Put your Mac to sleep

• Mac Apps That Prevent Sleeping
• Mac Apps That Prevent Sleep Problems

You can save energy by putting your Mac to sleep when you're not using it. When your Mac is sleeping, it's on but consumes less power. And waking your Mac from sleep is quicker than starting it up after it's been shut down.

Nov 08, 2019  Your Mac might enter safe sleep if your battery begins to run low, or your computer is left idle for a long time. Safe sleep copies the contents of memory to your startup drive and powers down the computer, allowing you to pick up where you left off without losing your work. To wake your Mac from safe sleep, press its power button. Don’t Sleep is a small, simple and yet powerful tool and is able to prevent a system shutdown, standby, hibernate, log off and also stop the screensaver or monitor turning off. Every option on Don’t Sleep is very straight forward and if you want to prevent the computer from going to standby for example, just make sure that the Standby check. Nov 30, 2019  Adjust auto sleep time on Mac OS X, Most of the folks are wondering about why I make auto-sleep or showing a black screen when he/she does not continuously access Mac for a few minutes. In a technical manner, we can say it’s the power-saving mode or auto logoff for the security reason.

To put your Mac to sleep immediately, do one of the following:

• Choose Apple () menu > Sleep.
• If you use a Mac notebook computer, close its built-in display.
• Press Command (⌘)–Media Eject (⏏).*
• Tap the power button on your computer.*

*These options don't apply to MacBook Pro models with Touch ID.

Adjust settings in Energy Saver

When you don't use your Mac for a while, macOS can automatically turn off features that you aren't using. When the computer needs to perform a task, related components power back up.

You can adjust energy-related settings in the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences.
2. Click Energy Saver.

Display sleep

You can tell your Mac how long to wait before it puts its display to sleep. Turning your display off is useful if your computer is performing a task (such as playing music) but you don't need to see anything that the computer is doing.

Putting your display to sleep stops the video signal to any internal and external displays. For Apple displays and built-in displays, this also means that the backlight on the LCD is turned off to save energy.

When your display goes to sleep, the screen goes dark or turns off, but apps that are still busy on your Mac stay active. If your display has a power indicator, it may change to indicate that the display is in low-power mode. To wake your display, move the mouse, touch the trackpad, or press a key on the keyboard.

Put hard disks to sleep when possible

This setting powers down the hard drive motor when you aren't reading or writing files from the drive. Solid-state drives (SSDs) don’t have moving parts, so this setting doesn’t affect Mac computers that use only SSDs to store data.

Consider deselecting this option if you have an internal or external non-SSD drive and you use apps—for example, pro audio or video editing software—that work better with continued read and write access to the hard disk.

Wake for network access

Select this option if you want your computer to automatically wake up when someone accesses its shared resources, such as shared printers or iTunes playlists.

This setting applies to wired connections from other computers, such as Ethernet connections. It also applies to Wi-Fi connections if you use a properly configured AirPort base station. Some tasks might prevent the computer from sleeping when idle.

Enable Power Nap

Power Nap allows your Mac to occasionally wake from sleep to perform tasks such as checking for new email or software updates.

During Power Nap, your Mac leaves its displays and other hardware that isn't needed for these tasks powered down to save energy. After it's finished, your Mac automatically goes back to sleep to save energy.

If you don't want your Mac to wake up on its own to perform these tasks, deselect this option.

More options

You might see more options in Energy Saver preferences depending on whether you use a Mac desktop or notebook.

iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac mini

When you use a desktop Mac, you can control when your computer, display, and hard disks are put to sleep to save energy.

These options are available on iMac and Mac Pro:

Mac mini has these options:

Turn display off

With some Mac desktop computers, you can set how long to wait until the computer enters its lowest idle power mode. This setting is different from display sleep because other parts of the computer also sleep.

Mac apps for website design. If you set the computer to never sleep using this slider, the display and other elements of the computer remain in a fully powered state.

Start up automatically after a power failure

You can set your Mac desktop computer to automatically restart if its AC power connection becomes unavailable. For example, if there's a power outage, or you inadvertently disconnect the AC power cord, your Mac starts up again on its own once power is reconnected.

