How To Fix a Mac That Won’t Sleep.
If you’re having trouble putting your Mac to sleep, chances are you have something that is interfering with it. There are several things you can do to find these interfering items. Once detected, you can remove these items or stop them from running on your Mac.
These items can be anything on your computer. This could be a print job stuck in a queue, a Bluetooth device constantly trying to wake up the computer, or a misconfigured file.
However, there are ways to fix this problem and put your Mac to sleep successfully.
Check the power settings on your Mac
The Energy Settings Panel is what allows you to create schedules for when and when not, your Mac can go to sleep. You can check these settings and make sure there is no option to prevent your computer from going to sleep.
- Click the Apple logo in the upper left corner and select the System Preferences option.
- On the next screen, find the option labeled “Power Saving” and click to open it.
- When the Energy Saver panel opens, you will find several options that will allow you to define how your Mac behaves while sleeping. You want to click on the Schedule option in the lower right corner.
- If on the next screen you or someone else has set a wake and sleep schedule for Mac, you will see it. You want to make sure that these settings don’t cause your Mac to go to sleep.
If you are unsure of what to do, you can disable both options and they will be disabled.
Find apps that are blocking Mac Sleep
If you think this app is interfering with your Mac’s sleep, Mac actually provides you with a way to find those apps. Once you find the apps that are causing the problem, you can end their processes or force them to close and then put your Mac to sleep.
- Click Launchpad in your dock, find Activity Monitor, and click it when it appears on your screen.
- You will see a list of all processes running on your Mac. To find those that might be causing your sleep problems, click the View menu at the top, select Columns, and then click Prevent Sleep.
- A new column will be added to the utility. This column should tell you if the process is preventing hibernation. The column should say Yes for all processes causing the problem. If the answer is no, then the process is fine and not causing any problems.
- When you find a process that says Yes in the Prevent Sleep column, click the process, click the X at the top, and select Force Quit. This will force the process to terminate on your Mac.
Be careful which processes you force quit, as you may be working on some of them and they may contain your unsaved work. Be sure to save your work before closing anything.
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Force quit apps when your Mac is not working
Sometimes you already know which app is preventing hibernation, but it won’t close normally. In this case, you can forcefully close it.
- Press Command + Option + Esc on your keyboard.
- Click the application you want to force quit and select Force Quit.
The application will be closed forcibly.
Disable Bluetooth Wake Up on Mac
One of your Mac’s features is the ability to wake up your computer from a Bluetooth-enabled device. This can sometimes cause problems when you want to put your computer to sleep.
However, you can disable this option as follows.
- Click the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar and select Open Bluetooth Settings.
- On the next screen, you will see a list of devices that you have ever connected to. You need to find and click the button labeled “Advanced”.
- On the next screen, several options can be enabled or disabled. Uncheck Allow Bluetooth devices to wake my computer. Then click OK.
This setting is now disabled, your Bluetooth devices will not be able to wake up your Mac, and you should have no problem keeping your Mac asleep.
Clear the print queue
One of the known reasons why your Mac is awake is because print jobs get stuck on your device. You may have tried to print something, but you failed, and now you have a bunch of print jobs in the queue.
Clearing these jobs should allow you to put your Mac to sleep.
- Click the Apple logo at the top and choose System Preferences.
- Select Printers & Scanners from the following list. screen.
- Select the printer you are using from the left side panel. Then click the button labeled “Open Print Queue” in the right pane.
- Clear the jammed print jobs on the next screen.
After clearing your print jobs, try putting your Mac to sleep.
Disable printer sharing on your Mac
You might want to turn off printer sharing on your Mac, as this sometimes requires your Mac to stay powered on and prevent it from going to sleep.
- Click on the Apple logo and select “System Preferences.”
- Click the Sharing option to manage sharing options.
- On the next screen, clear the Printer Sharing checkbox.
Your printers are no longer shared and you will not be able to access them from other computers. If you ever want to bring back this functionality, just enable the option you disabled above.
Reset NVRAM on Your Mac
Resetting NVRAM can help you fix your Mac awake situation, and it’s quite easy to do.
- Shut down your Mac.
- Boot the Mac and hold down Option + Command + P + R at the same time. Release the keys after about 20 seconds.
- Your Mac will reboot.
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