Pairing your premium Apple laptop with the best MacBook Air accessories makes a lot of sense. After all, MacBooks are the cream of the crop, fitted with a stunning screen, a fantastic keyboard, powerful components, and more. And using peripherals and accessories that don’t quite have the same standards or can’t keep up simply doesn’t make sense.
Plus, while it’s true that not everyone needs the extra peripherals, many MacBook Air users will benefit significantly from adding some to their arsenal. MacBook accessories can considerably improve a user’s experience.
Photographers and editors will have a more seamless workflow with one of the best mice instead of just relying on the laptop’s trackpad. Professionals who spend most of their workday typing away on the keyboard can have better workstation ergonomics with just a separate keyboard and a laptop mount. Those who need a lot of storage space could save a few hundred bucks/quid by opting for the best portable SSD drive instead of upgrading with Apple.
As MacBook users, we have sampled many made-for-MacBook accessories, and we’ve chosen the most useful ones, many of which we utilize ourselves daily. These are our top picks of the best MacBook Air accessories.
The best MacBook Air accessories 2024
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Apple’s Magic Keyboard may be one of the best productivity keyboards you’ll ever use, but it’s also a little out of many users’ budget. Enter the Logitech MX Keys Mini, another terrific entry in the brand’s impressive Master Series. It’s still not the cheapest, but it’s much more affordable than Apple’s offering, and it’s worth the price considering its excellent scissor switches, solid build, and appealing design.
The best MacBook Air accessory for those who spend a considerable chunk of their day typing on the computer, the Logitech MX Keys Mini is just as much a pleasure to type on as the Magic Keyboard. Plus, it comes with a few advantages over its rival, including multi-device connectivity (up to three devices), two wireless connectivity options, and an angled design for ergonomics. Unfortunately, it is missing a TouchID sensor, but that’s not a deal-breaker for us – especially since the Magic Keyboard’s TouchID doesn’t always work in our experience.
Why exactly do you need this if the MacBook Air already comes with its own keyboard? For ergonomics. With a separate keyboard, you can mount that laptop and set it away from you and at eye level, taking the strain off your back, neck and shoulders.
Read the full Logitech MX Keys Mini review
While there are many excellent mice for MacBooks, none of them can hold a candle to Apple’s Magic Mouse 2. It might be a little more expensive, but it also boasts some features that its rivals can only dream about. First of all, it’s impossibly thin – so thin that you can slip it into the back pocket of your jeans – making it travel-friendly. Its performance is also top-notch, allowing it to be incredibly responsive and accurate.
However, its marquee feature is its multi-touch surface, which means that the mouse's whole top surface functions much like a trackpad, so you can swipe, scroll and double-tap away for a more seamless and ergonomic experience. With the Magic Mouse 2, therefore, it’s like you’re getting a mouse and a trackpad in one device.
Why do we recommend this? The trackpad on the MacBook Air is spacious, responsive, and luxurious. However, it’s not conducive to a seamless creative or productive workflow, and it’s not going to be kind to your arm when you’re using it all day. Trust us; the Magic Mouse 2 will not only improve your workflow but also take a bit of that pressure off your wrist and shoulder.
There are many hubs out there, and most of them are travel-friendly. However, none of them are as portable as this three-port adapter from Apple – just the perfect companion to your MacBook Air, especially when you’re jetting off to another city or country. It may only come with three ports, which isn’t many considering the price, but they are the most vital ones.
With it, you’re getting a USB port and an HDMI port without losing one of your USB-C ports, which is a good thing since you’re only getting two of them. And, just because it’s small and compact doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful. That HDMI port can deliver 4K videos at 60Hz, granted you have a suitable HDMI cable.
Who needs this MacBook Air accessory? Pretty much all creative and non-creative professionals who need the extra ports for their other peripherals, even when they’re on the go.
We use the Moshi Muse laptop sleeve just as much at home as when traveling. Being a laptop sleeve, it protects your MacBook Air from dings, scratches and the elements. But it also serves another purpose. Its front flap serves a dual purpose – it keeps your laptop stowed away using magnets while moonlighting as an ergonomic stand when you’re using your device. To turn it into a stand, you simply fold it and tuck one end into the sleeve pocket.
As a stand, it delivers an ergonomic typing experience, protects the bottom of your laptop and keeps any laptop from overheating when you only have a porous surface to work with. It’s so effective at the latter that we love using it with our MacBook Pro when working in bed. Of course, the MacBook Air M1, being fanless, doesn’t need that “leg up” for circulation. However, the other benefits still apply.
What’s more, it’s made of vegan leather and is more affordable than the leather sleeve that Apple has on offer.
We adore our SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, and not just because it’s so tiny, handy and, well, adorable. One of the best and most popular portable SSDs on the market, this punches above its 1.76-ounce weight with up to 1050MB/s read and up to 1000MB/s write speeds, which should come in handy in creative workloads where the ability to retrieve and save large files quickly is vital.
