Lynx Battery

Etherlynx / Apps / Lynx Battery

Lynx Battery

A menu bar app that stops your MacBook charging past the limit you set, and shows where every watt goes. Keeping it at 80% instead of 100% slows battery wear, and you never have to remember to unplug.

Download for Mac Free · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon
The Overview tab: 80% charge on the adapter, not charging; health 92%, 214 cycles, 29 degrees, the Mac drawing 11.4 watts, and a 24-hour charge history that sits at 80% on the charger.

Plugged in all day.
Sitting at 80%.

What's in the menu

Charge limit

Stop at any level from 15% to full. Sailing mode waits for a real drop before charging again, heat protection pauses above 35°, and one tap tops up to full for a trip. Charge tab

The Charge tab: limit set to 80%, holding on wall power and charging again at 75%, with sailing mode, heat protection, discharge to the limit and MagSafe light switched on.

Battery health

Charge as the battery really holds it, health in mAh, cycles against what Apple rates the battery for, temperature, and history for 24 hours, 7 or 30 days. Overview tab

The Overview tab with charge, health, cycles, temperature, power draw and a dot chart of the last 24 hours.

Where watts go

Power flow from the adapter to the battery and the Mac, energy by app, and the whole Mac split into display, CPU, GPU, memory and the rest of the chip. Power tab

The macOS row opened in the Power tab: 9.6 watts split into display, CPU, GPU, memory, Neural Engine, video and camera, rest of chip and everything else, with Wi-Fi, SSD and audio activity.

Light on energy

A battery app shouldn't drain the battery. Choose how often it measures, or switch on Minimal energy use: the charge limit and alerts keep working. Power tab

The Power tab with the power flow at 9.5 watts and the Minimal energy use switch turned on.

Why stop at 80%

Lithium cells wear fastest when they sit full and warm.

A MacBook on a desk sits full and warm most of the day. Lynx Battery holds it lower, then gets out of the way.

And the rest

The things you would otherwise check in four places, in one menu that stays out of the way.

Devices

AirPods left, right and case, Magic Mouse, Keyboard and Trackpad, a nearby iPhone or iPad. Set a low alert per device, or turn tracking off and nothing touches Bluetooth.

Alerts you can fling away

Low, charged, charger and temperature alerts as a pill at the top of the screen. When the battery is nearly empty, a full-screen alert you can't miss.

Updates signed on a YubiKey

Every release is signed with a hardware key. The app checks the signature and the checksum itself before it replaces anything, and Homebrew installs stay Homebrew's.

Macs without a battery

On an iMac, Mac mini or Mac Studio the menu bar shows the Mac's live power draw instead, with energy by app and your devices underneath.

Privacy

One network request.

GET api.github.com/repos/Mansfera/lynx-battery/releases/latest

The update check. No cookies, nothing about you or your Mac. Turn it off and the app makes no requests at all. Everything else is read on the Mac and stays there.

No account No analytics Source on GitHub
Download for Mac