Does the battery of your MacBook need to be replaced? But do you find it annoying to miss him for a longer period of time, or do you simply want to save costs? We explain how easy it is to replace your own battery.
MacBooks are known for their long lifespan, but even the best batteries don’t last forever. If you notice that your MacBook is losing its life on a full charge or won’t charge at all, it may be time to replace the battery. Although you can go to an official repair service for this, it is also possible to do this yourself. This not only saves costs, but it also gives a sense of satisfaction to maintain your own device.
In this article we discuss our own experience, in which we replaced the battery of a MacBook Air step by step. We discuss the required materials, the process and important safety measures. Whether you’re a seasoned techie or just want to get handy with your own devices, this guide will help you get your MacBook back in tip-top shape!
Important: good tools and a step-by-step manual
Bee iPhoned We replaced a battery of the 2018 MacBook Air ourselves. Unfortunately, Apple no longer offered the option to repair this product for us, but the MacBook is far too good to throw away. So time to get started yourself.
First of all, the most important thing is to figure out which battery and tools you need. Fixje has a nice tool for this, where you can easily find which battery you need. We also ordered the tools here and followed the manual step by step.
It all starts with protecting your screen and removing the back cover. Then your MacBook will look like this.
Important to mention here:
- Visual material is very nice here, sometimes you have doubts about what they mean, but by seeing this visually you know exactly that you are removing the right screws;
- We also think it would be very valuable to have tips from other consumers who have done a repair themselves. At iFixit, for example, you see useful tips in the comments of others, we sometimes had these questions ourselves;
- Unscrewing your laptop is very easy thanks to the small bits that you can easily put on the screwdrivers. Because it is magnetic, you can also easily pick up these small screws;
- Removing the battery itself is an exciting job. In addition, the outer parts can still be done reasonably well, because you cannot touch much of the motherboard here. Only with the middle batteries, which are much more firmly attached, you have to be very careful not to touch anything at the top of the motherboard.
Battery removed: time for a new one
Replacing the battery is then a much easier step. The self-adhesive strips allow them to quickly reattach to the housing. Because the parts of the battery are connected to each other, you do not have to worry about using a part in the wrong place. Then you actually follow the manual from back to front and you can slowly reattach everything.
Conclusion:
- It is doable to repair your MacBook yourself;
- It is important to sort all the screws properly and to remember which one you screwed from. This way you don’t lose anything;
- It is a time-intensive job, it took us at least 4 hours. On the other hand, you won’t lose the laptop for long;
- It remains exciting to ‘tinker’ with an expensive laptop yourself. Unscrewing parts is very easy to do. The step where you have to remove the battery is quite clumsy, which sometimes makes you doubt whether you are not demolishing everything;
- If you approach this carefully, it is an easy way to save a lot of money.