MacBooks are productivity-centric devices from Apple that enjoy a userbase of everyone, from students to working professionals.

MacBooks come with a plethora of features, many of them focused on improving battery life. One such feature is sleep mode.

However, sleep mode quickly becomes irritating when you are doing important work on your Mac that requires the device to stay awake. Still, it starts sleeping automatically, and you can’t find a way to keep a MacBook from sleeping.

Moreover, it becomes a bigger issue when, in between your crucial work, you can’t find how to prevent the Mac computer from getting into sleep mode to keep a MacBook from sleeping automatically.

Continue reading to know how.

1. Sleep Mode

When your Mac is constantly not in use, it automatically goes into “sleep,” i.e., it starts running on very low power (to preserve battery power), and a screen-saver (an inoperable background) pops on display.

It is like a lite version of shutting down your Mac, and it takes less time to wake a Mac from sleeping than a MaShut Down MacIt is a better practice to put your Mac on sleep mode rather than shutting it down every time, as waking up a Mac requires less power and memory consumption than turning it on. However, in some cases, you may need to keep a MacBook from sleeping.

2. Energy Saver Settings in System Preferences

Energy Saver is a feature that a Mac has which allows users to manage when their Mac goes to sleep mode or if they want to keep a MacBook from sleeping automatically.

It has various functions to customize the sleep times of your Mac and can be accessed as follows.

1. Hover your mouse on the top left corner of your screen and click the Apple menu (shown as an Apple logo).
2. Open System Settings (System Preferences on software version older than macOS Ventura).
3. Click Battery (Energy Saver on software version older than macOS Big Sur).

From this window, you can manage the battery and power adapter settings. The Mac’s settings when it runs on the battery are under the Battery tab, and its settings when it is plugged in are under the Power adapter tab.

2.1  Optimized Battery Charging

You can enable Optimized Battery Charging in the Battery section of the System Preferences, and your Mac will be intelligent enough to choose when to charge above 80 percent and when not in an attempt to preserve battery life.

2.2  Never

If you want to prevent the computer from sleeping, choose the display setting “Never.” This will keep a MacBook from sleeping forever, i.e., it would never sleep! This, however, exacts a heavy toll on the battery and results in shorter battery life.

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You can also set a sleep schedule on your Mac using Energy Saver Settings. Just hit the sleep schedule button and head to the menu, where you will find various options to customize your Mac’s sleep pattern.

3. Keep a MacBook from Sleeping Using the Terminal

There is a command line tool called Caffeinate, which can temporarily keep a MacBook from sleeping. Sleep mode will be turned off for as long as the terminal window remains open.

The way it works is as follows:

1. Open Terminal. Search it in the Spotlight search bar if you cannot find it.
2. Once the Terminal is up and running, type Caffeinate and hit Enter/Return.
3. The cursor will move to the next line; this means that the Mac has read the command and is in effect.

When you close the terminal window, a pop-up will appear notifying you that Caffeinate is running, and closing the terminal window would lead to the termination of this tool.

4. Enable Power Nap

1. Open System Settings/System Preferences on your Mac using the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen.
2. Navigate to Battery.
3. On the right side, click “Options.”
4. You will see “Enable Power Nap.”
5. Next to it, there will be a pop-up menu; click it and select your option.

To do this on a Mac desktop or for further assistance, visit Apple’s official page.

5. Third-Party Apps

Various third-party apps can keep a MacBook from sleeping and customize the sleep schedule better than the Energy Saver settings.

Let’s learn about some of these apps.

5.1  KeepingYouAwake

Based on Caffeinate tool on the command line, KeepingYouAwake is a third-party app that will keep a MacBook from sleeping. It has various pre-defined options to help keep your Mac awake for 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes.

Control-click the menu bar, and you get these presets to keep your Mac awake. There would also be an option to keep the Mac awake indefinitely.

5.2  Lungo

Lungo is another menu bar app that will keep a MacBook from sleeping. It has a dark mode that can work simultaneously with macOS’s dark mode.

It also comes with presets, just like KeepingYouAwake. Lungo can also be operated using the command line tool and can be set up to launch automatically when the Mac boots.

5.3  Sleep Control Centre

Sleep Control Centre provides you with many options on even very trivial matters, including when to schedule sleep under certain conditions. It can identify specific conditions which will keep a MacBook from sleeping.

It has a system sleep mode, which will turn off the screen, but the Mac will continue to run and go to sleep once you put down the lid. The app can also be configured to operate during certain conditions, like an office meeting or when the battery is very low.

Overall, this app is the most feature-rich when compared to its competition. This, however, is accompanied by a very complicated interface and a lengthy menu bar.

5.4  Amphetamine

This is another utility app that will keep a MacBook from sleeping in specific circumstances using preset timers. It utilizes a strategy called Sessions. Start by clicking the menu bar and setting a duration (default to indefinitely).

The good feature of this app is that you can select a certain task and ensure that your Mac will keep running until that task or session is completed, for example, downloading a file from chrome.

It also has the feature of involving triggers. The App Store Amphetamine app is isolated, meaning it cannot extract a list of the processes running on your Mac.

To solve this problem, there is another app called Amphetamine Enhancer, which provides the original app with all the running processes in the host Mac.

5.5  Owly

This app has one of the most simple interfaces and would sit as a small icon in your Mac’s menu bar. This, however, does not mean that the app won’t do wonders for your Mac’s sleep settings.

5.6  Wimoweh

Another powerful app to manage your Mac’s sleep settings uses a Mac feature called power assertions. This app can also find “rogue processes” that forcefully keep your Mac awake when you don’t want it to. It has a subscription cost of USD 2.

Though there are other apps too that will manage your Mac’s sleep schedule elegantly, these few picks were the best out of all the available options.

Feel free to explore other market options and comment to let us know if you found a more useful app.

6. HDD Sleep

Hard Disk Drives (or HDDs) have a constantly spinning needle that reads data and does operations like running programs or saving files.

However, since spinning requires mechanical energy, constant spinning of the needle can wear it off and damage the HDD. Hence, MacBooks have an option called HDD Sleep or “Put HDD to sleep when possible.”

This option enables the Mac to put Hard Disks to sleep, i.e., stop them from spinning whenever the Mac has remained static for a while, to save power and conserve battery life.

Follow these steps to activate it:

1. Open the System Settings/System Preferences by clicking the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen.
2. Select Energy saver/Battery from the left side menu.
3. Select the option “Put HDD to sleep when possible.”

You have successfully enabled the option to put HDDs to sleep mode whenever your Mac remains static.

7. Disable Sleep Mode?

The bigger question is, should you keep a MacBook from sleeping? The sleep mode protects the battery life of a Mac, and just like humans, machines need to take a break too.

That being said, it is not a bad practice to sometimes disable sleep mode on a Mac, given your work requires you to keep the Mac from sleeping or you are simply binge-watching Netflix.

Whatever the need be, it is always a good practice not to make it a habit to keep your Mac awake as this will ruin its battery life, and your Mac would give you a far lesser battery level than it originally did. It is also a better practice to keep your Mac display slightly dim and not at full brightness to retain battery life.

Did you like the blog post? Do comment to let us know. Click here to learn how to record your screen on your Mac, along with internal audio.

Last Updated on December 5, 2022 by tanmay_04