Apple Quietly Gave Your MacBook a Simple Yet Nerdy New Feature

Did you know your MacBook automatically turns on and starts up when you open its lid or connect it to power? No need to press the power button.

If you didn’t know this, it probably doesn’t affect you. If you did, there’s a good chance you find it annoying. Not everybody wants their MacBook to turn on automatically, after all.

The good news is that there’s finally a fix. Apple has quietly released a support document instructing people how to disable it. It’s not super straightforward, as it requires the Terminal app and some typing in some code, but it’s easy and doable. Even if you’re not a power user.

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

How to disable your MacBook automatically turning on

In order to disable this feature, there are two requirements. First, you need a MacBook Air or Pro with Apple silicon (M1 or later). And secondly, it needs to be running macOS Sequoia (or later).

You’ll need to use the Terminal app, which you can find in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. I suggest just doing a quick search using Command + spacebar and typing in “Terminal.”

Once the Terminal app is opened, type in one of these commands:

• To prevent startup when opening the lid or connecting to power, type: sudo nvram BootPreference=%00
• To prevent startup only when opening the lid, type: sudo nvram BootPreference=%01
• To prevent startup only when connecting to power, type: sudo nvram BootPreference=%02

Once you’ve typed in one of the commands, press Return. You’ll then be prompted to type in your MacBook’s password, so do that and press Return again. (Note: The Terminal app won’t show your password when typed.)

After that, you can exit out of the Terminal app and you’ve taken back a little bit of control over your MacBook.

If you want to reverse any of the above actions, you can do so by typing this code — sudo nvram -d BootPreference — in the Terminal app.

To learn more about this process, visit Apple’s support page.

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