I recently wrote a year end post about products that had disappointed me in 2014, and one of the featured culprits was a 2008 vintage MacBook Air whose battery had swollen to the point it was distorting the aluminum case. Since Apple no longer sells components for this notebook — even though the battery is a consumable (thus the reason for my griping) — I was offered the choice of using the MBA only while plugged in, finding a third party battery or buying a new laptop. I bought a replacement battery from Other World Computing (OWC) and installed it, proving that the non user-replaceable battery in these things is indeed easily user replaceable.
Since switching to the unibody aluminum design, Apple’s notebooks have been equipped with a battery that’s more like the one you’d find in a smartphone or tablet than in a typical laptop. It’s flat, thin and specially designed to take advantage of every spare cubic inch of room within the case. That means it can’t be swapped out.
If your battery dies, Apple replaces it for you ($139).
One of my kids now has the option of using a laptop in class and, rather than go with a Chromebook, I decided to pull an original Apple MacBook Air out of storage. It was a backup machine that hadn’t seen use in several years, but very portable with a decent keyboard and Aidan was familiar with the Mac operating system; so it seemed like a good use for the machine.
While prepping it, I noticed the lid not quite closing true one night, and by the next day the entire bottom half of the case had swollen up alarmingly. At that rate, it looked ready to burst. The battery only had 300 or so cycles on it (it was rated for 1,000) but it was old and didn’t owe me anything. Batteries wear out. Unfortunately, when I took it to the Apple Store as instructed, I received the news that Apple had stopped stocking or selling parts for this MBA — even the battery.
Some people have resorted to opening up their laptop and pricking the swollen battery envelope with a pin to release the gas. That seems like an inherently bad idea. The gas is undoubtedly toxic and YouTube is full of videos of such operations going sideways, often in the form of sparks, smoke and the occasional explosion.
I chose to order a NuPower replacement battery complete with a one year warranty from Other World Computing (OWC), a Mac upgrade and accessory specialist.
The battery cost $79.95 and, although shipping would have been free in the US, it was another 30 bucks or so to get it to Canada. That’s okay— still less than the Apple replacement (had it still existed), even after exchange.
Replacing the battery yourself on a unibody Apple notebook voids your warranty. With a six year-old machine that’s no longer under warranty, that’s not a concern. The battery included the necessary screwdrivers, so opening up the MBA was a simple matter of removing 10 screws and pulling the case apart. Aidan sat in on the operation to see what the “guts” of his laptop look like.
The battery replacement itself is dead easy. It’s held into place with more screws, but there are no other components to remove and no glue or tape. Simply remove the screws, disconnect the battery from the board, remove it, fit the new one into place, replace the screws and plug the connector in.
The only complication I ran into was a tab on the battery connector (meant to make it easier to remove) that wasn’t perfectly placed and prevented a full connection. I didn’t discover this until I’d reassembled the MBA, powered it up and found the battery wasn’t recognized. Once the offending tab was removed, full contact was made and everything was good.
So if you have a unibody Apple MacBook Air or MacBook Pro and the battery is dead, swelling or dying, you do have options. Even if Apple no longer supports your machine — or if you simply want to save a little cash — you can pick up third party batteries from reputable retailers and do it yourself in 15 minutes. It’s not as difficult as they would have you believe.
And the Apple Store will safely dispose of the old battery for you. Even if they consider the machine to be an antique.
My wife and I both have Macbook Airs… her Air is now four years old and mine is less than one. I love that you documented this and confirmed it is indeed easy. I suspect I’ll be upgrading my wife’s battery in a year or so as she’s now telling me it doesn’t hold a charge as long as she’s used to it doing. This is great news.
Just a comment on safety: if you have a lithium battery that is swelling, don’t think that you can just get away with running it plugged in. People have been seriously burned, even killed, by exploding lithium batteries. They don’t just explode, some of the material inside is liquid and is as flammable as gasoline. Don’t ever use such a product until the battery has been replaced. Keep it somewhere that even an explosion will do minimal damage.
Good point and I should have been more clear -my “running it only while plugged in” option was meant to be after the battery had been removed… Brad.
You can find very handy guides for this and other such fixes on iFixit.com.
Dang, $110 just for a new battery is still really expensive. Do you think there was any special circumstance that caused the battery to die after only 300 cycles? Prevention seems to be the best policy in this case, or maybe battery reconditioning before the laptop battery goes completely bad.
Nah, the battery was actually in really good shape just prior —held a full charge. Even when it was blowing up, it still held a full charge. I suspect it was a combination of age (6 years is pretty old for a battery) and not being used at all for two years. Maybe a dash of bad luck.
You can find batteries for the original mac book air on aliexpress.com for only 43$ with free shipping and a 2 year warranty
I recently replaced mine
Hope this helps
Thanks for the info! Now I know where to get one and not get reamed!
I’d be cautious about buying Chinese batteries… they aren’t exactly known for their quality control, and batteries are something that like to get… explodey.
Thanks for making this a quick and easy fix! I work on cars and not computers so…..this helped me get my wife’s MacBook Air (1st generation) up and running so she can use it for grad school. You bought us some time (not to mention probably prevented a fire hazard), and I’m grateful.
Totally necroed thread here but…
Changing the battery will not void your warranty – FTC ruled on that recently – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/11/those-stickers-warning-that-repairs-will-void-your-warranty-are-nonsense-ftc-says/?utm_term=.c11a38711ac6
TIP! When I take apart a device, I use a piece of paper with a rough sketch of the device and tape the screws down oriented on the sketch where they came from on the device… if it’s an extensive tear down I may use multiple layers of paper. This way I know right where each screw goes. Many of the screws are very similar but different, so it’s easy to get it wrong on the rebuild. You can also just lay them down in position without the tape, but I invariably cause them to get jumbled.