How to check which apps are keeping a Mac from sleep

Open Activity Monitor. You can open it from the Launchpad, or you can use Spotlight search to launch it. Go to the Energy tab and you will see a column called 'Preventing Sleep'. Look through this column and if there's an app entry that reads 'Yes' in this column, it is preventing the Mac from sleeping.

1. What's preventing my Mac from sleeping?
2. How do I find out what programs are running in the background on my Mac?
3. Do apps download while Mac is asleep?
4. How do I keep my Mac screen on?
5. Why does my Mac take so long to wake up?
6. How do I wake up my external monitor Mac?
7. How do I kill all processes on a Mac?
8. How do I find out what programs are running in the background?
9. How do you kill an application on a Mac?
10. Is it bad to shutdown your Mac every night?
11. Will downloads continue in sleep mode?
12. Should I put my MacBook Air to sleep or shutdown?

What's preventing my Mac from sleeping?

The 'Turn display off…' slider shows how long your Mac needs to be left without user input before it drifts off to sleep. Check the slider in the 'Battery' and 'Power Adapter' tabs, and make sure they're both set to a reasonable amount of time.

How do I find out what programs are running in the background on my Mac?

To find the Activity Monitor, you can navigate to your Applications and find it within the Utilities section. A faster way to find it is to simply hit Command + Spacebar and type in Activity Monitor, where Spotlight will automatically find the utility.

Do apps download while Mac is asleep?

Yes and no. Some downloads will continue using Apple's Power Nap feature. These include software updates and app updates from the Mac App Store, as well as attachments in email messages. Downloads will not continue in Safari or any other programs that download content (such as a bit torrent client), however.

How do I keep my Mac screen on?

Set sleep and wake settings for your Mac

1. Set your Mac to go to sleep and wake up at a specific time: Click Schedule in the bottom-right corner, then select the options you want to use. ...
2. Set the amount of time your computer or display should wait before going to sleep: Drag the “Computer sleep” and “Display sleep” sliders.

Why does my Mac take so long to wake up?

You may have guessed this already, but the reason some Macs take a long time to wake from sleep is that process of copying contents of sleepimage back into memory, and typically the more RAM you have in a Mac the slower the process can be.

How do I wake up my external monitor Mac?

Under System Preferences, choose Displays. Hold down the Option key and a "Detect Displays" button appears in the lower right. When my second display stays asleep, pressing this button wakes it up.

How do I kill all processes on a Mac?

Press and hold the following keys: Command + Option + Esc. Choose the application you want to quit in the “Force Quick Application” dialogue box. Click “Force Quit“.

How do I find out what programs are running in the background?

#1: Press “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” and then choose “Task Manager”. Alternatively you can press “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” to directly open task manager. #2: To see a list of processes that are running on your computer, click “processes”. Scroll down to view the list of hidden and visible programs.

How do you kill an application on a Mac?

Press these three keys together: Option, Command, and Esc (Escape). Or choose Force Quit from the Apple menu  in the upper-left corner of your screen. (This is similar to pressing Control-Alt-Delete on a PC.) Then select the app in the Force Quit window and click Force Quit.

Is it bad to shutdown your Mac every night?

Typical Mac users never need to shut down their Macs on a daily basis. It is better to let your Mac go to sleep so it can handle maintenance tasks while you aren't using it. ... A sleeping Mac uses very little power.

Will downloads continue in sleep mode?

Yes , all downloads will stop if you use sleep mode or stand-by or hibernate. You will need to keep laptop/pc running to continue the download. ... In sleep mode the computer enters a low-power state.

Should I put my MacBook Air to sleep or shutdown?

The main reason for letting your Mac sleep instead of shutting it down is that your Mac can't perform maintenance tasks during the night if you shut it down. macOS does a lot every night while your Mac isn't being used and it is “sleeping”. Apple actually has a term for this sleep mode — “Power Nap”.