MacBook Air M1 battery and trackpad replacement: interactive 3D teardown

All 11 steps

1. 1Remove the ten P5 screws trap

   Undo the ten P5 pentalobe screws in the bottom case. They come in three lengths, because the laptop is a wedge, thick at the hinge and thin at the front: the two in the middle of the rear edge are 7.9 mm long, the two at the rear corners 7.3 mm, and the six at the front corners, the middle of the front edge and the middle of each side only 2.6 mm. Lay each length in its own well of the tray. Avoid this trap: The ten screws look alike, but the holes are not. Put one of the 7.9 mm screws from the middle of the rear edge into a 2.6 mm hole at a front corner and it bites for about 2.6 mm, then its tip meets the inside of the palm rest while its head still stands proud of the case. Turned harder, it pushes the aluminium out from inside, a bump you feel under your wrist, or strips the hole. Keep each length in its own well and put it back where it came from.

2. 2Pop the two clips and lift the bottom case off

   Two hidden clips inside hold the case on, one on the left and one on the right. Press the suction cup onto the bottom case near its front left corner and pull its handle up until you feel the left clip let go; then do the same at the front right corner. Lift the case straight off and set it down, outer face up, on a clean part of the mat.

3. 3Unplug the battery

   Before you touch anything else inside, unplug the battery. Its connector sits on the logic board, held down by a thin metal locking lever: flip the lever up with the flat end of the nylon spudger, check it has cleared its catch, then lift the connector straight up off its socket and leave it tilted back on its wires, clear of the socket.

4. 4Unplug and unscrew the two speakers

   The speakers lie along both sides of the battery, over its strips, so they come out first. Undo the three 1.4 mm T3 screws of the small cover over the audio board’s connectors and lift it off; lift the right speaker’s plug off the audio board and the left speaker’s off the logic board with the spudger. With the laptop upside down the right speaker is the one on your left. Then undo each speaker’s 4.2 mm T3 screw.

5. 5Pull the speakers’ strips and lift them out

   Each speaker is stuck down by a stretch-release strip with a black tab at its front end. Peel the tab up with the tweezers and draw it slowly out towards the front of the laptop, as flat as you can: it stretches thin and lets go. Then lift each speaker out by its ends and lay it on the mat.

6. 6Free the trackpad cable from the battery

   The trackpad cable runs from the trackpad over the battery’s middle cell to the logic board, held to the cell by light adhesive. Undo the two 1.4 mm T3 screws of its connector cover and lift the cover off, lift the cable’s connector off the board with the spudger, then peel the cable slowly off the cell and fold it back over the trackpad. The keyboard talks through this cable too.

7. 7Undo the battery tray’s two screws

   The three cells sit on a metal tray with an ear at each side, where the speakers were. Undo the 2.6 mm T3 screw in each ear.

8. 8Pull the six battery strips out flat trap

   Six stretch-release strips hold the battery tray to the top case, three under each outer cell, their black tabs at the cells’ outer edges. Grip a tab with the tweezers, peel it off the case and draw it slowly out sideways, as flat as you can and clear of the case’s edge: the strip stretches to several times its length, thins and slides out from under the cell. Wind it on the tweezers as it comes, then pull the other five. Avoid this trap: A stretch-release strip only lets go when it is stretched along its own length. Pull its tab up steeply instead and it bends sharply over the cell’s edge, stretches only there and snaps, leaving the rest of the strip under the cell, where it cannot be reached. The battery is still glued down, and the temptation is to pry it up. Apple’s manual says to stop rather than pry the battery; iFixit’s guide finishes with a plastic card slid under the tray, never a metal tool, which can puncture a cell. Pull every strip out flat and slowly.

9. 9Lift the battery out trap

   With the strips out and the trackpad cable folded clear, lift the battery out by the corners of its tray, level, and lay it on the mat away from the laptop. Leave the cells on their tray. A swollen, dented or warm battery goes somewhere non-flammable, and every old one to a battery recycler. Avoid this trap: Unplug the trackpad cable at the board but forget the light adhesive that holds it to the middle cell, and when the battery comes up the cable comes with it. Its other end is still plugged into the trackpad, so it is pulled up and folded hard where it leaves the trackpad, and a flex cable folded flat cracks inside. The trackpad and the keyboard both talk through it, so both stop working. Peel the cable off the cell before you lift the battery.

10. 10Unplug the trackpad and undo its nine T5 screws

    Peel the tape off the trackpad’s own connector, flip its locking flap up with the spudger’s point and slide the cable out, then lift the cable out of the laptop. Undo the trackpad’s nine 3.1 mm T5 screws: one just inside each corner, one at each corner and one in the middle. Thin shims sit on the screw posts under the trackpad: keep them where they are.

11. 11Open the laptop and lift the trackpad out

    With its screws out, nothing holds the trackpad. Keep the laptop upside down and open it slowly, lifting the top case away from the screen: the trackpad stays behind, lying face down on the screen. Lift it off by its edges, flat, and lay it on the mat.