You can automatically re-open windows, apps, and documents on your Mac after it restarts, which is useful if you have your computer set to perform tasks when it's left unattended.

MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook

With Mac notebooks, some options are available when the computer operates on battery power, and others are available on AC power. For example, you might want your computer to never sleep when you are connected to AC power. But when it’s on battery power, you might want it to sleep when it’s been idle for only a short time so that the battery remains charged longer.

In the Energy Saver preference pane, select the Battery or Power Adapter tab:

Automatic graphics switching

The automatic graphics switching option appears on Mac notebooks that have more than one built-in graphics chip. When you select it, your computer uses its low power graphics chip for tasks like text editing to save energy. For higher-intensity tasks, like playing games or compressing video, macOS automatically switches to another more complex graphics chip.

If you deselect this option, your computer always uses high-performance graphics, which uses more energy.

Other sleep modes

Some Mac computers enter special sleep modes when you leave them idle for a long time, helping them conserve even more energy.

Standby Mode

For Mac computers that start up from an internal SSD, macOS includes a deep sleep mode known as Standby Mode.

Mac computers manufactured in 2013 or later enter standby after being in sleep mode for three hours. Earlier models enter standby after just over an hour of sleep. During standby, the state of your session is saved to flash storage (SSD). Then, the power turns off to some hardware systems such as RAM and USB buses.

Standby extends how long a notebook computer can stay asleep on battery power. A notebook with a fully charged battery can remain in standby for up to thirty days without being plugged in to power.

Safe sleep

macOS also includes a deep sleep mode known as safe sleep. Your Mac might enter safe sleep if your battery begins to run low, or your computer is left idle for a long time.

Safe sleep copies the contents of memory to your startup drive and powers down the computer, allowing you to pick up where you left off without losing your work.

To wake your Mac from safe sleep, press its power button. If you use a Mac notebook and its battery is low, connect the AC adapter first.

When you wake your computer from safe sleep, a progress indicator appears. This indicates that the previously stored contents of memory are being read from the startup disk and copied back into RAM.

Waking your Mac

To wake your Mac from any of these sleep modes, do one of these:

• Tap the computer's power button.
• Click your mouse or trackpad.
• Open the lid on your Mac notebook.
• Press a key on a connected keyboard.

If you use sharing features on your Mac, other computers that use these services may be able to wake your computer on demand.

Learn more

• You can also save energy by adjusting your display’s brightness and the brightness of your backlit keyboard.
• Learn what to do if your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected.

By default Windows uses a power plan to save energy. It can do this by auto turning off the display when there is no activity for a given period and also do a similar thing to put the computer to sleep. If you don’t move the mouse and touch the keyboard within this period, Windows thinks you’re away and will perform the selected action in an attempt to save some power. However this is not always the case and sometimes you might not be at the computer but don’t want it to shut off the display or go into standby for a little while.

You can of course go to the Power Options applet in Control Panel and either create or edit a power plan that never goes into standby mode or turns off the display. The problem is if you forget to set it back to your chosen power plan, Windows obviously won’t set these options back by itself and you’re left power settings you might not want on a permanent basis. Luckily some software has an option to do this while it’s running such as a video player disabling the monitor shut off function when a movie is showing.

Not all software has this option so to solve the problem, simply use a third party utility to temporarily prevent the computer from going into standby. Here’s a selection of small tools that can help.

1. Insomnia

This simple little tool will simply prevent your computer from going into standby while it’s running. Insomnia actually tries to disable sleep mode while it’s open and then puts the setting back to what it was previously on close. It has not been designed to and will not prevent your screen shutting off.

There are separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions available and you simply run the executable which opens the small window above. Although you can minimize the window to the tray, it is meant to stay on screen to remind you that your computer cannot currently enter sleep mode.

Download Insomnia

2. Caffeine

Caffeine works in a rather simple way to try and prevent your computer going into standby, the screen from shutting off or even the screensaver kicking in. This is to simulate a key press once every 59 seconds so Windows is fooled into thinking you’re using your computer when in fact, you aren’t.

