I am on Mac mini M1 with OSX 11.6.4. I live in an area where occasional blackouts occur especially during winter. In order to avoid dirty shutdowns and abrupt power loss to my Mac I've purchased APC UPS with data port support. It's a usb cable from UPS to Mac to signal if there is a power loss to automatically shut it down using built-in tools. The UPS will provide a runtime between 15-30min at most. I did not buy it to work during blackouts but rather to allow time for clean shutdown. I've opted for UPS for a bit more running time in case there is a task such as an update or in case Mac draws more power than usual.
What concerns me is the following. Sometimes apps would prevent Mac from shutting down. I have configured my Mac to shutdown during the night. However, in a number of instances, an app, such as Visual Studio Code or iTerm would prevent that from happening. I know that someone will suggest a workaround to manually close apps before leaving the Mac, but it has 2 major disadvantages:
- user error: one can easily forget to close active apps, especially after a long-day
- inconvenience: if I need to leave my Mac during the day, it would be super inconvenient to close all apps and re-open them, plus it ties with previous point where if something urgent comes up, one will easily forget to close all running apps
My question:
Does anyone know or can confirm how Mac will shutdown when entering a battery mode in UPS and when one of the thresholds for shutting down is reached?
My concern is that if it is a request rather than forced shutdown, and an actively running app will prevent a shutdown, the Mac will continue to run on UPS battery until it is drained and dirty/abrupt power loss occurs.