You Can Recharge Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack Without a Lightning Cable

A brief follow-up to my love letter to Apple’s discontinued MagSafe Battery Pack this week. I wrote:

They’re the only Lightning devices left in my life and they’re so good I’m happy to still keep one Lightning cable in my travel bag to use them.

Among its other unique bits of cleverness, Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack supports another cool feature: when attached to your phone, you can plug the charging cable into the phone, and after the phone gets to 100 percent charge, the phone will recharge the connected battery pack. So, if you own a MagSafe Battery Pack, you can recharge it even if you don’t have a Lightning cable handy. Just attach it to your iPhone and plug your USB-C cable into the phone, not the battery pack. I’m not aware of any other battery packs that support this.

That said, I still keep that one Lightning cable in my travel bag for the MagSafe Battery Pack because I want to be able to charge it whenever I want. Like, say, if I want to leave it behind, recharging, while I go elsewhere with my iPhone. Also, I like using the MagSafe Battery Pack as my bedside MagSafe charger. I like being able to check my phone from bed without worrying about a cable. In fact, I use one of my MagSafe Battery Packs as my bedside charger at home, not just while travelling.

Such a great little device. Really hope they make a sequel.

★ Saturday, 7 June 2025