Apple Explains How to Keep Your Mac From Turning on When Opening Lid

Apple designed Macs with Apple silicon chips to automatically turn on and start up when the Mac's lid is opened or when the Mac is connected to power, but there is a workaround in macOS Sequoia if you don't like this behavior.

m3 macbook pro blue
In a new support document, Apple provided separate instructions on how to prevent an Apple silicon Mac from turning on when the lid is opened or when it's connected to power. Both processes require the Terminal app. Apple's instructions:

1. Make sure that your Mac laptop with Apple silicon is using ‌macOS Sequoia‌ or later.
2. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
3. Type one of these commands in Terminal, then press Return:
- To prevent startup when opening the lid or connecting to power: sudo nvram BootPreference=%00
- To prevent startup only when opening the lid: sudo nvram BootPreference=%01
- To prevent startup only when connecting to power: sudo nvram BootPreference=%02
4. Type your administrator password when prompted (Terminal doesn't show the password as it's typed), then press Return.

If you use these commands to change your Mac's behavior and want to undo it, you can open up Terminal and enter sudo nvram -d BootPreference.

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Top Rated Comments

icerabbit Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:21 pm
And why could this not be a preference setting?
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jz0309 Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:24 pm
4 years later ... and you have to use Terminal ...
maybe MacOS Death Valley will have a setting when it comes out ...
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mazz0 Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:26 pm
Flippin’ ’eck, what is this, Linux?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CEO Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:24 pm
Now if only there were a fix for MacBooks turning external displays on while they’re asleep (even with Power Nap disabled) and connected via thunderbolt…
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JCCL Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:28 pm
I mean even windows has had this setting since probably Windows 95.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
seek3r Avatar
3 hours ago at 04:45 pm
I’d bet this came from this behavior bugging a dev at apple and they tossed a permanent hook into the api so they could use it
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)