coconutBattery

coconutBattery is a free Mac utility that surfaces deep, real-time health data for the batteries inside your MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and connected iOS devices — going far beyond what macOS exposes natively.

What is coconutBattery?

coconutBattery is a dedicated battery-health monitor for Apple hardware. It reads the low-level metrics that Apple's own System Information hides behind a single word — "Normal" — and presents them in a clean dashboard: current charge capacity versus the factory design capacity, charge cycle count, temperature, charge rate in watts, and more. It works for the Mac it runs on, and it also picks up any iPhone or iPad connected via USB or (with the paid Plus upgrade) over Wi-Fi.

I've had it running at login on every MacBook I've owned for the better part of a decade. The first time it told me a three-year-old machine had lost 22 % of its original capacity and was averaging 94 °C under load, I finally had the data to justify a battery replacement rather than a whole new laptop.

What does coconutBattery do best?

The killer feature is its historical logging: coconutBattery silently records battery snapshots over time so you can plot capacity degradation across months or years, not just see a point-in-time reading. No other free tool on the Mac does this as transparently.

• Cycle count + design-capacity delta — the two numbers that actually tell you when a battery needs replacing.
• Charge rate monitoring — see exactly how many watts your charger is delivering; immediately obvious when a cable is underperforming.
• iOS device inspection — plug in an iPhone and get the same depth of data Apple only shows in Settings ▸ Battery ▸ Battery Health, but all in one place alongside your Mac stats.
• Menubar integration — a small percentage or health indicator lives in the menubar so you always have it one glance away.
• Time-stamped capacity history — exportable CSV if you're the spreadsheet type, or visualised in-app as a degradation curve.

The interface is genuinely pleasant: it feels like an app that respects the platform rather than a Linux tool wrapped in a dark modal.

Is coconutBattery free?

The core app is completely free to download. A one-time coconutBattery Plus in-app purchase unlocks Wi-Fi device monitoring, extended history, and a few additional export options — but honestly the free tier covers everything most people need.

There is no subscription, no analytics nag screen, and the developer has been maintaining it independently for well over a decade. For a utility this useful, the free price feels almost guilty.

Who should use coconutBattery?

Anyone who owns a MacBook and cares about its long-term value should have coconutBattery installed. It's especially useful if you're buying or selling used Apple hardware — running a quick coconutBattery check on a secondhand MacBook or iPhone before handing over money is the single easiest way to spot a battery that's been quietly abused.

Power users who want to correlate battery wear with workload patterns, or who manage a small fleet of Apple devices for a team, will get even more mileage from the historical logging and multi-device views. It is not aimed at casual users who just want a percentage bubble — macOS already has that. This is for people who want to understand their hardware.

What are the best coconutBattery alternatives?

coconutBattery occupies a narrow niche and there are few genuine rivals at the same depth. iStatMenus shows battery stats as part of a broad system-monitoring suite — excellent if you want one app for CPU, RAM, network, and battery together, but overkill if battery health is your only concern, and it costs significantly more. Battery Health 3 (formerly called Battery Health) is a direct competitor with a similar feature set and a polished UI, though its free tier is more limited. AlDente approaches the space differently — it focuses on limiting charge to preserve long-term capacity rather than monitoring degradation you've already accumulated; I run both. For iOS-device-only battery checking, Apple's built-in Settings screen is sufficient, but it gives you no history and no Mac-side context.

For pure battery-health monitoring on a Mac, coconutBattery remains my default recommendation: it's free, it's been around long enough to trust, and it does one thing exceptionally well.

How does coconutBattery compare to iStatMenus?

iStatMenus is a system-wide monitoring dashboard; coconutBattery is a battery specialist. iStatMenus will show you battery percentage and cycle count, but it lacks the historical capacity-degradation graph and the iOS device inspection that make coconutBattery indispensable. If you already pay for iStatMenus and just want a quick cycle-count glance, you may not need coconutBattery. If battery longevity is a genuine concern — especially across multiple Apple devices — coconutBattery's depth wins easily, and it costs nothing to find out.