Make your Mac stay awake

How to install and use Amphetamine to override Energy Saver settings

REQUIRES OS X 10.8 or later you will learn How to override your Mac’s sleep settings IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes

Your Mac is designed to be ultra-energy-efficient. In the latest versions of macOS, by default the display and hard drive will enter a special sleep mode after 10 minutes. There are times, however, when you may want an app to keep running in the background, in which case you won’t want your Mac to go to sleep.

The utility Amphetamine, true to its name, will force your Mac to stay awake indefinitely once it’s been installed. Follow the guide below to ensure your apps will never be interrupted by the Energy Saver settings. (Get Amphetamine for free from the Mac App Store.)

If you feel that this is too broad an approach, after installation click the tool’s menu bar icon and choose Preferences. From here you can choose to launch the utility at login. Use the Trigger tab to activate an Amphetamine session only under certain conditions – such as when a certain app is running – or to deactivate the app if your Mac’s battery is too low.

Head to Amphetamine’s Drive Alive tab to activate your Mac’s hard drive indefinitely or only at certain times. You can also activate and deactivate the app using customizable keyboard shortcuts under the Hotkeys tab.