M2 MacBook Air charging with Apple 20w USB-C adapter

[russell_314]

I wasn't doing this as a serious experiment so I didn't set a timer or anything. It was more of will it actually work or just give me an error. It not only worked but it also identified it as an Apple "20W USB-C Power Adapter". It started at 78% and within maybe 45 minutes charged to 100%. At first it said 2 hours and something but when I looked next it was fully charged.

Just to note I wasn't doing benchmarks or something that would cause a heavy load. I didn't try gaming but maybe that would be interesting. I was doing what I mostly do which is browsing the web, watching YouTube videos and this time I was also working on a spreadsheet. The screen was a little less than half bright because my room isn't very brightly lit and more than that is uncomfortable for me.

The key point here are if you're traveling and forget the charger that came with your MacBook Air and have a 20w Apple adapter for your iPhone or iPad it will work as long as you have a USB-C cable. I don't know about the older 18w version but perhaps I will test that as well.

My one question would be could this cause any battery issues long term? I wonder if power management is handled the same way with the lower wattage input.

 

[Wokis]

Yeah I’ve already thrown (for dramatic effect) the big brick they shipped it with and packed only my 20W iPad brick in the laptop bag. I want that thing as thin and lightweight as possible.

Even during moderate to heavy load it still reports that it is charging.

It shouldn’t be of detriment to battery health to charge it slower. In fact you’re giving it about as much juice as the new dual adapter would supply if you had it charging a secondary device simultaneously.

 

[JPack]

No surprise, users have been able to do this for years with MacBook Air/Pro. The system won't dip into the battery until it's under load.

You can even use an Apple 12W or 5W adapter with USB-A to -C cable and it'll charge. It's only under relatively heavy load that consumption will exceed 30W. The 10C model uses up to 35W while 8C is 30W.

The system will always report as charging even when it dips into battery. This is where it's detrimental because if you're rarely using battery and macOS has placed charging on hold, you'll dip into battery power all the time and prevent the hold from happening.

 

[russell_314]

Yeah I’ve already thrown (for dramatic effect) the big brick they shipped it with and packed only my 20W iPad brick in the laptop bag. I want that thing as thin and lightweight as possible.

Even during moderate to heavy load it still reports that it is charging.

It shouldn’t be of detriment to battery health to charge it slower. In fact you’re giving it about as much juice as the new dual adapter would supply if you had it charging a secondary device simultaneously.

I really like the MagSafe cable and I bought the regular (not compact) 35 watt adapter that is compatible with the three prong cord. I believe it's the one shipped to orders outside the USA because it fits the different plugs. I bought it because it's what I did with my Intel MacBook Pro and I can be so far from an outlet and

The problem is it's 2022 and we have Apple Silicon so I'm starting to realize I don't need it. On my Intel MacBook I had to keep an eye on the battery when I was unplugged. With this thing I don't need to think about it. It sat three days on my desk just closed and I opened it up and it was ready to go.

 

[russell_314]

No surprise, users have been able to do this for years with MacBook Air/Pro. The system won't dip into the battery until it's under load.

You can even use an Apple 12W or 5W adapter with USB-A to -C cable and it'll charge. It's only under relatively heavy load that consumption will exceed 30W. The 10C model uses up to 35W while 8C is 30W.

The system will always report as charging even when it dips into battery. This is where it's detrimental because if you're rarely using battery and macOS has placed charging on hold, you'll dip into battery power all the time and prevent the hold from happening.

This is interesting. I have the 10 core model with multiple Firefox and Safari tabs open, watching YouTube and working on a spreadsheet. Of course plus lots of background apps that I just don't bother to quit. I think that's the things most people will do on their MacBook Air. Lots of multitasking but no real heavy single tasks. It charged to 100%. The icon had the lightning bolt but on system report is said "No" for charging so I guess with what I was doing it was fine. I suspect with gaming it might not be able to keep up since that would tax the GPU and CPU a bit. Of course any kind of 4k/8k video editing will require full power.

I was just doing it as a test and for my use maybe except the occasional game of WoW classic it would be a good backup.

 

[rocketbuc]

My home setup with a monitor has the 20W iPad charger for the MacBook Air M2. Working great.

