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 [disk | live | cap | sched | ups | ps | pslog | rawlog]
pmset schedule [cancel] type date+time [owner]
pmset repeat cancel
pmset repeat type weekdays time

DESCRIPTION
pmset changes and reads power management settings such as idle sleep timing, 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 disk will display settings for all power sources, including those not currently in use.
-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)

SETTINGS PROFILES
Mac OS X stores sets of pre-defined Energy Saver settings in a few numbered 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"

UPS SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS
UPS-specific arguments are only valid following the -u option. UPS settings 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 happening. 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 circumstances where PM's configd plugin happens not to be running.
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 unperturbed.

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 system 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 system to perform an emergency shutdown when UPS battery drains to below 25%, or when the UPS estimates it has less than 30 minutes remaining runtime. 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 system 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 Saturday, 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 modifies.