A:AnswerYes you can use it with the battery left in it. We have 2 sanitize holders with battery operated brushes. we've been doing this for about 8 years now. The only problem we've had was some of the style brushes we bought were too big for the holder. You could try to angle one in to fit or removed the brush arm or remove the arm from the handle and just put the brush arm in without the handle...