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
12 weeks ago
And why could this not be a preference setting?
Score: 117 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jz0309 Avatar
12 weeks ago
4 years later ... and you have to use Terminal ...
maybe MacOS Death Valley will have a setting when it comes out ...
Score: 48 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Itinj24 Avatar
12 weeks ago
The thumbnail for this article should have most certainly been the pic of Federighi opening the MacBook. Huge missed opportunity lol.




Attachment Image
Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mazz0 Avatar
12 weeks ago
Flippin’ ’eck, what is this, Linux?
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CEO Avatar
12 weeks ago
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: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JCCL Avatar
12 weeks ago
I mean even windows has had this setting since probably Windows 95.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)