The Energy Savings Device Setting lets you automatically power on, shut down, sleep, or restart macOS devices on a set schedule — without any manual intervention. This is useful for managing shared devices, lab environments, or any scenario where devices need to be available at predictable times.
Note: Scheduled start-up and shut-down is only supported on macOS devices.
Overview
The Energy Savings profile includes two scheduling settings:
- Start up the computer on Schedule — Automatically powers on the device at a specified day and time.
- Enable Sleep, Restart, or Shut Down schedule — Automatically sleeps, restarts, or shuts down the device at a specified day and time.
Both settings can be enabled together, allowing you to define a full availability window for a device.
How to Create an Energy Savings Schedule
- Navigate to Catalog > Device Settings and click New.
- Select Energy Savings from the list of device settings.
- Click the Schedule tab at the top of the configuration window.
- Enable Start up the computer on Schedule to configure an automatic power-on time.
- Select the day(s) and set the hour, minutes, and AM/PM.
- Enable Enable Sleep, Restart, or Shut Down schedule to configure an automatic power-off action.
- Select the scheduled action: Sleep, Restart, or Shut Down.
- Select the day(s) and set the hour, minutes, and AM/PM.
- Set an Installation Priority if needed, then click Create Profile.
Once the Device Setting is deployed to a policy, enrolled devices will follow the configured schedule automatically.
Example Use Case
A student needs remote access to a shared lab device every Wednesday from 11:15 AM to 1:30 PM. To ensure the device is ready in time and doesn't stay on after class, you could configure the schedule as follows:
- Start up: Wednesday at 11:10 AM (5 minutes before class)
- Sleep: Wednesday at 1:40 PM (10 minutes after class ends)
Frequently Asked Questions
What timezone does the schedule use?
The schedule uses the device's local timezone, not the timezone of the administrator who configured the Device Setting. For example, if you're in EST and want a device in PST to restart at 4:00 PM local time, configure the Device Setting for 4:00 PM — the device will interpret that as its own local time.
What happens if the device has FileVault enabled?
FileVault affects scheduled start-up and shut-down differently:
- Scheduled start-up: The device will power on, but a user must authenticate through FileVault before it can be considered fully online and able to communicate with software or the network.
- Scheduled shut-down or restart: The device will shut down or restart as scheduled, but must be manually powered on and authenticated through FileVault before it comes back online.