Why is my MacBook not charging?

Have ever experienced your MacBook’s battery not charging when plugged into the power adapter? Very frustrating when you are about to jump on that zoom call and you only have 5% charge left or when you’re at 80% and want to fully charge to last through a day on the go. Luckily in most cases it can be quickly fixed by following the steps below.

Try a different plug socket or check the fuse in the power adapter plug is now blown. If the power adapter was plugged into an expender or surge protector try it directly into the wall.

macOS Catalina introduced a feature to help maximise the lifespan of a MacBook’s battery called “battery health management”. It works by monitoring temperature and charging patterns, and may reduce the batteries maximum charge level to reduce the rate at which it chemically ages. If your priority is fully charging your MacBook at the expense of battery longevity you can turn this feature off - guide here.

Different MacBook’s use varying wattage power adapters. Whilst a higher wattage adapter will work on a MacBook that requires a lower wattage adapter, trying to charge a MacBook with a lower wattage power adapter than required will result in the Mac charging slowly or not at all.

For MacBook’s that charge using a USB-C charge cable it is important to know that there are two types of cable. A lower wattage cable for charging with 29/30W power adapters and a higher wattage cable used for charging 61/87/96W power adapters. Using the lower wattage cable on a higher wattage Mac will mean that it will charge slowly or not at all. As these cables all look alike it’s easy to get them confused with a friend’s!

Genuine Apple USB-C cables have a serial number printed about 10cm from one end and you can use this to determine which wattage cable you have. If the first three characters of the serial number begins with C4M or FL4 then the cable is intended to be used with 29/30W power adapters only, anything else is good to use with power adapters of any wattage.

If the device is still not charging the first port of call would be to try an alternative power adapter and charge cable to see if either of these are at fault. If the device is still not charging it may require a service.

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