What you need

• P5 pentalobe screwdriver · for the ten bottom case screws
• Torx T3 screwdriver · covers, speakers and the battery tray
• Torx T5 screwdriver · the nine trackpad screws
• Nylon spudger and blunt ESD-safe tweezers · no metal near the cells
• Suction cup · to pop the two hidden clips
• A magnetic screw tray · a well for each length
• Replacement battery and trackpad · with new strips and speaker adhesive
• Isopropyl alcohol and a plastic card · for old adhesive, and a strip that snaps

Questions

Safety

Shut the MacBook down (not sleep), unplug its charger, run its battery down and unplug the battery inside as soon as the case is off. Use plastic tools near the cells; if a strip snaps, never pry the battery with metal: a punctured cell can catch fire.

• Lithium-ion batteries: never bend, puncture or pry a battery with metal. A damaged cell can go into thermal runaway: it smokes, catches fire and can explode. Discharge it below 25% first; if it swells, hisses, smokes or gets hot, stop and move it somewhere safe.
• Static (ESD): work on an anti-static mat with a grounded wrist strap; a spark you cannot feel can kill a chip.
• Power off: switch the device off and unplug its charger before you open it, and disconnect the battery before touching anything else inside.

About this teardown

3D Spatial Reconstruction: Models are engineered from factual hardware measurements to visualize internal layouts, screw lengths, and hidden cable traps before you open your device. Always verify cable routing on your specific hardware revision.

The laptop is our own model of the MacBook Air (M1, 2020), model A2337, built to Apple’s size (30.41 × 21.24 cm, 0.41 to 1.61 cm thick) with no logo or printing of Apple’s on it. Its order, its screws and their lengths and its connectors follow Apple’s Self Service Repair manual for this model and iFixit’s battery and trackpad guides: ten P5 screws in three lengths, two hidden clips, the battery unplugged first, the speakers out, the trackpad cable peeled off the battery, two tray screws, six strips, and a trackpad held by nine T5 screws.

Where the brief for this teardown differed, the laptop decided. Of the three models it names, the M1 is the one with ten P5 screws of three lengths and six battery strips, so it is the one built. Its bottom case has no hinge hooks to slide out of: two hidden clips hold it, and once they let go it lifts straight off; sliding forward off brackets by the hinge is how the flat M2 and M3 cases come off. There is no separate battery board or shield: the battery plugs into the logic board under a metal locking lever, and the covers that come off are the audio board’s (three T3 screws) and the trackpad cable’s (two). And the speakers come out before the battery, as both Apple’s manual and iFixit’s guide have them, because they lie over the strips’ tabs.

Our estimates, not measured figures: the heights inside the laptop and the curve of its front edge, where the two clips sit (Apple says only that one is on the left and one on the right), the strips’ places along the cells, the hinge’s axis, the angle the strips are pulled at, and the sizes of the parts inside, read off photographs. The cells’ size, 4 × 63 × 120 mm each, is printed on the battery, and its rating, 49.9 Wh, 11.39 V and 4,380 mAh, is the battery’s own. The 3D runs faster than real hands do.

Sources: Apple: MacBook Air (M1, 2020) Bottom Case (ten pentalobe screws in three places, two internal clips, a suction cup at each front corner), Apple: MacBook Air (M1, 2020) Battery (the speakers out first, six strips, two T3 battery tray screws, stop if a strip breaks), Apple: MacBook Air (M1, 2020) Trackpad and Input Device Flex Cable (nine T5 screws, 16 Ncm and 0.35 Nm, shims), Apple: MacBook Air (M1, 2020) Screws, Apple: MacBook Air (M1, 2020) repair manual, iFixit: MacBook Air 13" Late 2020 Battery Replacement (7.9, 7.3 and 2.6 mm screws, the connector’s locking lever, the strips pulled nearly parallel), iFixit: MacBook Air 13" Late 2020 Trackpad Replacement (nine 3.1 mm T5 screws, the trackpad left on the screen, five shims), iFixit: MacBook Air 13" Late 2020 (A2337, size, 49.9 Wh), Apple: MacBook Air (M2, 2022) Bottom Case (four P5 screws, four clips, brackets by the hinge), Apple: MacBook Air (M2, 2022) Battery (four strips, the heat sink and logic board out first), iFixit: the trackpad cable connects the trackpad and the keyboard to the logic board (A2179, A2337), Price: iFixit, MacBook Air 13" (A2337) battery fix kit, $94.99 (October 2026), Price: iFixit, MacBook Air 13" (A2337) trackpad, $65.99 (October 2026), Price: Apple, estimated battery service for the MacBook Air (M1, 2020), $159 (October 2026).

The 3D models, drawings and text are our own. MacBook Air and Apple are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which device this teardown is for; iTakeApart is not affiliated with them.