How to Stop Your Computer From Sleeping: Windows and Mac

To stop your computer from sleeping on Windows 11, open Settings, System, Power & battery, expand Screen, sleep & hibernate timeouts, and set Make my device sleep after to Never. On Windows 10 the same setting is under Settings, System, Power & sleep. On a Mac, open System Settings, then Energy on a desktop Mac or Battery, Options on a MacBook, and turn on Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off. For a short job, run caffeinate -i in Terminal instead. Sleep and the screen turning off are separate timers, so the screen can still go dark after you do this.

People often stop sleep to keep Slack or Teams active, and that does not work on its own: an awake computer with no input still shows you away. The Slack side is in how to keep Slack active.

Where the sleep setting lives

Stop Windows 11 from sleeping

• Open Settings with Windows + I.
• Go to System, then Power & battery.
• Expand Screen, sleep & hibernate timeouts. Older Windows 11 builds call it Screen and sleep.
• Set Make my device sleep after to Never, for both When plugged in and On battery power. Set the hibernate timers to Never too if they appear.
• To keep the screen on as well, set Turn off my screen after to Never.

To change only when the screen turns off, see how to change the screen timeout on Windows 11.

The same change from an administrator Command Prompt, where 0 means never:

powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change standby-timeout-dc 0
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 0

The -ac settings apply when plugged in and -dc on battery. To undo, run the same lines with the number of minutes you want, such as 30. A PowerShell script that keeps the PC awake only while it runs is in keep a Windows PC awake with PowerShell.

Stop Windows 10 from sleeping

Open Settings, System, Power & sleep, and set Sleep to Never for both power states. The powercfg lines above work on Windows 10 too.

Stop a Mac from sleeping

On a desktop Mac, open System Settings, Energy, and turn on Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off. On a MacBook, open System Settings, Battery, Options, and turn on Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off. A MacBook on battery still sleeps on its own timer.



We opened this sheet on a MacBook Pro with macOS 26.5.2 on 4 October 2026; the switch was off. pmset -g custom on the same Mac shows the timers behind it, in minutes:

Battery Power:
 displaysleep         2
 sleep                1
AC Power:
 displaysleep         10
 sleep                1

So with the switch off, this Mac turned its display off after 10 minutes on power (2 on battery) and could sleep a minute later. pmset -g also names any app that is keeping the Mac awake right now; ours read sleep 1 (sleep prevented by Amphetamine, powerd). If your Mac never sleeps, that line tells you why.

To keep the display on too, open System Settings, Lock Screen, and set the Turn display off timers to Never. That also affects when the Mac locks, as covered in keep your Mac screen from locking.

For a one-off job, such as a long download, Terminal is quicker and changes no settings:

# keep the Mac awake until you press Ctrl+C; add -d to keep the display on too
caffeinate -i
# or for two hours, then stop by itself
caffeinate -i -t 7200

While caffeinate -i -t 4 ran on our Mac, pmset -g assertions listed it as PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "caffeinate command-line tool", and the line was gone when the 4 seconds ended. Every caffeinate flag is explained in caffeinate on Mac. Menu bar apps that do the same are compared in the best app to keep your Mac awake.

Only need the computer awake for one big file? Sleep stops a download, but a dark screen does not. Keep your computer awake while downloading has a PowerShell script and a caffeinate loop that end with the download.

Why your computer sleeps so fast

• You changed the wrong timer. The screen turning off is not sleep. If the screen goes black after 5 minutes but music keeps playing, change the screen timer, not the sleep one.

• Battery saver or a power mode. On Windows, Energy saver and the Best power efficiency mode can shorten timers. On a MacBook, Low Power Mode does the same. Those timers exist to save battery; how much an awake laptop costs per hour is in does keeping your laptop awake drain the battery.

• The lock screen turns the display off after 1 minute. On Windows, when the PC is locked, a separate timer turns the screen off fast. That is the lock screen timer, not sleep.

• The PC woke up by itself and goes back to sleep. When Windows wakes for an update or a scheduled task with nobody at it, it sleeps again after about 2 minutes. That is expected. How to read the exact sleep reason in Event Viewer is in Windows 11 keeps going to sleep.

• Your company sets the timers. If the settings are greyed out or reset after a restart, a policy controls them. See below.

When a work laptop will not let you change it

On a company laptop, IT often locks the sleep and lock timers. You can still keep the computer awake with a tool that asks Windows or macOS not to sleep while it runs, which needs no settings change. PowerToys Awake and Caffeine for Windows work on Windows, and caffeinate works on any Mac. If you cannot install anything, see keep a work computer awake without admin rights. If the screen locks anyway, that is a separate policy, covered in how to stop Windows 11 from locking.

Keeping the computer awake does not create input. Slack still shows you away 10 minutes after your last keyboard or mouse input, and Teams after about 5 minutes without input on the computer. A playing video does not change that either, as covered in does playing a video keep your computer awake.

Keep a laptop awake with the lid closed

Closing the lid follows its own setting, separate from the sleep timer. On Windows it is under Control Panel, Power Options, Choose what closing the lid does. On a Mac it needs an external display, a keyboard and power. Both are covered step by step in keep a laptop awake with the lid closed.

A remote PC you reach over Remote Desktop has its own idle session limit on top of sleep; the policy and registry fixes are in how to keep a Remote Desktop session active.

FAQ

Is it bad to never let a computer sleep?

For a desktop, no, apart from the power it uses. For a laptop on battery, it drains the battery. Turning off the screen while keeping the computer awake saves most of the power.

Why does my computer go to sleep even though I set it to Never?

A company policy, a battery saver mode, or a lid-close setting. Or it is the screen turning off, not sleep.

How do I stop my computer from sleeping without admin rights?

Use a keep-awake tool that runs as your user, such as PowerToys Awake or a PowerShell script on Windows, or caffeinate on a Mac.

Does stopping sleep keep me active on Teams or Slack?

No. Both look for keyboard or mouse input, and sleep settings do not create any.