Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Andrew Broughton

Andrew Broughton

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Feb 2, 2011
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I'm not a Mac guy, so maybe this is really easy, I don't know...

We need to be able to press the power button on a Mac mini and have it shut down normally with no dialogs or keyboard input needed but not be a forced shutdown like when you press and hold the power button.
Piece of cake on Windows so there must be a way to do this in OSX as well?


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Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Unfortunately, the power button isn't designed to do a graceful shutdown without additional presses on the keyboard. The power button can be used to put the machine to sleep, it can be used to bring up the shut down dialogue box, or it can be used to force shut down the computer.

Now, there may be hack software that could be put on the machine to interpret the power button press and initiate a power shutdown, but I've never been able to find any.
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Do you actually want it triggered by pressing the button, or automated in some other way?

If you want to do it from QLab or something, use a Script cue which does something from this page...

http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...-command-to-shutdown-restart-and-sleep-my-mac

I tried the first one (osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to shut down') and it worked fine, at least from a Terminal (2012 Mac Mini with OS X 10.10.2)
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

OK, that cut-and-paste didn't work, but you get the idea.

You can also schedule the machine to shut itself down (or at least, put itself to sleep) at a particular time every day, in System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Schedule...
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Ideally, having it shut down from a power button press (there are no other controls on a Mac Mini) is what I'm looking for, but it sounds like that's a no-go.

Is there a hotkey that does a shutdown with no confirmation keypress needed?
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Really ? When I try to shut down my XP machines, virtual or otherwise they insist on presenting a dialog box demanding to know if i want to sleep, shutdown, hibernate, shit in the woods. Worse yet I can't select an option with the keyboard like I can with the MAc I have to click in the box. PITA with one of those IBM eraser button things.

Andrew Broughton said:
Thanks. Strange that there's no setting to make the power button perform a normal shutdown. +1 for Windows in this case... ;-)
Click to expand...
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Riley Casey said:
Really ? When I try to shut down my XP machines, virtual or otherwise they insist on presenting a dialog box demanding to know if i want to sleep, shutdown, hibernate, shit in the woods. Worse yet I can't select an option with the keyboard like I can with the MAc I have to click in the box. PITA with one of those IBM eraser button things.
Click to expand...

On Windows (and certain other operating systems), you can configure the behavior of the power button. The default is to bring up the menu, but that can be changed.
 
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Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Andrew Broughton said:
Ideally, having it shut down from a power button press (there are no other controls on a Mac Mini) is what I'm looking for, but it sounds like that's a no-go.

Is there a hotkey that does a shutdown with no confirmation keypress needed?
Click to expand...

Command-Option-Control-Power may do what you want.
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Andrew,

A quick Google search of "Mac Mini power button shutdown" brought up this link, which looks promising. It's a bit old, but might give some insight.
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Andrew Broughton said:
Maybe? Again, I'm not a Mac expert, so someone would have to walk me through it if they know how to do that.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I've had a Mac Mini in an 01v96 rack for years that I just pulled the plug on it when I want to shut down. I also had it set up to "restart after power failure" so it starts as soon as power is applied, and I put Studio Manager and itunes in the startup folder so they would be open and ready as soon as it was done booting. I only use it "headless". By the time I have my tablet out and fired up, the Mini is ready to go...

I know everybody will balk at this, but it's been fine for years doing it that way...
 
Re: Mac Experts - how to make a mini shut down gracefully with the power button

Hi Andrew,

This thread contains the script that you can copy and paste into your AppleScript to Automate shutdown: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2503263?tstart=0

This freeware will remap your power button to run the script: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/44324/powerblock

EDIT: That last script may still allow prompts to pop up and interrupt the shutdown. You could try this one instead: https://github.com/The-AJ26/The-Ultimate-Applescript-Shutdown-App/blob/master/RAW APPLESCRIPT CODE
 
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