Easy Mac Hacks: Conserve Power by Putting Your Display to Sleep

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type 'em out!

Recent OS X updates have made our Macs more power-efficient, but it hasn't addressed the biggest power concern on portables: the display. In this article, we'll show you a few tips to get the most out of your battery life by putting the display to sleep when it's not in use.

Putting Display to Sleep When Not in Use

Ensuring that your display sleeps often when on battery power can help ensure you're conserving the most energy. Fortunately, OS X lets you customize these settings very easily. Simply navigate to System Preferences > Energy Saver.

Once here, set the slider for "Turn display off after" to the lowest setting you feel comfortable using. Once the computer has been inactive for the set time allotment, then the display only will turn off (this will not turn off your computer unless you have set the computer to sleep as well).

Because the display drains the most power on your Mac during normal usage, then it is important to set it to sleep as soon as possible after you stop using your Mac. This will help ensure that you're preserving as much battery life as you can.

Using Hot Corner to Put Display to Sleep

If you know you're going to be away from your computer for an extended period of time, then you can set a hot corner (a place on your screen that performs an action when you hover your mouse over top). To do this, open System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners.

In this view, pick a corner you wish to use as a Hot Corner, then select "Put Display to Sleep" from the action drop-down menu.

Now, whenever you mouse down to the Hot Corner designated to put the display to sleep, the display will go to sleep, while the computer remains awake.