The best thing about this handy keyboard shortcut is that it doesn’t put your Mac to sleep or log out the current user. If I shut off my Mac’s screen by intentionally pressing the keystroke, I can press any key within the next five seconds to wake the display from sleep and continue using my Mac immediately.īut after five seconds have passed, macOS requires me to type in my administrator password to continue using the computer. In my case, five seconds is an ideal setting. Having macOS require the password a few seconds or minutes after the screen goes to sleep versus 15 minutes or more will drastically shorten the window of opportunity for any possible foul play while your computer is unattended. The shorter the password lock, the better If I accidentally press the keystroke, this lets me quickly resume using the machine without needing to enter the password.
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My Mac is set to ask the password 5 seconds after it goes to sleep or the screen saver kicks in. Next, click the General tab, tick the box next to “Require password after sleep or screen saver begins,” and then click the pop-up menu and choose an option: Immediately, 5 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, or 8 hours. Now click the lock icon and type in your macOS administrator password to unlock the settings. Doing that will prevent others from using your computer if you, say, press the key combination to hide what’s on your computer’s screen or leave the machine unattended for a short period of time.įirst, launch System Preferences on your Mac and then hit the Security & Privacy preference pane. Requiring macOS password after display sleepĪs a precaution, you may want to make some customizations so that macOS requires your Mac user account’s password after the screen goes blank. If you have a MacBook with Touch ID, pressing Control + Power or Option + Power or Command + Power or Fn + Power keys also seem to lock the Mac, and then you can press Esc or click Cancel to turn off the screen. If your Mac just locks and shows the password screen, press the Esc key or click Cancel to turn off the screen.Īs mentioned, this is a great way to save battery on Mac notebooks without having to set up a blank screen saver, prevent a bystander from seeing what’s on your screen, and other use cases.īesides the above key combinations, you can also press Control + Command + Q and then hit the Esc button to lock and turn off your Mac’s screen. Pressing the shortcut will instantly fade to black both the built-in display and any external screens connected to this Mac and shut off their backlighting. At any time, press Shift + Control + Eject, or Shift + Control + Power on newer Mac models. How to quickly turn off your Mac’s screen The only reason this kind of fake "sleep" exists is because of the bug in network access that Apple hasn't yet resolved.If you don’t want a bystander to read what’s on your Mac’s screen or just want to temporarily shut off the display-for instance, to save battery-you can take advantage of several built-in macOS features.Īs it turns out, macOS makes your life easier by providing a dedicated keyboard shortcut to quickly turn off Mac’s display without having to define a screen saver or use dedicated third-party applications. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the machine will go into deep sleep if you don't have that box checked. This is the kind of sleep you get when you check the "Wake for network administrative access" and then wait for your computer to put itself to sleep. The other kind of sleep is less deep-the hard drive spins down and monitors turn off, and other functions *may* be put to sleep, but network daemons and alarm programs will work. This is the kind of sleep that you get whenever you hit the power button, use the shut down dialog, or select sleep from the apple menu. There's supposed to be a signal that you can send remotely to get your computer to wake up, but Apple hasn't gotten this to work yet. None of the programs can receive events, meaning that you can't remotely connect via the network or use an alarm program, among other things.
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Shutdown, Restart, Sleep Dialog - Power key on keyboardĭeep sleep is a low-power mode where the hard drive spins down, the monitor turns off, the fan turns off, and pretty much the only power consumption is going toward keeping the RAM alive. Shutdown, Restart, Sleep Dialog - Control + Eject Startup Command Keys Close Open Windows - ShiftĮject CD at Startup - Hold down Mouse button Shutdown, Restart and Sleep Keys Deep Sleep - Cmd+Option+Eject Most of these are the same under OS 9 and earlier. I couldn't find one, so I put this together after a little research. I went looking for a quick reference containing all of the known OS X startup, shutdown, and sleep command keys.