Back to normal in the morning
Wake your Mac and the brightness and volume are back where they were, with everything still open.
Mac sleep timer
Nightcap is a free Mac sleep timer. Pick 30, 60 or 90 minutes, and your MacBook slowly dims, turns the sound down and goes to sleep on its own.
macOS doesn't come with a sleep timer, and it won't sleep while a video is playing, so the show you doze off to can run all night.
Free and open source. For Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 11 or later.
It fades out like a TV
Twenty minutes before the end, the screen starts to dim. Five minutes later, the volume starts to come down. Your show trails off instead of stopping with a jolt.
By the time your Mac sleeps, you're unlikely to notice.
Two clicks from the menu bar
Click the moon and choose 15, 30, 45 or 90 minutes or 1 hour. The time left shows next to the moon.
Still awake when the screen dims? Choose +15 Minutes from the same menu.
No Terminal, no password
The built-in workaround is typing sudo shutdown -s +60 into Terminal. It asks for your administrator password, shows no countdown, and cuts the sound off at full volume.
Nightcap needs none of that.
Any length you like
Type a custom length from 1 minute to 12 hours. Nightcap remembers it for next time.
Free and private
No account, no subscription and no ads. It works offline, and the code is open source.
Fall asleep to your show tonight
Open the file and drag Nightcap into Applications. The first time you open it, macOS asks you to allow it in Privacy & Security. Here's how.
More ways to use Nightcap
- Mac shutdown timerShut down your Mac on a timer without typing Terminal commands.
- Windows sleep timerSleep, hibernate or shut down a Windows 11 or 10 PC after a set time.
- Linux sleep timerSuspend your Linux computer on a timer, with a tray icon and a fade.
- Netflix sleep timerFall asleep to Netflix, YouTube or Spotify without it playing all night.
- Shutdown Timer Classic alternativeHow Nightcap compares with Shutdown Timer Classic, Wise Auto Shutdown and Sleepr.