r/macbookair

So this is a weird one.

I'm a wildlife photographer and bought a 15" M4 MacBook Air right when they came out in March 2025. I ordered it specifically as a pretty beefy field/editing machine, and basically immediately whisked it away on assignments. It's been working great ever since, so I never had any reason to scrutinize the specs in About This Mac.

Until today.

I was checking something unrelated and noticed it reports 24GB unified memory. The problem is that I'm quite sure I ordered 32GB.

Mine is the 15" M4 / 512GB SSD, and I paid $1,799 for the Mac itself, plus AppleCare and tax on top of that. From what I can reconstruct, $1,799 was the price of the 32GB/512GB configuration, while the 24GB/512GB configuration was $1,599.

EDIT: posters here reminded me to check my emails for a more complete receipt from Apple than whats on my apple account and it explicitly says 32GB.

What are the odds Apple rectifies this after....17 months?

Obviously I'm hilariously outside the 14-day return window, but this wouldn't really be a return. It would mean Apple shipped me a different configuration than the one I paid for, and it took me this long to notice because the computer has otherwise worked perfectly and its not like they plaster the specs everywhere.

Has anyone ever dealt with an incorrect Mac configuration discovered this late? Curious what Apple did and how far up the support chain you had to go?

I just ordered my very first macbook ever. I got the M5 with 16 gb RAM and 1 tb. I was hoping to get it sooner, but all the stores were sold out in my area. Unfortunately its estimated delivery date is really close to my school start date.

I’m a lifelong windows user so I was hoping for tips on how to get used it the switch and how to optimize it for school? TIA :-)

Hello, I’m entering freshman year of college and am wondering if I should upgrade. Right now I have a 13-inch MacBook Air (M1, 2020) with: Apple M1 chip
8 GB memory (RAM)
256 GB storage (about 245 GB usable)

I got it about 2 years ago but didn’t really use it at all last year because my highschool gave us the newest MacBook airs to use during the school year. My computer has been seeing a lot slower than the new Mac I used during the year. Is it worth the money to update or should I stick with my current one and maybe purchase an IPAD instead?

Also would the MacBook Neo be better than the current MacBook I have right now?

My husband recently employed me as an operations manager for his company and I needed to buy a new laptop with the company card. After hours of YouTube videos (I suffer from being gifted as a child) I decide that the 13” MacBook Air M5 was the one for me. So my journey began; researching the World Wide Web to get a discount using my student and/or military discount I decided I wanted to go old school and pick it up from my local Best Buy. I live in a military town so I felt my chances of getting some kind of discount were high-heck gives me a reason to get outside. But I’m a millennial so I called first before going up there and connected with an nice customer service rep against my will. She sold me on the 24gb and some other stuff with the promise of delivery in two days…$2k later I got an email with an order confirmation. My laptop still isn’t here 3 days later and when I called Best Buy they said there was a delay blasé blasé but I would get a tracking number in the next 24-48hrs -UNACCEPTABLE L. I told them to hold my beer as I called actual Apple Store looking for this laptop…

Apple Store is showing delivery Sept 22nd and my nearest store is two hours away….
Is BB pulling my leg? Should I cancel my order or wait it out?

I’m looking to buy a new work laptop. I’m in tech sales and don’t really do any hardcore things or local LLMs or or VMs or anything.

I do use tools like Claude, do some occasional light video editing and use my laptop to run live shows for my band (backing tracks, control MIDI, DAW things..)

While I definitely don’t need 32gb or even 24gb now, I do notice web pages are increasingly more memory intensive, among other things.

I’m buying this laptop for the next four to five years, potentially even longer. Would it make sense from a future proofing perspective to go 32gb?

Final note, I won’t go Pro because I like the smaller size and lighter weight of the Air for travel.

EDIT: Yeah sure, I can afford a 32gb or a Pro. My point really is wether an Air is able to actually utilize 32gb and make a difference over 24gb. And whether I should expect that the things I do today will require significantly more RAM in the coming years, much like how simply browsing website requires much more RAM today than it did a few years ago.

And again, I don’t want a Pro. I recently also had Pro, could’ve used that Pro, then sold the Pro and kept the Air.

I have a MacBook Air 13-inch M3 that recently started showing “Service Recommended” for the battery. I gave it to an Apple Authorized Service Provider (Aptronix) for a battery replacement under warranty.
The repair has now been completed, and the service report says:
“New Battery Replaced under warranty.”
The replacement battery information on my Mac currently shows:
Cycle Count: 1
Maximum Capacity: 100%
Condition: Normal
Battery serial number: matches the replacement battery serial number on the Aptronix service report.
So the battery replacement itself appears to be legitimate.
However, I’m experiencing much worse battery life than I remember getting when the Mac was new.

