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Gone away over night and left my MacBook plugged in at home.
When it's charging the metal connector gets hot as does the white plug.
Does it stop getting hot once the Mac book is charged?
No one is around to go and unplug it.
For my peace of mind do I need to do a 3 hour roundtrip to unplug it?
Yeah, it stops charging once full...it'll probably be in sleep mode so likely to be fine.
Yeah, all things being equal it shouldnt be a problem...
I dunno how apple power management works but i'd suspect it will simply stop charging once full, and the device itself should shut down or 'hybernate' after a period of inactivity.
I had a 7yo MBP and skimped on the OG charger when I needed one and picked up something off Amazon, which while it did work fine for a while it worked, it ran red hot, it scorched the MagSafe port, and the first few inches of the cable were a yellowed colour, it still works with a new genuine charger, takes 389 attempts to get the MagSafe to light and give charge though
genuine, fine, you don't unplug the TV or Sky box do you?
Chinese, go home
you don't need a genuine mac charger to charge a mac - any reasonable usb-c charger will do the trick fine. I grab dell chargers (as they're cheap and powerful) to use when not using my dock.
I'd agree with the point about a poor chinese charger though. I wouldn't expect any charger to get hot (warm yes) whilst charging
Depending on the macbook model, the chargers can be 30 or 60w. Especially for the latter, hot is normal.
It's generally fine to leave a macbook (or any quality laptop) plugged in for several weeks or more.
Eventually keeping the battery at 100% does damage the battery however. Some models have an "endurance" or "desktop" mode which only charges to 60% for this reason.
Slightly off topic, but a lot of modern equipment + official or high quality 3rd party charger will only charge at full pelt until the battery is someting like 80% full, then it slows the charge rate down for the final 10/20% or whatever.. I think thats more to do with prolonging the life of the battery though, over thousands of charge cycles.
Smart chargers have been, well, smart for half of my life. The last laptop I paid actual money for has been plugged in almost constantly since 2008. I think you'll be fine.
My M1 Macbook pro is left plugged in 24/7, as was the one before that.
Certainly more chance of harming coming to you from a three hour round trip than leaving a MacBook charging for several days.
I used to leave mine plugged in all the time.
Absolutely no harm aside from the connection eventually got knackered after about five years. Something which shouldn't be overly concerning for a xmas break.
Interesting
I was told by the local PC Mac specialist that my battery was cooked BECAUSE I generally left it plugged in…..
New battery about £250 fitted and I generally charge then disconnect until charging needed….
Who knows what’s best to do ?
Thoughts welcomed
I've left my MBP plugged in since 2010...
Still on original battery but third charging block...
I was told by the local PC Mac specialist that my battery was cooked BECAUSE I generally left it plugged in…
Total nonsense, the batteries have their own protection circuitry which prevent over charging and under discharging.
Technically the "charger" is always built into the laptop. The plug and cable are just a power supply.
It'll (probably) be fine. I've got 2x dell and a Lenovo laptop stacked up on my desk plugged in!
Interesting
I was told by the local PC Mac specialist that my battery was cooked BECAUSE I generally left it plugged in…..
New battery about £250 fitted and I generally charge then disconnect until charging needed….
Who knows what’s best to do ?
Thoughts welcomed
As someone said above, batteries don't like being 100% charged 24/7. Have a look in the settings and there might be something that lets you limit the charge to 60 or 80%.
It was a reported issue on "android" phones for a while, nothing to do with iPhones being better, just that you can hack about with android phones and turn them into web servers and other things that'll be plugged in 24/7.