The other mean solar day , I created a mixed text edition / TV web log for the Mac911 column discuss theSafe Sleepfeature on new laptop Macs . Read the clause for a more detailed description , but essentially , Safe Sleep puts the contents of your automobile ’s RAM onto the hard driveway each clip you put it to sleep . In the event that your Mac loses big businessman completely while sleeping ( the shelling falls out , you lose the machine for three weeks , etc . ) , you wo n’t lose any of your body of work . ( This also means you may easily trade batteries on that long cross res publica trajectory . ) Instead , your auto recruit a hibernation mode , whereby it ’s using no magnate at all . When you next connect power , Safe Sleep will take the contents of the difficult ride back into read/write memory , let you come properly back to where you were — with undefended practical app and written document entire .

There are some downsides to this , however . You ’ll give up some hard movement space , for case — an amount of space adequate to your machine ’s RAM , plus another 750 megabit . So on my MacBook , that ’s 2.75 GB of campaign blank space , or just under 4 percentage of my drive ’s content . In increase , put the machine into sleep mode take notably longer . Ifyou learn the videoI created , there ’s a delay of 10 or so bit between the time the lid is close and the great power light go from hearty to its normal soft blinking DoS . It ’s during this prison term that the machine is write the content of read/write memory to the hard drive . As I noted , in theory nothing should go awry if you decide to unfold the lid during this period ( when you realise you forgot to print that one crucial document , for instance ) . However , there are quite a few account of mass doing just this , and thread up with a machine with a black filmdom , requiring a full restart to retrieve .

If these downside are too much for you , and you ’d rather have the sometime “ dangerous ” sleep mode back , it ’s somewhat easygoing to do just that . It will require a quick trip into Terminal ( in /Applications - > utility ) .

Check the current setup

After you launch Terminal , the first measure is to watch which sleep modality your Mac is currently using ( in case you wish to go back to it ) . you could both view and change the sleep modality using the Unix programpmset . To see your current preferences , typepmset -g | grep hibernatemode . You should see something like this :

Great , so your political machine is using mode3 , whatever that might be . Well , thanks to the documentation for the handyDeep SleepDashboard widget , which puts your automobile right away into hibernation mode ( so you do n’t have to jerk all the mogul sources to invoke it ) , we can tell precisely which modality is which :

That will take the end product of thepmsetcommand , pillage out everything other than thehibernatemodevalue , and then coldcock the resolution into a file on your screen background namedcurrent_mode.txt . bring through this file for future use .

Note : I’m being overly cautious here on aim . The reality is that , unless you ’ve mess up with this setting before , your Mac will either be in mode0(in which case , this crown does n’t matter , as your Mac is using old - style sleep ) , or mode3or7(the nonpayment for machines shipped since last fall ) . Saving a school text file to remember a3or a7is really overdoing thing , but at least you wo n’t be able to say you do n’t remember which mode your political machine was in .

Change the sleep mode lay out

To alter your sleep mode , you usepmsetagain , providing the variable and value you wish to assign . So to return to the old style sleep mode ( which is mode0from the above listing ) , enter this command :

Press Return , and you ’ll be asked for your password . Provide it , and your sleep fashion has been changed . If you ever wish to go back to your previous mount , just repeat the above command , but replace0with the value from yourcurrent_mode.txtfile .

And yes , this mean you could also set your machine to always go directly into hibernation mood by running the above control with1at the final stage . I ascertain it much simple , though , to apply the Deep Sleep widget linked above — and the convenience also returns thehibernatemodesetting to its prior value , which means that you could utilize the doojigger for hibernation , and still enter normal eternal rest mode when you simply fold the lid .

Note that restarting is not required for these changes to take effect .

Recover some drive space

If your automobile was previously set to mode3(or7 ) and you ’ve reverted to the old style sleep modality , you ’ve receive one more whole tone to take : recover the drive blank space used up by the written matter of your system ’s read/write memory , which was created the last time you kip the machine prior to make the substitution . In Terminal , enter these two command , beseech Return after each and providing your password when ask :

If you ever return to the new style sleep mode , thesleepimagefile will be automatically recreated when you execute thesudo pmsetcommand — yes , it creates the Indian file as presently as you perform the dictation , not the first time you put the car to sleep .

Wrap up

Personally , I find the raw sopor mode a benediction , and I ’ve leave my machine in that mode . If you favor the erstwhile behaviour , however , now you bonk exactly how to get it back . Yes , it requires a trip into Terminal land , but it ’s really not that hard to do once you ’re there .