True to its portable nature, it’s rugged and designed to be travel-friendly. It has two-meter drop protection, dust protection and resistance to water jets from any angle. It also has a Carabiner loop so you can hang it where it’s easily accessible, as well as password protection with 256-bit AES hardware encryption to secure your files.
Portable SSDs are still not cheap, so it’s hardly a surprise that this comes at a steep price. However, if you need that extra storage space, you’ll be paying twice as much when upgrading the MacBook Air’s storage with Apple. That could mean a few hundred dollars more.
Read our full SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD review
We love our braided cables, but we might just love Anker’s newer line of silicone cables more. They are soft to touch, flexible and tangle-resistant. How these cables are designed makes them hard to get tangled, which has always been an issue with other charging cords. That saves you a lot of time and frustration.
Just because it’s not braided doesn’t mean it’s less durable – it boasts a 25,000-bend lifespan. Anker is so confident in its durability that it comes with an 18-month warranty. It’s powerful as well. It can transmit max power output of 100W, so you can use it to charge not just your phone and tablet but also your MacBook Air.
It’ll even let you add a splash of color to your setup, thanks to its blue, green, yellow, gray, purple and light purple options. You can even choose between a three-foot option and a six-foot-one.
Ideally, we would go for the Apple Airpods Max, which boasts ANC and high-fidelity audio. But, it’s among the most expensive consumer headphones out there, and there are more affordable options that are just as good. There’s the Bose Noise Cancelling 700, which is a tad cheaper and delivers hi-fi sound that’s well-balanced and detailed. It comes with all the premium frills, like excellent active noise cancellation, intuitive touch controls so you won’t have to figure out which button does what, and support for Alexa for voice control.
Not all listeners are into neutral sound, so it’s good that these headphones come with app support to make EQ adjustments so you can have the sound profile that suits you. This Bose app also lets you check battery life, toggle audio sources, adjust the noise cancellation level and customize one of the touch controls. It also has a 13-hour battery life and can connect to two audio sources simultaneously, something you don’t always find in headphones of the same caliber.
Why is this an essential addition to your MacBook Air arsenal? You’ll need a pair of headphones to listen to music, watch videos and jump on video calls with colleagues when you’re out in public. If you’re going to do so, you might as well get that audiophile-approved sound – although if you don’t care much about sound quality, there are much cheaper options.
Read our full Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 review
We’ve used several laptop mounts, and while most are pretty solid and reliable, we quite love the look of Twelve South’s offerings as the company tends to go for a more professional finish. The Twelve South Curve, one of its latest releases, doesn’t fall far from that tree. Coming in matte black and white, it has that nice half-moon base that separates it from the rest.
It’s not just about the looks, however. This mount has an anti-slip surface to ensure that your laptop stays in place, a six-inch rise to put your device at eye level, and a design that fits most laptops, including the small 11-inch ones and the 17-inch behemoths.
The question is, do you need a laptop mount? Absolutely. You’re not doing your neck, back and shoulders any favor by staring down at your laptop screen for eight hours or more. A display, after all, must be at eye level. By setting the laptop on a mount, you can also round out your workstation ergonomics by adding a keyboard with a wrist rest and a mouse.
Apple might finally upgrade the MacBook Air’s measly webcam to a proper 1080p this year, but current MacBook Air users would have to be satisfied with that 720p resolution it offers. Or, they can just upgrade to a 1080p webcam like the Logitech StreamCam.
Designed for streamers with streaming-focused features like streaming software optimizations and auto-framing mode, it’s also a terrific option for remote workers who need to jump on daily video standups with their team. That 1080p at 60fps video quality is also a treat, as is the USB-C connectivity that makes it ideal for all Mac users. And we adore its compact square form factor and classy cloth front panel.
This is a bit more expensive than other 1080p offerings, but you’re getting a premium, travel-friendly model here. Pair it with Logitech’s portable Litra Glow streaming light, as we do, and you’ll look like a professional streamer on those video calls with co-workers.
Read our full Logitech StreamCam review
We’ve tested our share of laptop battery packs, and to be very honest, most of them are faulty. Either they stop charging after a few minutes or only have enough juice to give your laptop a full charge. Some even run so hot while charging you get paranoid that they’ll burst into flames. Only a handful of laptop power banks out there are truly reliable, and Eggtronic’s offering is among them.
For a reasonably affordable laptop power bank, it has a 20,000mAh capacity that manages to charge older 13-inch MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air to 100% and still have enough juice to charge your phone. It can also charge three devices simultaneously thanks to its two USB-A and one USB-C ports – though bear in mind that the USB-C drops its power delivery down from 63W to 45W when you’re charging other devices. Luckily, it has fast-charging skills so that you can charge up your laptop in no time.
It also comes with other great features, including an LCD that accurately shows how much juice it has left and a water-repellant canvas-type cover. If you’re a digital nomad or a long-term traveler, you’ll need this addition to your setup.
