PMSET(1) BSD General Commands Manual PMSET(1)NAMEpmset — manipulate power management settings
SYNOPSISpmset [-a | -b | -c | -u] [setting value] [...]
pmset-u [haltlevel percent] [haltafter minutes] [haltremain minutes]
pmset-g [option]
pmset schedule [cancel] type date+time [owner]
pmset repeat cancel
pmset repeat type weekdays time
pmset relative wake seconds
pmset [touch | sleepnow | displaysleepnow | lock | boot]
DESCRIPTIONpmset manages power management settings such as idle sleep timing, wake
on administrative access, automatic restart on power loss, etc.
Note that processes may dynamically override these power management set‐
tings by using I/O Kit power assertions. Whenever processes override any
system power settings, pmset will list those processes and their power
assertions in -g and -g assertions. See caffeinate(8).
SETTINGpmset can modify the values of any of the power management settings
defined below. You may specify one or more setting & value pairs on the
command-line invocation of pmset. The -a, -b, -c, -u flags determine
whether the settings apply to battery ( -b ), charger (wall power) ( -c
), UPS ( -u ) or all ( -a ).
Use a minutes argument of 0 to set the idle time to never for sleep
disksleep and displaysleep
pmset must be run as root in order to modify any settings.
SETTINGS
displaysleep - display sleep timer; replaces 'dim' argument in 10.4
(value in minutes, or 0 to disable)
disksleep - disk spindown timer; replaces 'spindown' argument in 10.4
(value in minutes, or 0 to disable)
sleep - system sleep timer (value in minutes, or 0 to disable)
womp - wake on ethernet magic packet (value = 0/1)
ring - wake on modem ring (value = 0/1)
autorestart - automatic restart on power loss (value = 0/1)
lidwake - wake the machine when the laptop lid (or clamshell) is opened
(value = 0/1)
acwake - wake the machine when power source (AC/battery) is changed
(value = 0/1)
lessbright - slightly turn down display brightness when switching to this
power source (value = 0/1)
halfdim - display sleep will use an intermediate half-brightness state
between full brightness and fully off (value = 0/1)
sms - use Sudden Motion Sensor to park disk heads on sudden changes in G
force (value = 0/1)
hibernatemode - change hibernation mode. Please use caution. (value =
integer)
hibernatefile - change hibernation image file location. Image may only be
located on the root volume. Please use caution. (value = path)
ttyskeepawake - prevent idle system sleep when any tty (e.g. remote login
session) is 'active'. A tty is 'inactive' only when its idle time exceeds
the system sleep timer. (value = 0/1)
networkoversleep - this setting affects how OS X networking presents
shared network services during system sleep. This setting is not used by
all platforms; changing its value is unsupported.
destroyfvkeyonstandby - Destroy File Vault Key when going to standby
mode. By default File vault keys are retained even when system goes to
standby. If the keys are destroyed, user will be prompted to enter the
password while coming out of standby mode.(value: 1 - Destroy, 0 -
Retain)
autopoweroff - Where supported, enabled per default as an implementation
of Lot 6 to the European Energy-related Products Directive. After sleep‐
ing for <autopoweroffdelay> minutes, the system will write a hibernation
image and go into a lower power chipset sleep. Wakeups from this state
will take longer than wakeups from regular sleep. The system will not
auto power off if any external devices are connected, if the system is on
battery power, or if the system is bound to a network and wake for net‐
work access is enabled.
autopoweroffdelay - delay before entering autopoweroff mode. (Value =
integer, in minutes)
GETTING-g (with no argument) will display the settings currently in use.
-g live displays the settings currently in use.
-g custom displays custom settings for all power sources.
-g cap displays which power management features the machine supports.
-g sched displays scheduled startup/wake and shutdown/sleep events.
-g ups displays UPS emergency thresholds.
-g ps / batt displays status of batteries and UPSs.
-g pslog displays an ongoing log of power source (battery and UPS) state.
-g rawlog displays an ongoing log of battery state as read directly from
battery.
-g therm shows thermal conditions that affect CPU speed. Not available on
all platforms.
-g thermlog shows a log of thermal notifications that affect CPU speed.
Not available on all platforms.
-g assertions displays a summary of power assertions. Assertions may pre‐
vent system sleep or display sleep. Available 10.6 and later.
-g assertionslog shows a log of assertion creations and releases. Avail‐
able 10.6 and later.
