chassis and battery for free - this would've costed a bomb if there is no coverage. Li-ion batteries work on cycles. That is, 1-100% is 1 cycle. So if your battery crosses more cycles it will age and you will lose the efficiency. If you take my above experience, it favours this fact by using less cycles but the battery got buldged as a result. Before this I used a 13" MBP, I let it to discharge until 75% every day, when charge hits 75% I connect charger, so for every 4 days it used up one cycle, and every two weeks I let it to go to 50% and every two months I let it to goto 20%. For 2 years I didn't see any drop in battery's efficiency. But nevertheless, however you care for your gadgets, it's always annoying to see that they fail you but they won't fail the folks, who doesn't care about charge cycles or whatever. So just go care free and ease the mental pressure 😄 😄 That's my take from my two experiences 😄 https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

Thanks @nice-country-1598

I think most modern laptops and phones auto cut off the charge. If you install a utility on your machine, you will see that they generally charge rapidly (or at a normal pace) till about 80-85% and then drip charge all the way to 100% very slowly - increasing the life of your battery. I would not worry about it. I have a 13" 2012 MBP which I bought in 2014 and I have used it for 5 years - up until December 2019. Always kept it plugged in at home and I still get a solid ~3h backup on Mac OS.

Thanks @loud-glass-33663 btw what’s the utility for Mac?

@ripe-nightfall-45140 I have not used one for quite sometime because I can live with lesser anxiety 😊 - but there are quite a few to choose from: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/apps-macbook-battery-life/#:~:text=Battery%20Health%20is%20arguably%20the,Age%2C%20Power%20Usage%20and%20Amperage.

@loud-glass-33663 Actually macOS should take care of by default, trickle charging while in clamshell mode, but unfortuantely I still don't know why my laptop's battery buldged.

@nice-country-1598 Yeah - macOS does the management for you. The Utils are to check the stats and get data on life of battery, charging capacity, etc.

The single biggest trick you can use to prolong battery life and your laptop is to work in an air-conditioned place. Li-ion batteries get a little affected by charge/discharge cycles, but not as much as Apple thinks -- what the Apple support people tell you comes from THEIR FIRMWARE measuring charging cycles, not actually measuring the quality of battery. Any "battery quality" software you use, will use the OS for this info -- and the OS does not have accurate info. Not as much as it thinks. Ambient temperatures however matter far more, to the chemistry of battery, the physics of your electronic equipment and the mechanics of your moving parts. As long as you ensure smooth air circulation and a not-too-hot room, you will be fine. Best is to work in A/C air like I mentioned above.

Thanks @victorious-energy-56764

I have a CoolerMaster Notebook Cooler cooler thing with a metal mesh + fan, always ON. It sits on top of my Nexstand K2. So I don't really notice it and keeps things cool.

I agree with @victorious-energy-56764, even though I used aircon at home, now I suspect that my laptop's battery got affected because of chennai summer 😄 .. But I highly recommend a cooling system too as @agreeable-kangaroo-10355 mentioned, it helps a lot. Make sure you either use that or use vertical stand while connecting to a monitor. https://www.amazon.com/laptop-vertical-stand/s?k=laptop+vertical+stand

Keep it simple. Keep your laptop cool. If your laptop runs too hot, consider getting a laptop stand and/or a notebook cooler. ACs can be a bigger investment. I sold my 2011 MacBook Air in 2019, it still used to give an hour's backup after 8 years. If you want to read more on the subject, this is a good starting point. https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

And this is generally true for all electronics. Ambient temperatures in India are too high. Items designed in and for the first-world don't work at their 100% here. Sad truth.

Besides keeping the electronics cool as others have said, avoid full charging and deep discharging the battery. IOW, the ideal charge for Li-ion battery is between 20-80%. Keeping it in this range causes less stress to the individual cells and doesn't reduce the total charge cycle count as quickly. Batteries have a set number of charge-discharge cycles it can take. Reducing those cycles in daily use is the key. On Android phones, there is an app called AccuBattery that I'd recommend for managing your battery charging. Most desktop OSes should have something similar.