Can I tell my Mac to charge to 80% only? (On M1 Mac)

Lithium Ion Batteries last longest when operating between 80% and 25% charge. I understand MacOS Big Sur has a battery optimization tool built in which is designed to handle this, however I feel that I would rather manually control it. I'd only want it to charge to 100% when I'm traveling; the rest of the time 80% is more than enough capacity for their amazing new M1 processor.

There is another question here: Can I tell my Mac to charge to 80% only?

But it seems like most of the answers work only for Intel-based Macs, so I though I'd create a duplicate. I'm not sure how the mods feel about this, but I felt the different architecture warranted a new question.

Solution 1:

You can enable some manual control by installing AlDente:

https://github.com/davidwernhart/AlDente

It will allow you to set the limit to 80% (and you could then change that limit when you travel). However, it is not perfect at limiting it at precisely 80%, but is probably as good as is possible with a software-only solutions.

Note that this type of manual control comes with a number of drawbacks (you can read more about that in AlDente's documentation). I wouldn't recommend doing this.

If you have expertise with computers, you could possibly make something perfect yourself by creating the necessary software and possibly hardware companion. Doing so is a relatively simple project for a professional, but there's a reason professionals do not make these for themselves in great numbers.