The key it pretends to press is the F15 key which is virtually never used on any keyboards, although you can change this to Shift and the number of seconds can be edited from the command line if you want. Caffeine is a tiny 13K executable and it places an icon in your tray which you double or right click to enable or disable it.

Download Caffeine

3. Caffeinated

Caffeinated is a clone of a similar Mac OSX tool called Caffeine and stops your computer going into standby. The program uses a Windows function called SetThreadExecutionState which software applications use to tell the operating system they are in use and prevents the computer sleeping.

Although it’s a portable tool, there is an option to start with Windows and also a default duration to keep the computer awake can be configured of 5 minutes to 5 hours or indefinitely. The .NET Framework 3.5 is required and the author says he has only tested Caffeinated on Windows 7.

Download Caffeinated

4. Noise

Noise is a very basic tool that simply sends a keystroke to the system every 60 seconds so Windows believes someone is actually pressing a key on the keyboard and therefore doesn’t run the screensaver or enter sleep mode.

Run the tool and double click on the tray icon to open the tiny dialog box, then enter a key which the program will send once a minute. Letters and numbers in combination with the Shift key can be used, not Ctrl or Alt etc.

Download Noise

5. Don’t Sleep

Don’t Sleep is a small, simple and yet powerful tool and is able to prevent a system shutdown, standby, hibernate, log off and also stop the screensaver or monitor turning off. Every option on Don’t Sleep is very straight forward and if you want to prevent the computer from going to standby for example, just make sure that the Standby check box is checked and click the Enabled button.

There is also a configurable timer function that you can set when to automatically disable the blocking or force the computer to shutdown or sleep after time expires. The Options button will allow you to setup a timer to start blocking when the program starts or the system resumes from standby.

A useful addition is the Mini-HTTP feature which can be used to remotely configure Don’t Sleep through a web browser. You can enable it by clicking the Don’t Sleep menu bar and select “Enabling the Mini-HTTP feature”. Once enabled, you can access the settings by typing http://IP.Address:8080/ in any web browser. It is also possible to use the login feature to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the Don’t Sleep settings.

Don’t Sleep is a very useful tool which does the job and takes very very little resources and is less than a 100K executable. It’s free, portable and works on all Windows including both 32 and 64 bit.

Download Don’t Sleep

You might also like:

4 Tools to Prevent, Cancel and Abort a Windows System Shutdown or Restart when Applications are RunningTest Sleep and Hibernation Feature in Windows 75 Tools to Automatically Wake Up Windows From Standby and Hibernation6 Free Tools to Enable and Customize Hot Corners in Windows5 Free Tools for Scheduling Windows to Shutdown, Hibernate, Sleep or Restart

Open powerpoint, start presentation, alt+tab to the application you want to monitor

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On my Windows 10 Pro, Don’t Sleep didn’t work anymore. Neither did Insomnia. But Caffeinated does the trick. OTOH, on caffeinated’s web site, someone commented in 2017 that it didn’t work on his Windows 10 Pro. So…

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Is there a program for windows phone?

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I’ve used Caffeine for years. Only downside is when run on a multiuser machine. When my girlfriend switches to her user account and then leaves the computer it will go into hiberation, since Caffeine is run from my user which is then “inactive” due to her active session. Not nearly a catch 22 situation but I would still like a simple method of addressing it.

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Im trying to find something to give periodic movement to mouse. As playing a Online game the software of game stop the mouse after about 10 minutes unless i move mouse cursor then it works again for about 10 more mins and so on. I tried mouse jiggler but it wont work while on a video game any ideas.

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Hi,

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Why don’t you update this post? Insomnia doesn’t work with Windows 10. You’re basically giving people false info if you don’t include this disclaimer. I’m using the same version as in your screen shot.

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We’d be giving false info if we said this ran on Windows 10 and it didn’t, as we have made no such claim there is no need for a disclaimer.

The post will be updated at some point but it’s not a priority.

