Prevent a Mac laptop from turning on when opening its lid or connecting to a power source

A Mac laptop with Apple silicon will automatically turn on and start up when you open its lid or connect it to a power source. With macOS Sequoia 15 or later, you can change this behaviour without affecting your ability to use your keyboard or trackpad to turn on your Mac.

1. Make sure your Mac laptop with Apple silicon is using macOS Sequoia or later.

2. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.

3. Type one of these commands in Terminal, then press Return:

   • To prevent startup when opening the lid or connecting to a power source: sudo nvram BootPreference=%00

   • To prevent startup only when opening the lid: sudo nvram BootPreference=%01

   • To prevent startup only when connecting to a power source: sudo nvram BootPreference=%02

4. Type your administrator password when prompted (Terminal won’t show the password as it’s typed), then press Return.

To undo any of the previous commands and re-enable automatic startup when opening the lid or connecting to a power source, enter sudo nvram -d BootPreference in Terminal.