By Jason Snell

August 22, 2022 6:00 AM PT

Apple brings Self-Service Repair to the Mac

Apple’s Self-Service Repair program, which was launched in April, provides Apple parts, manuals, and (optionally) tools so that anyone so inclined can repair their iPhone themself. On Monday, the company announced that it’s extending that program to cover the Mac.

Beginning later this week, Apple will offer manuals, replacement parts, and tools for the M1 MacBook Air and all three M1 MacBook Pro models. (Apple says other models, including desktop Macs and more recent laptops, will be added in the future.)

At launch, Apple is supporting some specific repair types, though others will be added as the program goes along. For this first round of Macs, you’ll be able to perform replacements for many items, including the audio board, battery (for MacBook Air), bottom case, display, keycaps, logic board, speaker, top case, Touch ID board, trackpad, fans (for MacBook Pro), MagSafe (for MacBook Pro), and the antenna modules. (Apple says there will be a MacBook Pro battery replacement available in the near future.)

The cost of repair parts varies widely. An audio board replacement might cost $12, and speakers $29, while the logic board for a 32-core GPU MacBook Pro with 32GB of memory and a 1TB hard drive would run more than $1900. However, depending on the part, Apple will buy back the broken part and refurbish it for re-use in another repair, making that $1900+ logic board repair cost a little less than $600. (If Apple doesn’t reimburse you for a part, they’ll still accept it and recycle it if you want to send it back to them.)

Of course, there are lots of ways to repair Macs. There’s the Apple Store, Apple’s mail-in repair program, a network of 5000 authorized Apple repair providers, and more than 3500 independent repair providers. But for some people, whether it’s because of geography or predilection, fixing a broken Mac is something they’d rather do themselves. And with this program, Apple will provide them with official Apple replacement parts and instructions.

It’s not surprising that the program is starting with laptops. Compared to the iPhone—or an iMac, for that matter—the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro seem much more accessible and less daunting to repair. But Apple will still offer a selection of tools for the job for sale, as well as providing a rentable $49 toolkit that you can keep for a week while performing the repair. But of course, if you’ve got an existing toolkit from a provider like iFixIt or Newer, you can use those too.

And if you’re not in the U.S. and are looking at this program with envy, there’s good news—Apple says the program will also be expanding to Europe later this year.

The complete list of repairs is below:

• Antenna Module (MBA only)
• Audio Board
• Audio Board Flex Cable (MBA only)
• Battery (MBA only)
• Battery Management Unit (BMU) Flex Cable
• Bottom Case
• Display
• Display Hinge Covers
• Embedded DisplayPort Flex Cable with Connector Cowling (MBA and 13″ MBP only)
• Fan(s) (MBP only)
• I/O Board (MBA and 13″ MBP only)
• Keycap Replacement
• Lid Angle Sensor (LAS) Module (14″ and 16″ MBP only)
• Logic Board
• MagSafe 3 Board (14″ and 16″ MBP only)
• Speakers (MBA and 13″ MBP only)
• Top Case (MBA only)
• Top Case with Battery (MBP only)
• Touch ID Board
• Trackpad and Trackpad Flex Cable
• USB-C Boards (14″ and 16″ MBP only)

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