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Insomnia works on my Windows 10

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There is a very easy way to stop your computer going to sleep which bypasses even corporate settings that can’t be changed. Just shoot a small video (say 10 sec) on your phone and email it to yourself. Open the video with Windows Media Player and set it to play on a loop. Minimize this window to your task bar and that’s it. Your computer will not sleep as long as the video is running.

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Awesome way to deal with it. I was also wondering if there was simply a web site that a person would log into to do something similar since a lot of corporate IT don’t let the end user install anything. I will give your idea a shot. Thanks for sharing.

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I have a windows 7 HP. I left one night and when I came back the next morning I turned it on, and the computer came on, went thru finding signal, then straight to going asleep, and then it shuts down? Can’t even get to the first window to fix the sleep mode, what do I do?

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There is a legitimate need for something like this. I have Echo Dot connected to by line in to play music via spotify. Laptop connected to receiver /sound system and hdmi to tv. The problem is, an active Line In doesnt prevent the sleep mode from kicking in and, therefore, stopping music. Idealy need a utility to monitor Line In and prevent sleep when active.

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I have found “insomniate” to be the best one so far. It doesnt move the mouse to keep the computer awake. It honestly also has the best looking UI too.

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nosleep.exe is one I use often. Moves the mouse cursor one pixel to the left at a regular interval, then one pixel to the right

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The reason these program exist, is the fact the corporate networks can use enforced policies on locking timeout, screensavers, etc. that you then cannot change, or revert back to the network default on next boot/login. If you are not in such a situation, you normally never need them, and thus set the power, auto-lock or Screensaver options you like.

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Insomnia does not work with windows 10

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I don’t get any of these. They all seem to bypass sleep mode all the time unless you disable them. If that is the case, why not just disable ‘Sleep’ mode altogether in the 1st place??

Unless any of these actually recognize when a program is running (a browser downloading files, a defrag tool working or any program that runs for an extended period of time etc.) and then activates. If nothing is running, the program doesn’t run letting the system go into sleep mode.

Mac Apps That Prevent Sleeping

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The problem as usual is M$’s stupidity& stubbornness. Poor design, poor thinking with nothing being done to fix anything, just add new crap no one wants.

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I agree !!!

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Those which prevent sleep for a specifiable interval of time serve an otherwise unsatisfiable need. I use it when the computer is transcoding a video file, something which may take hours while I am not attending but after which sleep is good.

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Because with the last windows update, my work PC now goes to sleep if i use the ‘lock’ function, even with sleep=never selected. Very frustrating when it takes my PC 10 minutes to ‘warm up’ and function correctly.

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I stay you must add StayAwake bu only works on windows 7. I tested it on my windows 10 but there is an error. On windows 8 I haven’t tested it yet.

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Caffeine required download of .NET runtime, so I wouldn’t list it first :

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Hi, May I suggest you update your link to Insomnia so it points to the developer’s own page, so people always get the latest version and the developer gets the credit deserved.
dlaa.me/Insomnia/

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Mac Apps That Prevent Sleep Problems

Insomnia download link is dead!

This is the only place where I happen to find it, so please update the original download link:
files.italiasw.com/mhku4var5cyt/Insomnia.zip.html

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Thanks for the report, the file has now been uploaded to our server.

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Thanks a bunch, mate! this really helpped :)

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Hi,
Just on the list of similar applets, I think you could put ShutdownGuard too. Now with Windows 10’s automatic restarting and stuff, having it can be pretty useful.

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You could also add Noise to the list.
donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#Noise

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Thanks Pilgrim, added it to the list to make 5…

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Gr8 info……. thanx.

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nice work from Raymond again!

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thanks for this Raymond!!!

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Hrrm, you are always coming with sth!!!
Jokin, this is a great tool.

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thnks for info keep it update…

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This look To be a very good software and its free!
Thanks Raymond!

Gael043

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Thank you Raymond.

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Heheh, it even has HTTP control server feature. :)
Thanks for the share Raymond.

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Very goood for me!
Thank you Raymond for your job

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this good for me too. thanks for sharing. need to have a look

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