Is it better to shutdown or sleep Macbook Pro or Air? Should i turn off my macbook pro or let it sleep? The Apple Macbook and the Apple Mac both share the same operating system, and many Mac users are quite faithful to their software and hardware choices.
A common question that many people ask is whether they should turn their computers off at the end of the day, or if you should just let them sleep.
The answer to that is obviously going to differ depending on who you talk to, but a well-versed person will tell you that sleep is actually better for your Mac instead of shutting it down.
There are several things going on inside the machine and understanding what is happening is important. Here are a few things that you should know.
Is It Better To Shutdown Or Sleep MacBook Pro Or Air?
The primary reason why you should let your Mac sleep instead of turning it off is because it won’t be able to perform the essential maintenance tasks.
The Mac operating system has to do a lot of different things during the night, and these tasks are usually scheduled for the night when a person is asleep. In fact, Apple has given this a name as well. The company calls this mode “Power Nap.”
What Happens During a Power Nap?
The short answer to this is that quite a bit happens while your computer is napping. Let’s break down all the things that happen when your computer is sleeping.
- The Mail application continues to receive new messages throughout the course of the night.
- Contacts will help you remain up to date with all changes that have been made on other Apple devices that are syncing to your computer.
- The Calendar app is going to receive new invitations over the course of the night and all updates will run routinely.
- Your Reminders app will also update whenever a change is made to any other device.
- The Notes app will also sync new notes, if you have made any to another device.
- The Documents app will sync overnight, and all documents that you have stored on iCloud will automatically sync and update.
- Your Photo Stream is also going to update with all of the latest changes made to other devices.
- Find My Mac will also update the location of your device, so that you know exactly where it is.
- If you are using VPN on demand, it is going to run in the background and all corporate updates are also going to be received on your device in a secure fashion.
- Your Mobile Device Management will also continue to run, so in case you lose the device, you will be able to remotely lock it up and then wipe it.
If you leave the Mac plugged overnight and then put it on Power Nap, here’s what will happen alongside everything above:
- All software updates are going to be downloaded and installed.
- Any items that are downloading from the Mac App Store will also be downloaded.
- The Time Machine will also back up all of your data.
- Indexes will be added to your Spotlight app.
- All content updates made to the Help Center are going to be synced as well.
- If you have a wireless base station, you can also use it to wake up your Mac.
So, while it may seem that your Mac is sleeping, you should know that it’s doing quite a lot in the background. The best thing is that when you get back on the keyboard in the morning and turn it on, the Mac will power up immediately.
You won’t have to worry about extensive loading times, especially if you are using a conventional HDD with your Mac. You can completely skip the startup procedure, and all maintenance jobs will also have been completed.
Many Mac users often complain that their operating system has gotten too slow and it doesn’t work in the same manner as it used to before. That’s simply because your Mac is lagging behind on maintenance tasks that should have been performed earlier.
Support for Power Nap
Keep in mind that not all Macs support Power Naps. If you are using a very old Mac that was made in 2010 or earlier, it probably isn’t going to support the Power Nap feature. However, most Macs manufactured in 2012 or later usually do.
For the base Macbook, early 2015 and later models are supported. For the Macbook Air, any model in late 2010 and then onward are supported. All Macbook Pro models with Retina display are also supported.
How to Enable the Power Nap
This is a fairly simple option. If you have any of the models that are compatible and listed above, you should know that Power Nap will be enabled by default.
To put your Mac to sleep, you should go to the Apple Menu and then just click on Sleep. The next step is to close the screen, or you can also move the cursor into a “Hot Corner,” as it is known.
This is a defined area of the screen where you can place the cursor to put the device to sleep. You can choose the Hot Corner from your Desktop and Screen Saver settings.
It is fairly simple and easy to execute. To ensure that Power Nap has been enabled, you should go to System Preferences and then Energy Saver. You will see a preference pane, and you can see if Power Nap has been ticked.
These are just a few things that you should know about keeping the Mac on and obviously, it would be a wise idea to shut it down for a while every now and then.
So, is it better to shutdown or sleep Macbook Pro or Air? Well, if you have to give it a break for a few hours, shutting down the device might not be such a suitable thing to do, and you’re better of letting it sleep as explained above.
