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How to prevent laptop sleep? Always sleeps when lid closed and plugged into external monitors.

Hey all, how do I prevent OSX from sleeping?


Whenever my mac is plugged into external monitors and I close the laptop lid, the laptop goes to sleep and stops outputting to the monitor. It is connected to power the whole time. In the past, restarting the OS has fixed this, but that is no longer the case. Now I pretty much have three nice, but useless monitors on my desk.

Posted on Dec 6, 2019 11:44 AM

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Posted on Dec 6, 2019 2:26 PM

Per this article, Use your Mac notebook computer in closed-display mode with an external display - Apple Support, if you want to use it with the lid closed it must be connected to power to work. I haven't been able to find a particular section that states it must be plugged in while the laptop is open. You may be able to use an external monitor while the laptop is not closed.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 6, 2019 2:26 PM in response to RL2468

Per this article, Use your Mac notebook computer in closed-display mode with an external display - Apple Support, if you want to use it with the lid closed it must be connected to power to work. I haven't been able to find a particular section that states it must be plugged in while the laptop is open. You may be able to use an external monitor while the laptop is not closed.

How to prevent laptop sleep? Always sleeps when lid closed and plugged into external monitors.

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