Is it more convenient to put your Mac to sleep at night or should you turn it off? In this article we answer that!
Need to turn off your Mac at night?
It’s one of the questions that divides Mac users into two groups: should you shut down your Mac at night, put it to sleep specifically, or is it okay to let it sleep too? For example, there are sounds that dozing off may be bad for the condition of your battery.
On the other hand, you can get back to work with your Mac extra quickly in sleep or hibernation mode. In this article we weigh all the choices, and we try to answer this question!
Why you should turn off your Mac
It’s a good plan to restart your Mac every now and then anyway. Over time, your open apps consume (temporary) memory, which affects the performance of your Mac. If you haven’t restarted your Mac for a few days, it may feel a little sluggish and not perform at its best.
macOS is good at managing temporary memory (RAM), but sometimes restarting is the only way to give your Mac a fresh start. That’s why it’s good to restart your MacBook every few days. You can choose to leave your Mac off overnight so that it will work properly the next day.
Note that turning your Mac off and back on can consume more energy than going to sleep. So it only makes sense to shut down your Mac if you don’t use it for a long time afterwards. You do not have to switch it off for the energy bill. An M1 MacBook Air consumes about 0.77 kWh in a year if left in sleep mode for 10 hours per night. With the current electricity price, this amounts to about 0.50 euros.
Why you should put your Mac to sleep
Hibernate and Hibernate are basically the same thing. Hibernate is a deliberate button that puts your Mac to sleep, and it goes into sleep automatically after a certain number of minutes of inactivity. Putting your Mac to sleep uses less power than leaving the screen on. In addition, your laptop will wake up much faster, especially if you have a Mac with an M1 or M2 chip.
Laptops consume extremely little power both when turned off and in sleep mode. To save energy, turning off a Mac makes little sense. We ourselves have a rule of thumb: if you don’t use the Mac for one night, the sleep mode is a great option. If you’re going to be gone for a few days, you’d better turn it off.
- Read more: How to save energy with your Mac and other Apple products
Shutting down your Mac is easy. You do this by clicking on the Apple icon () in the top left corner of the screen and choosing ‘disable’. In the same menu you will also find the ‘snooze’ button. This one, you guessed it, puts your Mac to sleep. You can also put your Mac to sleep automatically after a period of inactivity. This option can be found in your Settings under ‘Lock screen’. There you can choose after how long your Mac automatically goes to sleep. You can also do this for external devices (which require a relatively large amount of power from your Mac), such as your external hard drive.
How Long Can You Keep Your Mac Off?
In conclusion, there is no perfect answer to whether you should shut down your Mac at night. Everyone uses their Mac differently and that requires different settings. On the basis of this article you can consult yourself which use suits you best.
In addition, Apple itself gives useful tips for turning off the Mac for a long time. If you are storing it for a longer period of time, it is useful to switch off the battery when it is not fully charged. Also, don’t let the battery drain completely and then turn off the Mac and store it for a longer period of time.
If you store it fully charged, your Mac’s battery can lose capacity. If the battery is completely discharged, it can enter a ‘deep discharge state’. You can compare this to a coma in front of your laptop. The MacBook is then no longer able to hold an electronic charge.
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