-g sysload displays the "system load advisory" - a summary of system
activity available from the IOGetSystemLoadAdvisory API. Available 10.6
and later.
-g sysloadlog displays an ongoing log of lives changes to the system load
advisory. Available 10.6 and later.
-g ac / adapter will display details about an attached AC power adapter.
Only supported for MacBook and MacBook Pro.
-g log displays a history of sleeps, wakes, and other power management
events. This log is for admin & debugging purposes.
-g uuid displays the currently active sleep/wake UUID; used within OS X
to correlate sleep/wake activity within one sleep cycle. history
-g uuidlog displays the currently active sleep/wake UUID, and prints a
new UUID as they're set by the system.
-g history is a debugging tool. Prints a timeline of system sleeplwake
UUIDs, when enabled with boot-arg io=0x3000000.
-g historydetailed Prints driver-level timings for a sleep/wake. Pass a
UUID as an argument.
-g powerstate [class names] Prints the current power states for I/O Kit
drivers. Caller may provide one or more I/O Kit class names (separated by
spaces) as an argument. If no classes are provided, it will print all
drivers' power states.
-g powerstatelog [-i interval] [class names] Periodically prints the
power state residency times for some drivers. Caller may provide one or
more I/O Kit class names (separated by spaces). If no classes are pro‐
vided, it will log the IOPower plane's root registry entry. Caller may
specify a polling interval, in seconds with -i <polling interval>; other‐
wise it defaults to 5 seconds.
-g stats Prints the counts for number sleeps and wakes system has gone
thru since boot.
-g systemstate Prints the current power state of the system and available
capabilites.
-g everything Prints output from every argument under the GETTING header.
This is useful for quickly collecting all the output that pmset provides.
Available in 10.8.
SAFE SLEEP ARGUMENTS
hibernatemode takes a bitfield argument defining SafeSleep behavior.
Passing 0 disables SafeSleep altogether, forcing the computer into a reg‐
ular sleep.
0000 0001 (bit 0) enables hibernation; causes OS X to write memory state
to hibernation image at sleep time. On wake (without bit 1 set) OS X will
resume from the hibernation image. Bit 0 set (without bit 1 set) causes
OS X to write memory state and immediately hibernate at sleep time.
0000 0010 (bit 1), in conjunction with bit 0, causes OS X to maintain
system state in memory and leave system power on until battery level
drops below a near empty threshold (This enables quicker wakeup from mem‐
ory while battery power is available). Upon nearly emptying the battery,
OS X shuts off all system power and hibernates; on wake the system will
resume from hibernation image, not from memory.
0000 1000 (bit 3) encourages the dynamic pager to page out inactive pages
prior to hibernation, for a smaller memory footprint.
0001 0000 (bit 4) encourages the dynamic pager to page out more aggres‐
sively prior to hibernation, for a smaller memory footprint.
We do not recommend modifying hibernation settings. Any changes you make
are not supported. If you choose to do so anyway, we recommend using one
of these three settings. For your sake and mine, please don't use any‐
thing other 0, 3, or 25.
hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The
system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must
wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power
loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.
hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The
system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless
a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.
hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The
system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If
you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery
life, you should use this setting.
Please note that hibernatefile may only point to a file located on the
root volume.
STANDBY ARGUMENTS
standby causes kernel power management to automatically hibernate a
machine after it has slept for a specified time period. This saves power
while asleep. This setting defaults to ON for supported hardware. The
setting standby will be visible in pmset-g if the feature is supported
on this machine.
standby only works if hibernation is turned on to hibernatemode 3 or 25.
standbydelay specifies the delay, in seconds, before writing the hiberna‐
tion image to disk and powering off memory for Standby.
UPS SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS
UPS-specific arguments are only valid following the -u option. UPS set‐
tings also have an on/off value. Use a -1 argument instead of percent or
minutes to turn any of these settings off. If multiple halt conditions
are specified, the system will halt on the first condition that occurs in
a low power situation.
haltlevel - when draining UPS battery, battery level at which to trigger
an emergency shutdown (value in %)
haltafter - when draining UPS battery, trigger emergency shutdown after
this long running on UPS power (value in minutes, or 0 to disable)
haltremain - when draining UPS battery, trigger emergency shutdown when
this much time remaining on UPS power is estimated (value in minutes, or
0 to disable)
Note: None of these settings are observed on a system with support for an
internal battery, such as a laptop. UPS emergency shutdown settings are
for desktop and server only.
