A charger is a necessary component of any battery-powered gadget, whether it’s a phone or a computer.
You may sometimes forget your laptop charger when in a hurry and need to use alternative methods to charge your laptop. Like you might have to use your phone charger.
But the question is Should you charge a MacBook with a Phone charger? This is a question that many people ask.
The short answer is Yes if both your phone charger and the MacBook have the same port which is a Type-C port. You can use your phone charger on MacBook But it is not recommended because Macbook will charge slowly depending on the power or wattage supplied by the charger.
In this blog post, we will discuss the reasons why it is not advised to charge a Macbook with a phone charger.
Why you should avoid using a phone charger on Macbook
The reason why you should avoid using a phone charger on Macbook is because of low wattage or power output.
Your smartphone charger won’t have enough power to keep your MacBook charged unless it’s turned off most of the time.
Even if you’re working with your Mac, you’ll notice that the battery percentage remains the same or even degrades gradually when connected to your phone charger.
Will the phone charger damage the Macbook?
No, one-time use won’t damage the MacBook but it might cause harm to the power supply depending on how low the wattage is. That is because the MacBook is trying to pull more power than the charger can supply.
This might cause the charger to get hot The Macbook Pro will take whatever it can get from USB-C.
You’re giving it very little power than it requires because that smartphone charger is intended for a much smaller device.
The MacBook Pro will bounce back and forth between drawing power from the battery when the system needs more power than the tiny smartphone charger can provide,
In the short term, you can use your phone charger. In the long term, maybe not so much.
It will also “wear out” your laptop’s battery quicker powering it this way than powering it from the supply it came with because of more Discharge/Recharger cycles.
How to Charge MacBook with a Phone Charger
To charge a MacBook with a phone charger you will need a Type-C cable and a power supply.
- Connect one end of the Type – C phone charger to your MacBook.
- Connect the other end to a power source, such as your phone charger.
Is there any benefit in it
Even though It is possible to charge a MacBook using a phone charger, it will not charge the laptop at anywhere near the speed that you can get by utilizing the correct charger that came with the MacBook.
The only benefit it will have is it will charge your Macbook slowly only if you consider that a benefit. In some cases, it might not charge at all if you are using the Macbook while charging.
The reason for this is that a laptop’s battery requires far more power than a phone’s. Phone chargers provide somewhere 5, 10, or 12 Watts.
This isn’t even half of what a laptop charger can provide or what a lot of laptops require. Even the lower-end MacBook Pro is rated for 61 watts.
Using a lower Wattage charger on Macbook
To understand why it is not advised to use a low-wattage power supply consider this.
If you eat very little food for a long time, would it fill your stomach as you expected? No, you will still feel hungry and will be low on energy as well.
It is the same with your MacBook, when you charge it with a low-wattage charger, it will try to consume more power, and slow charging could also damage your battery.
Charging a MacBook with a different charger
It is perfectly fine to use a different type-c charger on your MacBook. If you have a more recent MacBook Pro, use any USB-C charging cable; however, the official charging cable is preferable.
You can also use a charger with a higher wattage than what the MacBook requires if the voltage is the same.
The circuit inside the laptop will control the amount of amperage entering the battery according to its requirements.
If you’re concerned about overcharging your laptop, Know that all new laptops come with a BMS that regulates how much power goes to your battery and redirects the energy when full.
What you should do
Now that you know all the reasons why you should avoid using a phone charger on Macbook, you might be wondering if there’s any way to do it.
The answer is yes, What you can do is get a charger that supplies a wide range of outputs according to the device it is plugged in.
For example, the Apple 20W power adapter can give an output of 5v–3A as well as 9v–2.22A. Check out this article for more detail on apple chargers.
Or you can also use a power bank. A power bank may be used to charge a Macbook in the same manner as it can be used to charge a phone.
However, you’ll need to make sure your MacBook has a USB Type-C connector that is compatible with a power bank, because older MacBook models may not have it.
Conclusion
I hope you found this article helpful. A phone charger can technically be used to charge a MacBook, but it’s not something you’d want to do daily and shouldn’t be considered unless there’s an emergency.