Some MacBook Pros May Have Battery Charging Issue

Do you own a MacBook Pro, purchased between 2016 and 2017? Has the battery been acting up and refusing to hold a charge beyond 1 percent? If you’ve ruled out issues with the charger, you should know that Apple recently published a new support document outlining this very issue. While it only affects a tiny percentage of MacBook Pro users, if you’re one of them, you may be able to get it fixed free of charge.

Based on the support document, the following are impacted:

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (13­-inch, 2016, four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-­inch, 2017, four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-­inch, 2016)
• MacBook Pro (15­-inch, 2017)

If you’re using macOS Big Sur, you can check your battery via the Apple menu, located in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Go to System Preferences, click ‘Battery,’ and then click on ‘Battery Health.’

On the other hand, if you’re using macOS Catalina or earlier, press and hold the ‘Option’ key and click the battery icon in the menu bar to show the battery status menu.

Either way, if you see the words “Service Recommended” then you know what to do. Get your machine to the nearest Apple service center and you’re almost certainly on track for a free battery replacement.

If your battery is currently okay, then make sure you update to macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 or macOS Catalina 10.15.7. Both of those contain software upgrades that will keep the issue from happening in the first place.

Kudos to Apple to moving swiftly and correcting an issue like this. There are a number of big tech companies that would have handled the issue differently. After all, it only impacts a tiny slice of the company’s massive user base, so there wasn’t much incentive for them to make it a big priority. They chose to anyway, and that says good things about the company and the brand.