Why Does my iMac Turn Itself on at Midnight?
I was out late the other night, and when I got home around midnight, I walked into in my home office before I headed off to bed. All was quiet. Then, I heard a sudden but familiar brief whooshing sound from the direction of my desk. I instinctively turned my head.
My iMac was booting up as if Skynet had taken over.
It was pretty freaky.
I glanced over at my Marathon clock that was positioned close to my iMac, and it eerily displayed 12:00am… on the dot.
Hmmm. That was interesting.
I took a breath and looked at my clock again. I felt that this clearly wasn’t some random moment where my iMac had decided to misbehave.
Turn Off the Schedule Mode
Was there a hidden setting in my iMac’s System Preferences that was telling my iMac to independently boot up?
I took a look, and in fact… there was. My iMac was ‘scheduled’ to turn itself on at midnight.
So, here’s what I did to turn that off:
- Click on System Preferences
- Click on ‘Energy Saver’
- Click on ‘Schedule’ on the bottom right
- Unclick ‘Start up or wake’
(which had defaulted to 12:00am)
Problem solved.
Living with your Gremlins
I suppose the lingering question is why that scheduled action was clicked in the first place.
I certainly hadn’t done it.
It’s an issue for another time.
For now, my iMac should behave…as directed.
Thank you, HAL.