pmset(1) BSD General Commands Manual pmset(1)
NAME
pmset -- manipulate power management settings
SYNOPSIS
pmset [-a | -b | -c | -u] [displaysleep minutes] [disksleep minutes]
[sleep minutes] [womp 1/0] [ring 1/0] [autorestart 1/0] [dps 1/0]
[reduce 1/0] [powerbutton 1/0] [lidwake 1/0] [acwake 1/0]
[lessbright 1/0] [halfdim 1/0] [sms 1/0] [boot]
pmset -u [haltlevel percent] [haltafter minutes] [haltremain minutes]
pmset -g [custom | live | cap | sched | ups | ps | pslog | rawlog]
pmset schedule [cancel] type date+time [owner]
pmset repeat cancel
pmset repeat type weekdays time
pmset [touch | sleepnow | noidle | lock]
DESCRIPTION
pmset changes and reads power management settings such as idle sleep tim-
ing, wake on administrative access, automatic restart on power loss, etc.
SETTING
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.
pmset must be run as root in order to modify any settings.
The boot argument tells power management that system bootup is complete.
Loginwindow handles this on a normal Mac OS X system.
GETTING
-g (with no argument) will display the settings currently in use.
-g live will also display the settings currently in use.
-g custom will display custom settings for all power sources, although
these settings may not currently be in use; a pre-set settings profile
may be active instead.
-g cap will display which power management features the machine supports.
-g sched will display scheduled startup/wake and shutdown/sleep events.
-g ups will display UPS emergency thresholds.
-g ps will display status of batteries and UPSs.
-g pslog will display an ongoing log of power source (battery and UPS)
state.
-g rawlog will display an ongoing log of battery state as read directly
from battery.
-g profiles will display the settings associated with each Energy Saver
profile.
ARGUMENTS
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)
dps - dynamically change processor speed based on load (value = 0/1)
reduce - reduce processor speed (value = 0/1)
powerbutton - sleep the machine when power button is pressed (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)
SETTINGS PROFILES
Mac OS X stores sets of pre-defined Energy Saver settings in a few num-
bered profiles (1, 2, 3). All user-modified settings are stored in the
custom profile (-1). The two numbered profiles 0 and 4 are unused.
Profiles are set per-power source. Default profile selections are
(AC=2, Batt=1, UPS=1). See Examples for ways to set profiles.
Any modifications made to Energy Saver settings via Energy Saver or pmset
will automatically switch your active profile to Custom if it was not
already Custom. OS X tracks the selected profiles and the settings for
the Custom profile in com.apple.PowerManagement.plist discussed in Files
below.
1 corresponds to Energy Saver Optimization for "Better Energy Savings"
2 corresponds to Energy Saver Optimization for "Normal"
3 corresponds to Energy Saver Optimization for "Better Performance"
-1 corresponds to Energy Saver Optimization for "Custom"
SAFE SLEEP ARGUMENTS
hibernatemode takes a bitfield argument defining SafeSleep behavior.
Passing 0 disables SafeSleep altogether, forcing the computer into a reg-
ular sleep.
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.
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 memory 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.
hibernatemode is set to 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported porta-
bles.
hibernatemode is set to 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops.
Please note that hibernatefile may only point to a file located on the
root volume.
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 ARGUMENTS
pmset 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.
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. A health estimate for the battery is appended to the end
of the line, in the form (Fair/Good), indicating the battery is in 'Fair'
health and we have 'Good' confidence in that estimate.
Certain Apple battery calibration tools may temporarily disable battery
charging, even though your Apple portable is plugged into AC power. Such
tools will never surprise you with this behavior; you will know it's hap-
pening. This state will be reflected in an additional line of output to
'batt' or 'ps' readings, including the pid of the app inducing this
behavior.
'ChargeInhibit': 1432
-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 - while continuousy running, pmset prevents idle sleep.
sleepnow - causes an immediate system sleep
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. Any user
modifications are preserved under the custom profile -1.
pmset -c 2 -b 1 -u 1
Changes energy settings for all power sources to the Custom settings set
via pmset or Energy Saver.
pmset -a -1
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, 2009, at
8PM.
pmset schedule wake "07/04/09 20:00:00"
Schedules a repeating shutdown to occur each day, Tuesday through Satur-
day, at 11AM.
pmset repeat shutdown TWRFS 11:00:00
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
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 April 1, 2006 Darwin
Mac OS X 10.5.2 - Generated Sun Mar 23 09:24:48 CDT 2008