I still have an old USB-A 12W iPad charger that could be perfect for my home setup. This would allow me to take the 20W charger for on-the-go. Main reason is to keep the Macbook charged at 80%, the charger is working.

Do you guys think that this solution is enough to keep the Macbook powered without damaging the battery?

 

[Wokis]

My home setup with a monitor has the 20W iPad charger for the MacBook Air M2. Working great.

I still have an old USB-A 12W iPad charger that could be perfect for my home setup. This would allow me to take the 20W charger for on-the-go. Main reason is to keep the Macbook charged at 80%, the charger is working.

Do you guys think that this solution is enough to keep the Macbook powered without damaging the battery?

Tried with two different cables and my findings is that it caps those adapters on 8W. Likely because there is no USB C PD negotiation going on with such an old brick so it resorts to something safe.

It will charge your laptop, given you do no heavy work on it at all in the meanwhile, but very very slowly.

 

[sdluzzi]

I wasn't doing this as a serious experiment so I didn't set a timer or anything. It was more of will it actually work or just give me an error. It not only worked but it also identified it as an Apple "20W USB-C Power Adapter". It started at 78% and within maybe 45 minutes charged to 100%. At first it said 2 hours and something but when I looked next it was fully charged.

Just to note I wasn't doing benchmarks or something that would cause a heavy load. I didn't try gaming but maybe that would be interesting. I was doing what I mostly do which is browsing the web, watching YouTube videos and this time I was also working on a spreadsheet. The screen was a little less than half bright because my room isn't very brightly lit and more than that is uncomfortable for me.

The key point here are if you're traveling and forget the charger that came with your MacBook Air and have a 20w Apple adapter for your iPhone or iPad it will work as long as you have a USB-C cable. I don't know about the older 18w version but perhaps I will test that as well.

My one question would be could this cause any battery issues long term? I wonder if power management is handled the same way with the lower wattage input.

I know it’s been a long time since this post, but can I ask you what was the watt input the MacBook was showing under system info with the 20w usb-c power charger connected to your Mac?

I know it recognized it as a 20W USB-C Power Adapter as you said in your post, but I want to know if while charging it showed the full 20w output the charger has or only 15w.
Thanks in advance!

 

[russell_314]

I know it’s been a long time since this post, but can I ask you what was the watt input the MacBook was showing under system info with the 20w usb-c power charger connected to your Mac?

I know it recognized it as a 20W USB-C Power Adapter as you said in your post, but I want to know if while charging it showed the full 20w output the charger has or only 15w.
Thanks in advance!

This is under System report, Hardware, Power. I'm not sure if there is another place to look. I redacted the serial number but realized later it's just for the power adapter so that was probably silly 🤣

Edit: Just noticed your message. Is it possible you have the Apple 18 watt adapter? They look exactly the same except some very tiny print that needs a magnifying glass or camera to read.


AC Charger Information:

Connected: Yes
ID: 0x7004
Wattage (W): 20
Family: 0xe000400a
Serial Number:
Name: 20W USB-C Power Adapter
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Hardware Version: 1.0
Firmware Version: 1040043
Charging: Yes

 

[fastred]

My home setup with a monitor has the 20W iPad charger for the MacBook Air M2. Working great.

I still have an old USB-A 12W iPad charger that could be perfect for my home setup. This would allow me to take the 20W charger for on-the-go. Main reason is to keep the Macbook charged at 80%, the charger is working.

Do you guys think that this solution is enough to keep the Macbook powered without damaging the battery?

It’s what I’ve done. Seems to work ok. No battery degradation I’ve noticed.

 

[rocketbuc]

Just upgraded to Al Dente Pro on my MacBook Air M2 after having discovered a sudden drop in battery health. I was out on travel and pushed the battery down to 9-10%… all of a sudden my health dropped from 100% to 96% (at 51 cycles!!). Quite disappointed by Apple’s performance in this case. Now have sailing mode between 60 and 40% turned on.

Let me know if you have any ideas what I could do.

 

[throAU]

i regularly use the dual outlet 35w type C adapter with my 14” macbook pro…. and ipad air.

 

[smirking]

Let me know if you have any ideas what I could do.

Keep calm and carry on.

You didn't suddenly damage your battery just because it dropped to 9%. Either your battery wasn't 100% as originally reported the last time you checked or it's not actually 96% right now. Battery health numbers are notoriously unreliable.