SCHEDULED EVENT ARGUMENTSpmset allows you to schedule system sleep, shutdown, wakeup and/or power
on. "schedule" is for setting up one-time power events, and "repeat" is
for setting up daily/weekly power on and power off events. Note that you
may only have one pair of repeating events scheduled - a "power on" event
and a "power off" event. For sleep cycling applications, pmset can sched‐
ule a "relative" wakeup to occur in seconds from the end of system sleep,
but this event cannot be cancelled and is inherently imprecise.
type - one of sleep, wake, poweron, shutdown, wakeorpoweron
date/time - "MM/dd/yy HH:mm:ss" (in 24 hour format; must be in quotes)
time - HH:mm:ss
weekdays - a subset of MTWRFSU ("M" and "MTWRF" are valid strings)
owner - a string describing the person or program who is scheduling this
one-time power event (optional)
POWER SOURCE ARGUMENTS-g with a 'batt' or 'ps' argument will show the state of all attached
power sources.
-g with a 'pslog' or 'rawlog' argument is normally used for debugging,
such as isolating a problem with an aging battery.
OTHER ARGUMENTS
boot - tell the kernel that system boot is complete (normally LoginWindow
does this). May be useful to Darwin users.
force - tells PM to immediately activate these settings. Does not write
them to disk, and the settings may easily be overwritten. Useful in cir‐
cumstances where PM's configd plugin happens not to be running.
touch - PM re-reads existing settings from disk.
noidle - pmset prevents idle sleep my creating a PM assertion to prevent
idle sleep(while running; hit ctrl-c to cancel). This argument is depre‐
cated in favor of caffeinate(8). Please use caffeinate(8) instead.
sleepnow - causes an immediate system sleep
displaysleepnow - causes display to go to sleep immediately
resetdisplayambientparams - resets the ambient light parameters for cer‐
tain Apple displays.
dim - deprecated in 10.4 in favor of 'displaysleep'. 'dim' will continue
to work.
spindown - deprecated in 10.4 in favor of 'disksleep'. 'spindown' will
continue to work.
EXAMPLES
This command sets displaysleep to a 5 minute timer on battery power,
leaving other settings on battery power and other power sources unper‐
turbed.
pmset-b displaysleep 5
Sets displaysleep to 10, disksleep to 10, system sleep to 30, and turns
on WakeOnMagicPacket for ALL power sources (AC, Battery, and UPS) as
appropriate
pmset-a displaysleep 10 disksleep 10 sleep 30 womp 1
Restores the system's energy settings to their default values.
For a system with an attached and supported UPS, this instructs the sys‐
tem to perform an emergency shutdown when UPS battery drains to below
40%.
pmset-u haltlevel 40
For a system with an attached and supported UPS, this instructs the sys‐
tem to perform an emergency shutdown when UPS battery drains to below
25%, or when the UPS estimates it has less than 30 minutes remaining run‐
time. The system shuts down as soon as either of these conditions is met.
pmset-u haltlevel 25 haltremain 30
For a system with an attached and supported UPS, this instructs the sys‐
tem to perform an emergency shutdown after 2 minutes of running on UPS
battery power.
pmset-u haltafter 2
Schedules the system to automatically wake from sleep on July 4, 20016,
at 8PM.
pmset schedule wake "07/04/16 20:00:00"
Schedules a repeating shutdown to occur each day, Tuesday through Satur‐
day, at 11AM.
pmset repeat shutdown TWRFS 11:00:00
Schedules a repeating wake or power on event every tuesday at 12:00 noon,
and a repeating sleep event every night at 8:00 PM.
pmset repeat wakeorpoweron T 12:00:00 sleep MTWRFSU 20:00:00
Prints the power management settings in use by the system.
pmset-g
Prints a snapshot of battery/power source state at the moment.
pmset-g batt
If your system suddenly sleeps on battery power with 20-50% of capacity
remaining, leave this command running in a Terminal window. When you see
the problem and later power and wake the computer, you'll be able to
detect sudden discontinuities (like a jump from 30% to 0%) indicative of
an aging battery.
pmset-g pslog
SEE ALSOcaffeinate(8)FILES
All changes made through pmset are saved in a persistent preferences file
(per-system, not per-user) at
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
Scheduled power on/off events are stored separately in
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
pmset modifies the same file that System Preferences Energy Saver modi‐
fies.
Darwin November 9, 2012 Darwin
