The choice of whether or not to shut down your Mac every night is a frequent one in today’s technology environment. The benefits and drawbacks of turning off your Mac at the end of each workday are thoroughly covered in this article. We will investigate the effects of shutting down on energy efficiency, performance, and the protection of important data. The post will also offer advice on best practices for keeping your Mac stable and operating at peak efficiency. This is a decision that concerns more than just convenience; it concerns the long-term maintenance and security of your machine. Participate with EveryReview in this article to help you decide based on your needs and usage habits.
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Should I turn off my Mac or MacBook?
Your RAM (called unified memory in later Macs) can get full over time as more processes and open apps add to it. This could cause a slight drop in performance, especially on older Mac models. If you haven’t shut down your Mac in a while, you may find that it works less quickly or not as well as it should.
If you want to fix this problem, you can either close and reopen apps, close internet tabs that you don’t need, or restart your Mac. Even though macOS is very good at managing memory, there are times when restarting the system is the best way to start over. By doing this, the RAM is cleared out and any processes that got stuck are fixed.
Also, you need to restart your Mac every so often because some changes can’t work until you do. Turning your Mac off and on again and again makes sure that all updates are made, which helps your device run smoothly overall.
Is it a good idea to turn off your Mac at night?
If you leave your Mac on all night and keep working on it, turning it off every night might not be much better. Every few days, you should restart your Mac to clear the RAM, get any processes that are stuck moving again, and let updates be installed. That you can finish your work before the end of the day and turn off your Mac a few times a week will help it run better generally.
Is it better to put a Mac to sleep than to shut it down?
If you’re only going to be away from your Mac for a short time, like an hour or overnight, letting it sleep is probably the best thing to do. After that amount of time, it makes more sense to turn it off.
When your Mac is in sleep mode, it uses very little power and can be woken up much faster than after a full restart. Because of how their systems are set up, modern Macs with Apple’s M1, M2, or M3 computers have almost instantaneous wake-up times.
People who are worried about how much energy their computers use usually don’t need to be. An iMac or MacBook that is turned off and sleeping uses almost no power at all. In some cases, turning off and on the Mac again can use more power than keeping it in sleep mode.
Laptops like the M1 MacBook Air use very little power when they’re not in use—like 0.21W—so if you leave them on for 10 hours a night, a year, they’ll only use 0.77kWh. Even though an iMac uses a little more power, it only gets 1.36W when it’s not in use. This means that it uses 5kWh of power each year when it’s not in use. If saving resources is more important, though, turning off the Mac before leaving or going to bed is a good choice.
Most Mac computers are made to be shut down often, even though the components could get damaged from the heat and cold.
Setting up a password to wake up your Mac is an important part of the idea of putting it to sleep. Setting up password-protected sleep protects your info even when you’re just taking a short break. We’ll talk about how to sleep your Mac below.
How to Shut Down a MacBook or Mac
To initiate a shutdown on your Mac, adhere to the following steps:
- Click the Apple icon in the top left corner of the screen.
- Opt for “Shut Down” from the drop-down menu.
- A timer will commence, giving you one minute to reconsider. Alternatively, you can click “Shut Down” again for an immediate shutdown.
During this process, your Mac will initiate the shutdown sequence, closing any open applications and prompting you to save any unsaved work. If there are unsaved items, the shutdown will pause until you address them.
How to put a Mac to sleep
To quickly put your phone into sleep mode, do these steps:
- In the upper left part of the screen, click on the Apple icon.
- Pick “Sleep” from the list.
If you do these things, your Mac will go into sleep mode, which will save power and make it wake up faster when you come back.
Configuring Automatic Sleep for Inactivity on Your Mac
You can set your Mac to go into sleep mode after a certain amount of time of silence. This is useful in the office or to save battery life on a MacBook. Depending on the version of macOS you have, do these steps:
For macOS Ventura or Later
- Open System Settings.
- Navigate to the Lock Screen.
- Next to “Turn the display off when inactive”, select a specific duration.
- In Sonoma, go to Energy Saver and make sure “Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off” is unchecked.
For Ventura, go to Displays > Advanced and make sure that “Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off” is unchecked.
For Pre-macOS Ventura
- Open System Preferences.
- Click on Energy Saver (or Battery for MacBook users).
- On a MacBook, check both Battery and Power Adapter settings; on desktop Macs, click Power Adapter.
- Adjust the slider to determine the idle time before the display turns off.
- In the Power Adapter section, confirm that the checkbox for “Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off” is unchecked.
Also, look into the other ways you can change how your Mac works, like putting the hard drives to sleep. If you turn these settings on, your Mac’s power control will work better.
Scheduling Sleep or Shutdown Times for Your Mac
For people who forget things easily, setting specific times for your Mac to sleep, shut down, or wake up can be helpful. Based on the version of macOS you have, do the following:
For macOS Ventura or Later
Even though macOS Ventura moved Schedule settings from System Preferences to System Settings, you can still use Terminal to make schedules. If you know how to use Terminal, do these things:
- Open Terminal.
- Enter one of the following PMSET commands:
pmset -g sched`: View the current schedule.
sudo pmset repeat wake M 8:00:00`: Schedule your Mac to wake at 8:00 a.m. every Monday.
sudo pmset repeat cancel`: Cancel the current schedule. - Press Return.
For Pre-macOS Ventura
If you’re running macOS Monterey or an earlier version, use the following steps to schedule your Mac’s shutdown and startup:
- Open System Preferences > Energy Saver.
- Click on the Schedule button in the bottom-right corner.
- Choose the days (weekdays, weekends, every day, or specific ones) when the Mac should start up or wake.
- You’ll find another checkbox next to “Sleep” below. Select this.
- Click on “Sleep” to access other options like “Restart” and “Shut Down.”
- Set the desired time for your Mac to wake up, and when satisfied with the schedule, click OK to implement it.
Remember that open programmes may stop macOS from shutting down immediately because the operating system wants to make sure no data is lost. Close all of your Mac’s apps before you leave for the day to make sure the scheduled shutdown goes smoothly.
Best Ways to Store a Mac’s Battery When It’s Not Being Used
It’s important to follow Apple’s instructions when putting your Mac away for a long time without using it to keep the battery healthy. If you leave the battery fully charged (at 100%) or fully discharged (at 0%) for long amounts of time, it may not last as long. Here’s how it works:
Fully Charged Storage: If you store your Mac with a fully charged battery for a long time, the battery may slowly lose capacity, which will shorten its life.
If the battery doesn’t get charged, it could go into a deep shutdown state where it can’t hold a charge. When you try to use the Mac again, this could cause major battery problems.
Ideas for Action
Stored Charge Level: Try to keep the charge level on your Mac around 50%. This level lowers the risks that come with both fully charged and fully drained states.
Periodic Check: To make sure the battery stays in good shape, turn on and use your Mac at least once every few months if you can. To keep the battery from getting too low on power, this is done.
Following these tips will help keep your Mac’s battery healthy and long-lasting when you’re not using it for long amounts of time.