Does your laptop seem to die faster than it used to? It probably does. Laptop batteries lose capacity over time.

Download coconutBattery, a free utility, to reveal some important details about your laptop battery’s health.

Apple says their batteries are designed to retain up to 80% of original capacity after 300 full charges. You can see in this screenshot from coconutBattery, how a 4-year-old iBook whose battery has been charged twice that number now has only about 17% of it’s original capacity left.

You can maximize your battery lifespan with some good maintenance practices. But however well they are maintained, laptop batteries do lose capacity over time.

Source: This tip inspired by countless calls from laptop users over the years. For further details, see Apple’s Battery Health page.