Screen Saver or Sleep Mode not working on my new Mac mini M4 Pro

Question

Screen Saver or Sleep Mode not working on my new Mac mini M4 Pro

I just purchased this Mini M4 Pro and the Screen Saver nor Sleep mode does not work. I have tried everything I know to get it to work with no positive results. Has anyone else experienced this? You would think that for 1.5K, everything would work. I do know that after getting the unit, I installed the update (15.3.1). I started to notice the computer was not going into Screen Saver Mode. I checked the settings, clicked on different ones, left for a while...still nothing. I also left it alone for a couple of hours and it didn't go to sleep. It should have after 1 hour. Sorry for the book, I just thought I would check here before contacting Apple.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Mac mini, macOS 15.3

Posted on Feb 16, 2025 02:02 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 16, 2025 06:15 PM in response to hcsitas

Here are my settings now. About the whole sleep thing, I don't really care for it to go to sleep. It's just the fact that it doesn't that bugs me. I'm hoping that someday a future update or new version of MacOS will fix stuff. I'm sure it's nothing that I have done, it's a new Mac.

Thanks again.

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Answer 2

Feb 16, 2025 10:27 AM in response to hcsitas

Thank you for the settings information. I checked the settings and made those changes you mentioned...just a couple of switches were different. I know screen savers are just eye candy these days and sleep is not that necessary. But, that said...you would think everything should work on a system when spending $1.5K. Well, that's computers I guess. It almost seems like something is interrupting causing it not to engage the screen saver. I also have the regular M4 Mini at work and the apps I have on it are the same here, nothing different added, and everything works great. It's a puzzle for sure. Thanks again for everything.

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Answer 3

hcsitas

Level 6

13,958 points

Feb 16, 2025 07:48 AM in response to SixSlingerMan

Sleep is unnecessary on later Macs and should be disabled. Shut for long absences/idle overnights (no downside whatsoever) and for regular operation use the settings exactly as shown below: (reboot after setting):

Also, do not manual-sleep for brief absences; use instead the Lock Screen settings to switch the display off on timer:

Once set, you can also use Control-Command-Q to immediately lock your screen (instead of waiting for the display to switch off on timer).

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Answer 4

hcsitas

Level 6

13,958 points

Feb 16, 2025 10:38 AM in response to SixSlingerMan

You’re welcome - please post the snapshot to confirm everything is set correctly (assuming the issue hasn’t resolved itself).

Enabling Sleep these days is invitation for trouble i.e. faulty operation. Nothing else can be concluded if you encounter such, except that your Mac is misbehaving by invitation. It does a pretty **** good job of it too going by several hundred posts here in the past years. Avoid faulty operation and you should be fine.

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Answer 5

hcsitas

Level 6

13,958 points

Feb 16, 2025 09:13 PM in response to SixSlingerMan

I would disable the screen saver and set display off to 20 minutes. Otherwise all good.

Nothing to fix, Sleep is so 2015…

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Screen Saver or Sleep Mode not working on my new Mac mini M4 Pro

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