After years of using Windows, you’ve decided to buy your first Mac . Without delaying too much, you immediately began to experiment with its various features and, despite your initial fears, you were able to familiarize yourself with the new operating system without too much difficulty.
Now, however, you would like to deepen some aspects of your new work environment a little better, apparently trivial but which actually hide many variables and “tricks” to know: in short, you would like to understand how to turn off the Mac . Did I guess? Well, if that’s the case, let me give you all the information you need to shut down, restart and sleep your Apple-branded computer.
In addition, if you wish, I will also provide you with detailed instructions to shut down your Mac using the keyboard, to force it to shut down in case of problems and also to schedule it to shut down. How do you say? Is that exactly what you wanted to know? So let’s not delay and see how to proceed. Happy reading and good luck for everything!
Index
- How to shut down your Mac
- How to turn off the Mac with the keyboard
- How to forcibly shut down your Mac
- How to shut down the Mac from Terminal
- How to schedule Mac shutdown
- How to shut down Mac from iPhone
How to shut down your Mac
If you’re wondering how to shut down your Mac , you’ll be glad to know that the procedure is pretty straightforward no matter what OS version and model of your Apple computer it is.
In fact, whether you want to know how to turn off the Mac Air or how to turn off the new MacBook Pro , all you have to do is click on the icon of the bitten apple located at the top left, in the menu bar, and choose the Shut Down option from the opened menu.
At this point, if you want the windows that are currently open to reopen automatically when you turn on the Mac next time, put the check mark next to the item Reopen windows at next login and click on the Shut down button , so that your Mac turns off immediately.
Note that if you do not press any of the options available in the window Do you confirm that you want to turn off the computer? , this will automatically turn off after 60 seconds.
In the same way you can proceed both to restart your Mac and to put it to sleep , that is, deactivate it when you are not using it so that the energy consumption is reduced compared to when it is on. Since waking a Mac from sleep is faster than turning it on after it has been shut down, it is a good alternative to shutting down when the computer is not being used for a short period of time, or even a long one: it is actually possible to keep Macs without turning them off completely even for weeks or months; then the models with Apple Silicon chips have really negligible energy consumption, so even on the bill their “weight” in the stop phase is minimal.
In both cases, you can simply click on the bitten apple icon , top left, and choose the option of your interest between Restart and Stop . Simple, right?
How to turn off the Mac with the keyboard
How do you say? Would you like to know how to turn off the Mac with the keyboard ? In this case, you can use some keyboard shortcuts that directly allow you to shut down, restart or put the computer to sleep or to open a dialog box in order to manually choose the option of your interest.
Before explaining how to proceed, you should know that the keyboard shortcuts for shutdown, restart and stop of the Mac do not work on models equipped with Touch Bar and Touch ID sensor, as indicated on the official Apple website .
That said, to automatically close all open applications and shut down the Mac with the keyboard, press the key combination ctrl + alt + cmd + power key . Note that if there are any documents open and not yet saved, you will be asked whether to save them before shutting down.
By pressing, instead, the combination of keys ctrl + power key , a dialog box will automatically be shown on the screen: then press the Enter key on the keyboard to turn off the Mac. Alternatively, you can choose to restart it ( Restart ), put it in stop ( Stop ) and, by placing the check mark next to the option Reopen windows at next login , also to set the automatic reopening of all applications open at the next startup.
If you prefer to restart or put your Mac to sleep without going through the dialog box I just indicated, you can press the key combination ctrl + cmd + power key , to force restart, ctrl + cmd + shift + power key , to put it to sleep and ctrl + shift + power key , to put only the display to sleep.
How to forcibly shut down your Mac
If you’ve tried to shut down your Mac but it doesn’t respond to your commands and no shutdown procedures seem to have the desired effect, you can try to forcefully shut down your Mac .
In that case, all you have to do is hold down the power key on your Mac keyboard (or on the back of your computer if you have an iMac or Mac mini) until the Mac screen goes completely black and the computer turns off.
However, I recommend that you use this system only and exclusively when you are unable to shut down the computer normally as it is not a strictly “orthodox” practice, which is why in the long run it could damage the good health of your computer. To this, add the fact that by doing so you will inexorably lose all unsaved changes on open documents.
How to shut down the Mac from Terminal
If for any reason you want to shut down the Mac from Terminal , start the latter by clicking on its icon available in the Other folder of the Launchpad and in the Applications> Utilities folder of the Finder . Alternatively, click on the magnifying glass icon located in the menu bar, type “Terminal” in the search field that appears on the screen and press the Enter key on the keyboard.
At this point, all you have to do is type the shutdown command which, in fact, allows you to shut down your Mac. Below you will find all the commands you can use from Terminal to shut down, restart and put your computer to sleep.
- sudo shutdown -h: Turns off your Mac immediately.
- sudo shutdown -h +[minuti]: allows you to schedule the shutdown of the Mac. For example, using the command sudo shutdown -h +15, the computer will automatically shut down after 15 minutes.
- sudo shutdown — r (o sudo reboot): allows you to restart the Mac.
- sudo shutdown -s (o sudo stop): allows you to put the Mac to sleep.
For each command used, the Mac administrator password must be entered so that the Mac can shut down, restart or sleep. Also, be aware that this is a forced shutdown and as a result all unsaved data will be lost.
How to schedule Mac shutdown
If you’re wondering if it’s possible to schedule your Mac to shut down , you’ll be glad to know the answer is yes. In fact, by accessing the macOS settings it is possible to set the automatic shutdown of the Mac, also choosing the time and days of interest.
To proceed, open System Preferences by clicking on the gear wheel icon in the MacOS Dock bar, access the Battery / Power Management section and select the Program option visible in the left sidebar.
Now, put the check mark next to the Stop item , select the Shut down option and, through the drop-down menu Every day , indicate when you want to schedule the shutdown of the Mac by choosing one of the options available between Midweek , Weekend and Every day . Alternatively, you can also set the computer to shut down automatically only on a specific day of the week , by selecting the one you are interested in.
Once this is done, indicate the shutdown time in the visible field next to the item At hours and click on the Apply button to save the changes.
Please note that in the same way you can also program the restart and stop of the Mac. If, on the other hand, you want to set the computer to turn on and / or automatically wake up (option possible only when the Mac is connected to the power supply), affix the sign tick next to Start or reactivate and follow the instructions shown on the screen.
How to shut down Mac from iPhone
If your intention is to shut down the Mac from the iPhone , I am sorry to tell you that there is no native Apple feature that allows this. However, you can rely on one of the applications that allow you to control a computer remotely and, consequently, also to turn it off.
A free solution of this kind that I recommend you try to shut down your Mac remotely is TeamViewer , one of the best software for remote control of computers also available in the form of an application for iPhone / iPad .
Broadly speaking, all you need to do is download TeamViewer on your Mac and on all the devices you intend to use to remotely control the computer and complete the initial configuration by following the instructions shown on the screen, making sure to choose the option to use TeamViewer for free.
Once this is done, to connect your iPhone to the Mac you will have to use the remote control data visible on TeamViewer ( Your ID and Password ) and press the Remote Control button , which will allow you to control the Mac remotely and, consequently, also turn it off following the instructions I gave you in the opening lines of this guide . To find out more, you can take a look at my tutorial on how TeamViewer works .
