See iPad battery health and charge cycles – How-to

iPhone and Mac feature native access to see battery health, but interestingly, Apple hasn’t made the same available for iPad. Whether you’re curious about your battery health or you’re having issues with iPad battery life, it’s still possible to check on your own. Here’s how to see iPad battery health and charge cycles, tips on when it’s time to get a replacement, charge cycle expectations, and more.

iOS 17 features a “Battery” section in Settings that makes it easy to see your iPhone’s current battery capacity (health). And it’s easy to check a MacBook’s battery health and charge cycles in System Settings and System Report. But Apple hasn’t brought that to iPadOS – at least yet.

So what to do? Apple can tell you the battery health and charge cycle count if you have a technician run diagnostics on your device, but it’s easy enough to see iPad battery health details at home.

How to see iPad battery health

1. My two favorite third-party apps to see iPad battery health and much more are coconutBattery 3 and iMazing 2 (both offer free and paid versions)
2. After installing one of those apps, plug in your iPad to your Mac (or PC)
3. In coconutBattery click “iOS Device” in the top right corner, with iMazing 2, click the battery icon in the bottom right corner
4. Now you’ll see your iPad battery health, charge cycle count, and more
5. There is a roundabout way to see it hidden in iPadOS Settings, but it’s just the maximum capacity (battery health) – no charge cycle count or other specifics. Check out this Reddit thread on how to do that.

There are some iPad apps like Battery Life – check runtimes that offer similar features, but I think coconutBattery and iMazing offer the best experience.

Here’s how the process looks in coconutBattery:

And here’s how it looks in iMazing:

When should you replace an iPad battery?

• TL;DR: When your battery has dropped below 80% of its original capacity you may want to consider a replacement. This is when you’ll notice its ability to hold a charge diminishing. However, you can keep using your iPad with a capacity below that – you’ll have just have a reduced runtime.
  • Apple says iPad batteries are “designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles.”

If you’re in the US, replacements for defective iPad batteries are covered under the one-year included warranty or with AppleCare (two years).

If you’re out of warranty and/or just have a worn-down battery from normal use, Apple charges up to $179 for an iPad battery replacement.

You can read more specifics about iPad battery expectations in Apple’s support document. Thanks for reading our guide on how to see iPad battery health!

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