OS X El Capitan: The Missing Manual

Logging Out, Shutting Down

If you’re the only person who uses your Mac, finishing up a work session is simple. You can either turn off the machine or simply let it go to sleep, in any of several ways.

Sleep Mode

If you’re still shutting down your Mac every night, you may be doing a lot more waiting than necessary. Sleep mode consumes very little power, keeps everything you were doing open and available, and wakes up almost immediately.

To make your machine sleep, do one of the following:

• Close the lid. (Hint: This tip works primarily on laptops.)

• Press the power button () on your Mac. Tapping that button (for about a half-second) makes any kind of Mac drop off to sleep instantly.

• Hold down the power button () for 2 seconds. You get the box shown in Figure 1-28; hit Sleep (or type S).

• Choose Sleep. Or press Option-⌘-.

• Press Control-. In the dialog box shown in Figure 1-28, click Sleep (or type S).

• Just walk away, confident that the Energy Saver setting in System Preferences will send the machine off ...