MacOs won't let my laptop sleep

Question

Level 1

12 points

MacOs won't let my laptop sleep

MacOs 13.0 (MacBookPro 15,0).

I'd love to be able to hibernate my laptop, like Windows does, but somehow Apple removed this option long time ago and even if the command line command still exists, it doesn't work.

Now, even sleep seems not working: my laptop seems unable to enter sleep, like never.

Is there a way to make it sleep properly (and hopefully without Bluetooth waking)?

$ pmset -gSystem-wide power settings:
VACTDisabled		0
Currently in use: 
lidwake              1 
lowpowermode         0 
standbydelayhigh     86400 
proximitywake        1 
standby              1 
standbydelaylow      10800 
ttyskeepawake        1 
hibernatemode        3 
powernap             0 
gpuswitch            2 
hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage 
highstandbythreshold 50 
displaysleep         10 
womp                 0 
networkoversleep     0 
sleep                1 (sleep prevented by bluetoothd, runningboardd, mds, mdsync) 
tcpkeepalive         0 
halfdim              1 
acwake               0 
disksleep            10

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.0

Posted on Dec 5, 2025 9:32 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 6, 2025 6:56 AM in response to Heybee

Use Apple’s old “safe sleep” config but force faster deep sleep:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 1800
sudo pmset -a standbydelayhigh 1800

This means:

Normal sleep first
Deep hibernate after 30 minutes
Very reliable on Intel MacBook Pros

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Answer 2

Owl-53

Level 10

102,949 points

Dec 7, 2025 2:59 AM in response to Heybee

Your pmset output already shows the culprit:

sleep prevented by bluetoothd, runningboardd, mds, mdsync

These processes keep the system awake.

OP also wrote " MacOs 13.0 (MacBookPro 15,0). >

The current version of macOs 13 is >> macOS Ventura 13.7.8 released 20 Aug 2025

Keep your Mac up to date

Always make a Time Machine Backup before doing any upDates

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

155,588 points

Dec 9, 2025 8:05 AM in response to Heybee

If you want to fix your problems please stop messing with pmset. Reset it and leave it that way. Thank you.

I compiled the following checklist of about two dozen items that can cause sleep problems on Macs. It's over a decade old, so use what still applies:

hi.my macbook pro wont sleep anymore - Apple Community

More: MacBook won't go to sleep - Apple Community

Still more:

John Galt wrote:

Need more help? How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community

Good luck.

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Answer 4

Dec 9, 2025 8:02 AM in response to Heybee

Heybee wrote:

This is evidently a bug.

Report it to Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple

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Answer 5

Owl-53

Level 10

102,949 points

Dec 7, 2025 3:10 AM in response to Heybee

It is apparent the AI / Chatbot overlooked the most obvious in there haste for fame and points

The Apple Support Community Forums are sometimes visited by AI / LMM / ChatBots.

“ Though, “ Material submitted must be your own work or work to which you have a license. By posting a Submission, you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the information contained in your Submission”

AI / LLM are basically a Super Version of Predictive Text which is based upon a Data Set.

When that Data Set is based upon older data points, the outcome of the response will be equally out dated and / or unreliable

AI is also the newest form for Data Mining by Large Corporations.

Suggest being very careful about this.

Some suggestions can be incorrect, misinformed , incomplete, impossible to do, out right wrong

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Answer 6

Heybee Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 8, 2025 6:24 PM in response to Owl-53

Yours isn't really an answer.

Those processes aren't set up by me, and per my knowledge some of them are actually owned and managed by the OS itself (like bluetoothd), so the issue lies within the OS and its settings.

The fact that my macOS is 13.0 is irrelevant to my question.

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Answer 7

Heybee Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 9, 2025 6:57 AM in response to John Galt

Thanks for your reply, however those steps are what I looked into before even posting my question here.

I also tried to disable a number of things, as follows, to no avail:

sudo pmset -a ttyskeepawake 0

sudo pmset -a tcpkeepalive 0

sudo pmset -a womp 0

sudo pmset -a powernap 0

sudo pmset -a networkoversleep 0

These commands don't change the command "pmset -gSystem-wide power settings:"

This is evidently a bug.

