In general, when we need to use our Mac, we turn it on, perform the tasks at hand, and then turn it off. Another option is that we never turn it off, which makes it easy to always have it at our disposal without any wait. And, in fact, there is a third option: to program the hours of switching on and off of our computer . Let’s look at this last system.
A Mac that turns on at 6 and turns off at 11 during the week and on weekends…
The programming of turning on and off our Mac is something very simple to configure and that can be of great help to us in many cases. Letting the Mac rest overnight, both in terms of electricity consumption and simply its components, is a good idea , but finding the computer turned on every day in the morning is also an excellent idea. Fortunately, our Mac offers us the necessary options to decide its schedule, in macOS Big Sur we will do it like this:
- From the Apple () menu we choose System Preferences.
- We enter Battery.
- In the left sidebar we select Schedule.
Arrived here there are several options that we can activate or deactivate. The first is the option to activate or start the Mac. It is true that we could create a shortcut for it, but to automate this behavior we activate the option and then we choose if we want it to be carried out every day, only on weekdays, weekends or a specific day of the week . Next, we choose the time of day when we want the Mac to start up or wake up.
The other option is sleep or off. To use it, we simply mark the second box with a tick and in the drop-down to its right we choose whether we want the Mac to go to sleep, restart or turn off . Next, as before, we choose the day of the week for the action, as well as the time of day.
Once we have finished the configuration, we touch Apply and we know that the Mac will begin to follow the programming that we have just entered. Keep in mind, however, that laptops require the Mac to be plugged in to power on.
The applications of this system are interesting. For example, if we usually remotely access a Mac that we have at home , we may want to configure the power on and off even if we are away from it. Another option is to simply forget about having to turn the machine off or on and still let it rest for a few hours overnight.
How to create our first iOS shortcut step by step
In any case, the automation and schedule options that macOS Big Sur offers us are very interesting so that it is our Mac and not us who takes care of the on and off. One more feature so that the Mac is at our service whenever we need it without even having to remember to turn it on.