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How to stop your MacBook from sleeping

Apple MacBooks have several options related to conserving the system battery and the amount of charge remaining. The main way it accomplishes this is through sleep mode, which puts the Apple laptop into a temporary sleep mode that uses as little power as possible while still giving you the option to wake it up right away and continue from where you left off.

However, if you don’t want sleep mode to interrupt what you and your MacBook are doing, there are a few ways to keep it always running — here’s how.

Disable sleep mode via power/battery saver settings

Step 1: Select System preferences.

Step 2: Choose the Energy Saver icon (or Drums for newer versions of MacOS).

The power saving option on MacBook.

Step 3: There are two tabs: battery and power adapter. The first one will be automatically selected when you open Energy Saver, so let’s start with that.

By default, the Screen times out after section will already be set to a specific time, which is used when no activity is detected on the Mac.

To disable this feature entirely, drag the slider to the right where it says Never.

The time slider to turn off the screen on a MacBook.

Step 4: A warning window will appear indicating that the MacBook may consume more power with this specific setting. Hit the okay button to confirm the change.

The warning window to turn off the timer to turn off the Mac screen after a specified period of time.

Step 5: Below the slider, there are some additional settings that you can also turn off:

  • Put hard drives to sleep when possible
  • Slightly dim the screen on battery power
  • Enable Power Nap on battery power
Additional settings for the Battery tab in the MacBook Power Saver feature.

Step 6: Select the Power adapter tab and drag the slider to the right once more to Neverand also disable some of the settings below (keep the first one on):

  • Prevent the computer from going to sleep automatically when the screen is off
  • Put hard drives to sleep when possible
  • Wake for Wi-Fi network access
  • Enable Power Nap while connected to a power adapter
Additional settings for the Power Adapter tab in the MacBook Power Saver feature.

disable schedule

If your Schedule tool is enabled within Power Saver, you’ll also need to disable it to prevent your MacBook from going to sleep.

Step 1: Select the Calendar button.

Step 2: uncheck the boxes start or wake up Y Sleep boxes select the okay button.

Disable the Schedule feature within the Power Saver settings on MacBook.

It’s important to highlight how your battery will be affected if no sleep options are enabled for your Mac. As Apple itself states in the Power Saver window, not allowing the display to go to sleep can shorten its lifespan.

If the Mac is always operational when it’s not completely off, this will also affect the overall health of your system’s battery.

For more information on how to conserve your MacBook battery and extend its overall life, check out our detailed guide.

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