Posted on 3 How To

How to Schedule Your Mac to Shut Down and Sleep in macOS Ventura

You may have already updated your macOS to Ventura. In that case, you might not be able to find the now-defunct Energy Preferences panel that was used to host the scheduling shutdown and sleep feature on the Mac. Apple has removed direct access to functionality for unclear reasons.

However, you can still set your Mac to automatically boot up, shut down, and wake up from sleep in macOS Ventura. Let’s find out how.

How to schedule your Mac to turn on or off using Terminal

Schedule your Mac to turn off and on automatically with the commands below. It works in 24 hour format, so if you need to schedule your Mac to shut down at 15:55, you can set the time to 15:55:00 as shown below.

  1. Open the launcher.
  2. Find and click “Terminal”.
  3. Add a command for the actions you want to perform.
    • Fault: sudo pmset repeat shutdown MTWRFSU 15:55:00
    • Start off: sudo pmset repeat wake MTWRFSU 08:00:00
  4. Click “Return”. You will be asked to enter a password.

sudo tells the terminal to run the commands written next to it with administrator privileges. The pmset parameter in the command stands for Power Management Settings. This is a BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) utility that changes power management settings.

Single letters are used to represent days of the week in pmset arguments, as shown below:

MMonday
TTuesday
TueWednesday
RThursday
FFriday
WITHSaturday
USunday

Want to learn more about such terminal commands and look like a professional hacker? Follow our guide to learn about the most useful terminal commands.

However, your Mac will not turn off automatically unless the conditions below are met:

  • If your Mac is already turned off, is in sleep mode, or you are not signed in.
  • If FileVault is enabled on your Mac.
  • If you are working on a document that has unsaved changes.

Clearing the macOS Ventura reboot schedule

If you want to reset the reboot schedule for your Mac, here’s all you need to do:

  • Launch Terminal → paste the following command sudo pmset repeat cancel→ press Enter.
  • To check again if the command was executed, you can run pmset -g sched.

Schedule wake up and sleep on Mac

Don’t want someone to spy on your work when you leave your Mac? You can set a sleep timer that fires after designated periods of inactivity. To set up sleep and wake on a Mac, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Apple logo in the menu bar.
  2. Open System Preferences.
  3. Scroll down to the lock screen.
  4. Select a time from the drop-down list before any of the following as per your need:
    • Turn off the display on the battery when it is inactive.
    • Turn off the display on the power adapter when it is inactive.

Note. You may not see the above on some Macs.

How to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep

With macOS Ventura, you have another way to save power. To activate it, you need to go through the steps below:

  1. Navigate to the Apple logo → System Preferences.
  2. Go to Displays → Advanced.
  3. Turn on the switch next to Prevent automatic sleep on the power adapter when the display is off.
  4. Click Done.

Note. If your Mac is running macOS Monterey or earlier, you can read this post.

FAQ

In order to set a video from local storage as a screensaver on your Mac, you will need a third-party SaveHollywood app. Follow our article to learn more about using the app and setting a video as your screensaver.

That’s all!

These were all the potential ways you can use macOS Ventura to schedule your Mac to boot/shutdown and wake/sleep. Did it help you? Let me know in the comments below.

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