In older versions of macOS, Apple provided a convenient “Energy Saver” schedule in the System Preferences that allowed you to automate when your Mac turned on, woke up, or shut down. However, in macOS Ventura and later, Apple completely removed this graphical interface. Fortunately, the underlying scheduling tool still exists; you just have to access it via the Terminal using the pmset command.
How to Schedule a Shut Down
The pmset (Power Management Settings) command is incredibly powerful, but it requires precise formatting.
- Open the Terminal app (found in Applications > Utilities).
- To schedule your Mac to shut down automatically every day at 11:00 PM, type the following command:
sudo pmset repeat shutdown MTWRFSU 23:00:00 - Press Return. You will be prompted to enter your administrator password.
Understanding the Command Structure
To customise this schedule for your own needs, you need to understand the variables:
- Type: You can replace
shutdownwithsleep,wake, orrestart. - Days: The letters represent days of the week: Monday (M), Tuesday (T), Wednesday (W), Thursday (R), Friday (F), Saturday (S), and Sunday (U). If you only want it to shut down on weekdays, you would use
MTWRF. - Time: The time must be written in 24-hour format (HH:MM:SS).
How to View or Cancel Your Schedule
To verify that your schedule was applied correctly, run the command pmset -g sched. The terminal will output your currently active power events.
If you ever want to completely cancel all automated sleep, wake, or shut down schedules on your Mac, simply run: sudo pmset repeat cancel. This will immediately wipe the schedule and return your Mac to manual operation.