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Help · Mac

The sleep timer

A timer keeps the Mac awake for a duration and then puts it to sleep. It is the thing to use for “let this finish, then go to bed”.

Starting one

  • Quick Start on the Home page, or the Quick sleep timer section of the menu bar: tap a preset (5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 minutes out of the box; edit them in Settings ▸ Timer) or open Custom….
  • The duration field works like a calculator: click and type, digits fill from the right — 1, 3, 0 gives 1 m 30 s; 1, 3, 0, 0, 0 gives 1 h 30 m. Up to 99:59:59. An entry like 99 seconds is normalised to 1 m 39 s.
  • Starting a timer also turns manual blocking on, so cancelling the timer later leaves the Mac awake unless you say otherwise.

While it runs, the hero shows the countdown and a band: “Sleeps at 15:59” (or “… tomorrow at 06:30” when it crosses midnight). The menu bar icon carries the remaining time; in the last seconds it flashes.

What happens at zero

AtControl releases its own blocking, then asks macOS to sleep. The journal records “Timer finished” and “Mac put to sleep”. If another app holds the Mac awake, macOS may not sleep; AtControl does not force it.

If an agent session is running when the timer reaches zero, the sleep request waits for the last agent to finish — the same rule as for agents’ own sleep requests.

Cancelling

  • Cancel timer — timer off, Mac stays awake (manual blocking remains).
  • Cancel & disable (menu bar) — timer off and blocking off.

The journal records “Timer cancelled” with how much was left of how much.

From your phone

The phone shows the countdown ticking from the deadline the Mac published, with a progress ring and the same “sleeps at” sentence, and it counts locally so it looks alive even when nothing new has arrived. The phone can stop blocking (which cancels the timer) but cannot start a timer — that command is not built yet.

Presets

Settings ▸ Timer: a list of presets, shown as chips (“10m”, “1h 30m”, “2d”). The order is yours — drag a preset onto another to move it, or use Move Up / Move Down from its context menu — and it matters: the first preset is the Start button on Home, and the first three are the menu bar’s quick timers. Add Preset rolls out the same calculator field; a duration already on the list is refused. Restore Defaults brings back 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 minutes. The last preset cannot be removed.