How long have you had your M2 Air? A year? 96% isn't bad for a 1 year old battery. If you choose to sell it someday (unless it's someday soon), the amount of battery life left on it is likely to only be a minor factor in how much you'll get for it.

Just use your computer as needed. Only worry about the battery if you keep burning through them repeatedly. For most people it's mostly random chance.

 

[rocketbuc]

Keep calm and carry on.

You didn't suddenly damage your battery just because it dropped to 9%. Either your battery wasn't 100% as originally reported the last time you checked or it's not actually 96% right now. Battery health numbers are notoriously unreliable.

How long have you had your M2 Air? A year? 96% isn't bad for a 1 year old battery. If you choose to sell it someday (unless it's someday soon), the amount of battery life left on it is likely to only be a minor factor in how much you'll get for it.

Just use your computer as needed. Only worry about the battery if you keep burning through them repeatedly. For most people it's mostly random chance.

Highly appreciated advise, @smirking. Thank you! Had the Air since October 2022.
Will keep using the MacBook and not overthink the battery health.

I will keep you updated how things evolve. Just purchased Al Dente Pro to use Sailing Mode for my use case.

 

[smirking]

I will keep you updated how things evolve. Just purchased Al Dente Pro to use Sailing Mode for my use case.

Al Dente is great. If you really want to do battery management, just use Al Dente and on an M processor it's not at all a hardship to only charge up to 80% so you're basically doing effortless battery management.

 

[okkibs]

I was out on travel and pushed the battery down to 9-10%… all of a sudden my health dropped from 100% to 96% (at 51 cycles!!).

The value doesn't refresh properly unless you really use the battery. It was likely already at 96% before but hasn't updated due to lighter use.

 

[Scarrus]

This might irritate some but I got a 67W GaN charger with 2 usb-c and 1 usb-a ports from Aliexpress. It's very small and portable and it charges my M1 MBA, my iPhone 14 Plus and something else simultaneously like there's no tomorrow. Oh and I never had any issues with it, it's pretty smart(has all the charge technologies) and it only cost my like 8 dollars or something.

 

[okkibs]

This might irritate some but I got a 67W GaN charger with 2 usb-c and 1 usb-a ports from Aliexpress. It's very small and portable and it charges my M1 MBA, my iPhone 14 Plus and something else simultaneously like there's no tomorrow. Oh and I never had any issues with it, it's pretty smart(has all the charge technologies) and it only cost my like 8 dollars or something.

How much does it weigh? I have one of these from Anker weighing 4.78 oz. If it is considerably lighter then it's likely missing components that could well be important for safety, both for you and the connected devices. Not much else you can check without opening it up and destroying it in the process, and they could just add weight on purpose to make it feel higher quality. Safe to say for 8 bucks there can't be many quality components in there. They might have added the bare minimum necessary for functionality and skipped the protection that stops 120V from ending up on the USB side. Do you really want to risk touching a USB plug that might one day carry 120V instead of 5V? That's risking your health for a couple bucks saved on a charger you'll use for years to come. I am not telling you this to make you feel bad about the purchase or to win an argument on the internet, cheap chargers like that are already known to be an electric shock hazard. They can develop a short-circuit outputting the 120V/240V from the wall directly on the USB port. At the very least it would destroy the connected Macbook or iPhone.

 

[raythompsontn]

only cost my like 8 dollars or something

Call us back when the magic smoke comes out. I personally would never cheap out on a charger. Saving $25 and then destroying an expensive device is not wise. The charger is that cheap for a reason.

 

[saber32au]

Call us back when the magic smoke comes out.

3 years and counting for me...

Bought a £12 (on Ali express) 65W travel charger (with replaceable electric prongs to use in different countries). The charger has multiple USB C and USB A ports.

Used everyday for the last 3 or so years to charge multiple devices - phones (both android and iphones), laptops, tablets, earbuds, headphones etc etc.

The charger has been absolutely fantastic (unfortunately it's not longer sold else I'd buy another).

 

[rachislenska]

so does any one charge their MacBook Air by their phone chargers? specifically android phone chargers? my Xiaomi has 67 w fast charging brick and the Air can be charged by usb c port too right?
or does everyone limit to apple chargers only?