CLI for managing the battery charging status for M1 Macs. Can be used to enable/disable the Macbook from charging the battery when plugged into power.

The idea is to make it possible to keep a chronically plugged in Macbook at for example 80% battery, since that will prolong the longevity of the battery.

After running battery charging off you can verify the change visually by looking at the battery icon:

After running battery charging on you will see it change to this:

Installation

One-line installation:

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

This will:

Compile the smc tool from the hholtmann/smcFanControl repository
Install smc to /usr/local/bin
Install battery to /usr/local/bin

Usage

For help, run battery without parameters:

Battery CLI utility v0.0.4.

Usage:

  battery status
    output battery SMC status, % and time remaining

  battery charging SETTING
    on: sets CH0B to 00 (allow charging)
    off: sets CH0B to 02 (disallow charging)

  battery charge LEVEL
    LEVEL: percentage to charge to, charging is disabled when percentage is reached.

  battery maintain LEVEL
    LEVEL: percentage under which to charge, and above which to disable charging.

  battery visudo
    instructions on how to make which utility exempt from sudo

  battery update
    run the installation command again to pull latest version

  battery uninstall
    enable charging and remove the `smc` tool and the `battery` script