Apple keyboard batteries: the coin slot means AA, the port means recharge

The keyboard stopped responding, and the battery drawer is ready to help a device that may have no use for its contents.

Apple has sold wireless keyboards with replaceable cells and keyboards with sealed rechargeable batteries. They can both look perfectly at home beside the same Mac. “Apple keyboard” tells a search engine considerably less than the little cap or charging port tells its owner.

I’d start with the hardware before buying anything. The older cylindrical battery compartment has a removable end cap. The rechargeable Magic Keyboard instead has a charging connection. A screwdriver is an awfully expensive way to discover that the shopping list should have contained a cable.

The Apple Wireless Keyboard manual documents a version supplied with two alkaline AAs. It permits alkaline, lithium or rechargeable AA replacements. Its procedure starts by switching the keyboard off and opening the cap with a coin. The battery diagram supplies the orientation; the cap goes back afterward. That two-cell count belongs to the model in this manual, so I’d check the exact model’s instructions before assuming every old Apple keyboard has the same compartment.

Apple also says to replace the cells together and avoid mixing battery types or old and new batteries. Fishing one promising AA out of the remote-control drawer is understandable. Calling the resulting collection a matched set takes imagination.

For the rechargeable model, Apple’s support page says to connect the appropriate Lightning or USB-C cable to a Mac or power adapter. It recommends leaving the device on for the fastest charging. The charge level appears through Bluetooth in the Mac’s menu bar or Control Center, rather than on a charge-level indicator built into the accessory.

A cable connection and a reported charge level answer more useful questions than repeatedly tapping an unresponsive key. Does the keyboard charge? Does it work while connected? Does it lose that charge after disconnection? Those observations make a support conversation considerably better than “sometimes it dies.”

The Magic Keyboard manual draws the repair boundary clearly: its lithium-ion battery should be serviced or recycled by Apple or an authorized provider, and the keyboard contains no user-serviceable parts. If it won’t hold a charge after the charging path has been checked, I’d bring that behavior and the exact model to service, then compare the available service price with replacement. No universal battery price makes sense across this many keyboard generations.

For an AA model, compatible rechargeable AA batteries can keep another disposable pair out of the routine. They’re a shopping option for the removable-cell keyboard, not an upgrade kit for a sealed Magic Keyboard.

The coin gets early retirement.