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On regular Windows notebooks people generally remove their battery packs when connected to a power source, in order to extend battery life.

Does a similar approach work on the Mac?

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It's interesting that you say people "generally" remove the battery when on mains power: nobody at my company of 500+ does that, and I've never seen anybody do it, even at university. (Not that I don't believe you, but it's interesting how different people's ideas of "normal" can differ.) – CajunLuke Nov 14 '11 at 21:49
No, you don't need to remove your battery. Just keep it away from excessive heat and avoid leaving it in a constant state of a 100% charge (this means using it from time to time) and you'll be fine. Stop worrying about it! – cksum Nov 14 '11 at 23:20

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Since OSX has protection built-in to keep from continuously charging the battery, you shouldn't remove it, there is no benefit.

Part of that protection is that if you plug in your laptop >95% charge, it won't actually charge the battery, and will run off of the power adapter.

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Is there a reference about the built-in protection? – Bart Arondson Jan 10 at 0:58
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On many recent Macs, you cannot remove the battery (at least not easily), so this simply wouldn't work.

In general, it's kind of pointless to do that, as you're negating a benefit of having the battery: if the power goes out or the cable gets pulled (especially if it's a magnetic cable), you lose power just like a desktop would.

Ultimately, I would recommend not bothering in either the Mac or Windows case.

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