Lock Mac without turning off the screen

Question

I have observed that the screen on my MacBook Pro turns off a few seconds after I activate lock screen.

Is there any way to keep the screen of my MacBook Pro on for an unlimited duration of time after I lock the screen? Or at least an hour as a workaround.

Thank you, same question. Surprisingly little info out there about this. It seems to turn off after 10 seconds of locking the screen by default. — Matt, Feb 14 '19 at 16:24

Nimesh Neema · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-31T20:43:01.073

27

KeepingYouAwake is a free and open source app that can be used for this purpose.

The intended purpose of this app is to prevent your Mac from going into sleep. You can activate this app from 5/15/30 minutes to 1/2/5 hours to indefinite duration.

Having KeepingYouAwake activated will prevent screen from turning off when lock screen mode is activated.

KeepingYouAwake can be easily installed using Homebrew by running the following command:

brew install --cask keepingyouawake

edited Jan 31 '22 at 20:43

answered Aug 13 '18 at 10:22

Nimesh Neema

51,809

2

Brilliant! It works! – r_metal Aug 13 '18 at 11:10
1

Works, thank you! Make sure the cup is lit up (activated), I thought it wasn't working until I clicked on the icon. – Matt Feb 14 '19 at 16:25
1

I did it with with brew install keepingyouawake. – Muhamed Huseinbašić Feb 06 '21 at 16:38
The new syntax should be brew install --cask keepingyouawake – Ondrej Skalicka Jan 31 '22 at 13:56
You can also use the built in macOS command caffeinate, which has different but similar options. – calum_b May 23 '22 at 07:56

drmaa · Answer 2 · 2022-05-22T23:25:29.160

4

I had the same problem, I used the free app Amphetamine from the app store. After installing, I selected the indefinitely option to keep the screen for awake forever. I locked the screen and the screen is still on.

edited May 22 '22 at 23:25

answered Sep 18 '19 at 15:11

drmaa

211

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered May 30 '23 at 04:24

Posting @calum_b and @abhishek-kashyap answer here. This information deserves to be in the answers section not in comments. This is the way to do it without installing any package. Utilizes a built-in macOS utility.

 caffeinate -d

Here is the manual: https://ss64.com/osx/caffeinate.html

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 25 '20 at 00:47

On Mojave 10.14, I try this

Install Caffeine to activate for indefinitely.
In 'System Preference'->'Security & Privacy'->'General', check 'Require password...' and set to 1 minutes (anything that is not 'immediately')
In 'System Preference'->'Energy Saver', set 'Turn display off..' to never and check 'Prevent computer from sleeping...'
using screen saver activated by 'System Preference'->'Desktop & Screen Saver'->'Screen Saver'->'Hot Corners' and set one of the corner to start screen saver.

Then, activate the screen saver by moving mouse to the chosen corner.

This seems to help me.

You can also just use the built in macOS command caffeinate, which has similar options. — calum_b, May 23 '22 at 07:56

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 19 '23 at 07:15

Hey everyone I know I'm late here but I just switched from a macbook pro (where this issue doesnt exist) to a mac studio and this thing keeps going to sleep after 30 seconds when I lock the screen.

@takobaba answer helped me a lot but, adding an & at the end allows it to run in the background so you dont need to keep a terminal window open

full command is caffeinate -d &

now just need a way to run this on startup and we are golden.

Lock Mac without turning off the screen

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