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Answer 8

Jan 1, 2026 1:03 AM in response to John Galt

THE USER HAD ALREADY IDENTIFIED THE CULPRIT, "John Galt"

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Answer 9

John Galt

Level 10

155,588 points

Dec 8, 2025 7:36 PM in response to Heybee

Although it is very broad If your Mac sleeps or wakes unexpectedly - Apple Support describes the actions to take. Don't omit or arbitrarily dismiss any steps as irrelevant or inapplicable.

If you are encountering sleep problems I recommend resetting NVRAM to its default settings and not altering it. The easiest way to do that is here: Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support. A corrupt NVRAM parameter, not revealed by pmset -g, can cause system instability or improper behavior.

Diagnosing Mac insomnia can be vexing. It often resolves itself, but only after you give up trying to fix it.

(MacBookPro 15,0)

I don't know what that is but I assume it is an Intel model.

Need more help? How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community

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Answer 10

Owl-53

Level 10

102,949 points

Dec 9, 2025 7:43 AM in response to Heybee

Heybee wrote:

Yours isn't really an answer.

Those processes aren't set up by me, and per my knowledge some of them are actually owned and managed by the OS itself (like bluetoothd), so the issue lies within the OS and its settings.

The fact that my macOS is 13.0 is irrelevant to my question.

I think the answer given was something the Recipient did not what to read / hear

That is something we can not help with

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Answer 11

Heybee Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 17, 2025 8:10 AM in response to Owl-53

Or maybe we're not understanding each other.

As many applications, services and processes have the ability to prevent the laptop from sleeping, most of us are finding it out impossible to put our laptop to sleep as we don't have control on some of of them.

In my case, I disabled everything I could, yet my laptop is still unable to sleep due to some services kicking in and waking it up.

Last once, I thought everything was fine, having disabled even my bluetooth, and pmset -g didn't return any list of deamons or processes preventing the laptop from sleeping, and I tried to put it to sleep. Few minutes later, a notification from the OS flagging that a new update was available lit up the screen.

Honestly, this is just a bad inherently bugged design: if you allow apps, services and processes to be able to set themselves to prevent the laptop from sleeping, then you inevitably end up in such situation, with a plethora of them kicking in every single time.

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Answer 12

HWTech

Level 9

69,134 points

Dec 17, 2025 1:22 PM in response to Heybee

Or maybe you are looking in the wrong place. You may have some third party software installed which is preventing macOS from sleeping. Run the third party app EtreCheck and post the complete report here so we can examine it for possible clues.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting an EtreCheck Report - Apple Community

How are you trying to put the laptop to sleep?

FYI, when a USB-C Mac is sleeping or powered off, if you touch any key on the Keyboard, or touch the Trackpad, or connect/disconnect external devices it can cause the Mac to wake up or power on.

Have you tried disconnecting all external devices to see if that makes any difference?

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Answer 13

Heybee Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 18, 2025 5:25 AM in response to HWTech

No, I think I've looked in all the right places. After so many attempts, reading so many instructions and searching through different communities I realized that simply Apple purposely designed the sleep feature this way, so that in practice it doesn't really work as we need it.

macOS does NOT treat sleep as sacred the way Windows does. On macOS, any of these can interrupt sleep: Spotlight indexing, Time Machine snapshotting, Push notifications (apsd), Bluetooth HID events, Widgets (runningboardd), iCloud syncMail IMAP IDLE, Find My, Kernel extensions, Disk mounts, External USB devices, etc.

Some of these can be disabled by the user, some other ones can't. This is because macOS is designed around DarkWake, where the machine wakes without your permission to do "maintenance".

This is the main design flaw, a "feature" according to Apple.

A feature that factually prevents your laptop to do what the user wants it to do: sleep.

And let's not forget that there is no way to get it to hibernate anymore.

So, all we're left is the shutdown, and even that I hear that at some point they will prevent it as well for "good reasons", like Find My (hopefully they are just rumors...).

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Answer 14

John Galt

Level 10

155,588 points

Dec 18, 2025 6:18 AM in response to Heybee

Steve Jobs famously said he doesn't want his products to even have an "off" switch. He will get his wish (eventually).

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