I  handed over the Mac on August 11 with 32% battery remaining. The last time I had charged/used it before handing it over, it was at 32%.
When I received the Mac back after the repair, it was still at exactly 32%.

Hi everyone, I’m having a very specific problem with the Mac App Store.

I have a Mac with an M3 chip running macOS Tahoe 26.6.2.

Normal Mac apps download and update normally. However, apps listed as “Designed for iPhone/iPad” cannot be downloaded or updated.

The behavior is always the same:

1. I click the cloud/download button
2. I authenticate with Touch ID
3. The download appears to start
4. After a few seconds, it goes back to the cloud button
5. The app is not installed

I tested this with both:

• apps I had previously downloaded/purchased
• completely new, free iPhone/iPad apps

With a new app, the App Store actually registers it as purchased/owned, but the app still remains in the cloud state and never installs.

Things I have already tried:

• Restarting the Mac
• 200 GB+ of free storage
• Confirming the correct Apple Account
• Confirming that the same Apple Account is used for Media & Purchases
• Checking that there are no payment/billing issues
• Checking Apple's System Status — everything is green
• Trying a completely different network using my iPhone hotspot
• Enabling automatic downloads for apps purchased on other devices
• Trying from a second macOS user account — same problem
• Normal Mac apps download/update correctly

So the problem seems to be specific to the installation/download of iPhone/iPad apps on macOS, rather than the App Store in general.

Has anyone experienced this ?

I'm particularly interested in solutions that don't require erasing the Mac or reinstalling macOS.

Thanks!

I had even tagged them but they are nowhere to be found

Hello, I’m starting my first semester of grad (humanities) school and will be getting my new MacBook semi soon! I was hoping yall could give me advice on making my computer work for me and not me working against it—I want to maximize my use. What apps are you using, how are you organizing-specifically assignments/due dates, and what browser extensions would you suggest(if any, I’ve read the debates here 💀)? Thank you in advance for your help—also as a personal preference I would appreciate if your suggestions could be AI free as the computer comes with enough🫶🏾

bought a new macbook early june Macbook Air M5 chip.

August 12 I accidentally spilled matcha on the upper left of the keyboard keys (power button included) after drying it letting it air out for a day keyboard and trackpad(mouse) was unresponsive.

I turned it in to be repaired on August 15th. I called and said they are just waiting on some parts. I’m worried because its an expensive computer and need it asap for college.

Any tips or words of reassurance it should be okay. And worst case scenario if computer is no longer good to use (praying it is) what can I do? I do not have apple care and it’s long overdue for a return.

Hello eveyone, im looking for my first macbook and have found the following deals

1. M2 macbook pro 13' with M2/24GB/1TB SSD/10-Core GPU for 1198 euros

2. M4 macbook air 13' with M4-10-Core/24GB/512GB SSD/10-Core GPU for 1437 euros

What i want to do with it:

Im an engineer and i do write code but that laptop will only be a personal machine meaning I will not do work on them only personal projects. I want to have a good battery life and a nice screen and keyboard which i think both tick those boxes. Also i would like to be able to run Logic Pro and do music stuff as a hobby. Which one would you recommend?

Hi everyone,I’m using my personal MacBook for work (BYOD) and want to keep my personal life completely separate from company tracking.

To do this, I created a separate Standard (non-admin) User Profile on my Mac specifically for work. My boss is going to install some kind of work management/monitoring software on this work profile. (I don't know the exact software yet, but on my last Mac, I was able to factory reset it without any issues and always used my own Apple ID, so it shouldn't be locked via Apple Business Manager/DEP).My questions for the experts here:Since it's being installed on a Standard profile, is it completely isolated to that user account?Will they be able to track anything I do when I am logged into my personal Admin profile?If the software requests System-wide Admin privileges during installation and I deny it, can they still bypass that?

Just want to make sure my personal files, browser history, and data on my main profile remain completely private.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hi, I am starting college this fall. I will be an Econ major, therefore I will most likely use a lot of Excel and a bit of R or Python here n there. I am bout to order a new computer as my second-hand Surface Book 2 can't even run Excel. The difference between the two base models is about 200$ and it would exceed my budget quite a bit. Do you guys think the M5 is worth it or should I just stick to the M4?