Can I use a Macbook charger for my iPhone?
You only have a Macbook charger and you are wondering if you can still charge your iPhone with it? I’ll tell you the risks
Every Macbooks charger can be used to charge any iPhone, as the chargers can produce an output of 5 volts.
To be able to answer the question properly, I first analyzed what charging power iPhones need, and what kind of power, voltage, and current the Macbooks chargers are providing.
What charger an iPhone needs
Old iPhone chargers were only delivering 5 watts of power, with 5 volts and 1 amp. Since then, all iPhones accept 5 volts of voltage, with different currents depending on the model of your iPhone.
Since iPhone 8, Apple introduced fast charging feature in their phones, which uses 9 volts charger to charge the iPhones faster.
Therefore, iPhones can be charged using chargers that either deliver 5 volts or 9 volts, amps can be different for each model but you do not need to worry about that.
Can I charge my iPhone with a 67W Macbook charger?
A 67W Apple charger is made for 13 inches Macbook Pro that were released after 2016, but can also be used with Macbook Air, and the Macbook Pro M1.
The charger delivers 67 watts of power, but can deliver 4 different types of voltage:
- 20.3V / 3.3A
- 15V / 3A
- 9V / 3A
- 5.2V / 3A
As I said before, all iPhones can accept 5V of voltage, 5.2V is close enough to 5V. Therefore, every iPhone can be charged using this 67W Macbook charger.
This charger can also deliver 27W with 9 volts and 3 amps, which means that you can also use this Macbook charger to fast charge at full speed every iPhone released after the iPhone 8. Even the iPhone 14 which can accept up to 27W, will be charged at full speed.
There are no iPhones accepting 20.3V or 15V current yet. Be sure to use a USB-C lightning cable on this charger to charge your iPhones.
Can I charge my iPhone with a 30W Macbook charger?
30W Apple chargers were delivered with the Macbooks Air released in 2018. These chargers can also deliver 4 different power. The voltage is the same but the currents (amps) are different:
- 20.3V / 1.5A
- 15V / 2A
- 9V / 3A
- 5.2V / 3A
The 20.3V and 15V are not delivering the same amps as the 67W Macbook charger. But as no iPhones can accept 20.3V or 15V, we don’t care about this.
Therefore, as the 67W charger, this 30W Macbook charger can be used to charge any iPhone at normal charge using 5V, but also every iPhone released after the iPhone 8 with the fast charge feature using 9V.
Can I charge my iPhone with any Macbook charger?
We know that both the 30W or 67W Macbook chargers can be used to charge an iPhone, is it the case for all Macbook chargers?
There are plenty of Macbook chargers, depending on when you buy your Macbook or charger, you might have a different one.
But I have checked the specifications of all Macbook chargers released until today, and every one of them is delivering either 5V of current to charge any iPhones at normal speed, or 9V or current to charge the latest iPhones at full speed using fast charging.
You can even charge an iPad using an iPhone charger, but you can't charge an AppleWatch unfortunately.
Does charging an iPhone with a Macbook charger shorten battery life?
No, using a Macbook charger to charge your iPhone won’t shorten the battery life of your iPhone.
As the voltage delivered by Macbooks charger to iPhones is not different from the one delivered by iPhones charger, there is no reason your battery life will be shortened, or that the battery health will drop faster.
But a charger ages a little bit more each time you use it, and as Macbooks charger are more expensive than iPhones ones, I personally prefer to use my iPhone charger as much as possible.
Author
Maxime Levesque is a technical engineer with more than 5 years of professional experience. He is an expert in computer and phones, mostly on Apple products. Maxime is also the founder of TechBrowser.
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