Does MagSafe work through a case?

Short answer: yes. Magnetic attachment and wireless charging both pass through a polycarbonate shell of ordinary case thickness, and they have since MagSafe existed. A case does not block a magnetic field and it does not block an inductive one.

That is the answer to the question people ask. It is not the answer to the question that matters.

The question that matters is alignment

The phone has a ring of magnets around its charging coil. An accessory — a wallet, a charger, a stand — has a matching ring. When they meet, they pull into register and the coils sit concentric, which is what makes the charge efficient and the wallet stay on.

A case sits between them. If the case has no magnets of its own, the two rings still find each other through it, but they do so weakly and imprecisely, because the field falls off with distance and the case has just added a millimetre or two of it. The symptoms are familiar to anyone who has used a non-magnetic case with a magnetic accessory:

• The wallet attaches but slides if the phone goes in a pocket.
• The charger seats on the second or third attempt rather than the first.
• Charging is slower than expected, and the phone runs warm.

That last one is the one people misdiagnose. A misaligned inductive coil does not simply charge slower — the energy that is not coupling into the receiving coil becomes heat, in both devices.

So a case either has the magnets or it does not

A case with its own magnet array, positioned to match the phone’s, restores the register. The accessory snaps to the case, the case is aligned to the phone, and the result behaves like no case at all. A case without one is relying on the phone’s magnets reaching through, which works and works badly.

This is the actual dividing line, and it is not what the marketing usually emphasises. “MagSafe compatible” is sometimes used to mean “does not block it”, which is true of a paper bag.

On a folding phone there is a second problem

The array has to be in the right place on the right half.

A phone that folds has two backs — the outer surface when closed, and the inner surface when open. The charging coil is in one of them, and the case shell over that surface is the one that needs the magnets. Putting an array in the other shell produces a case where a wallet attaches firmly to the wrong side of the phone.

That sounds like an error nobody would make, and it is exactly the error a case adapted from a non-folding design makes, because the adaptation happens on a flat drawing where there is only one back.

Qi2 is the same question with a different name

Qi2 is the open standard that adopted magnetic alignment. Practically, for someone buying a case, it means the same thing: the alignment matters more than the transmission, and a case that carries a correctly positioned array serves both.

The reason to care about the distinction is future accessories. An aligned case is aligned for anything that uses the same geometry, not only for first-party hardware.

What to check before buying any case

1. Does it state that it has magnets, or only that it is compatible? Those are different claims and the second one is nearly meaningless.
2. Does a charger seat on the first attempt? This is the one-second test and it is the one that predicts a year of small irritations.
3. Does a wallet survive a pocket? Attachment strength through a case is noticeably lower than direct attachment even when aligned; a case that has no array of its own is dramatically lower.
4. On a folding phone, which half is it in? If the product page does not say, that is itself information.

A wallet on a phone that folds

There is a complication the marketing does not usually mention: a magnetic wallet on a folding phone attaches to the outer surface, and the outer surface is the one that becomes an inner surface when the phone opens.

In practice that means a wallet has to come off before the phone can be opened comfortably, or it sits against your palm while you use the open screen. Some people are fine with that. Most discover it on day two.

The version that works is a wallet used the way a card holder is used — on while the phone is closed and in a pocket, off when the phone is in use. If that is not how you want to carry cards, a folding phone is the wrong host for a magnetic wallet and that is not the case’s fault.

Stands, car mounts, and the weight problem

A magnetic stand holds a phone by the same ring. A folding phone is heavier than a rigid one and, when open, considerably wider, which moves its centre of mass further from the magnet ring.

The result is that a mount rated comfortably for a normal phone can be marginal for a folding one held open, particularly in a car where there is vibration. This is a property of the phone and the mount, not of the case — but the case is the thing in between, and a case without its own array turns a marginal hold into an unreliable one.

If you use a car mount, this is the single strongest argument for a case with magnets rather than a case that merely permits them.

What we do here

Every construction in this range carries a magnet array positioned to the phone’s own, in the shell that covers the charging surface. That is a structural fact about how the part is made rather than a performance figure, which is why it appears on the product page as a statement and not as a number.

We do not publish a hold-strength figure in newtons. Measuring one properly requires a rig and a method, and quoting one without either is a way of sounding precise.

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This article explains a mechanism from first principles. Claims about how magnetic alignment and inductive coupling behave follow from the physics of the arrangement; specific figures — charging rates, hold strength in newtons — are deliberately absent because we have not measured them.