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Is there a command to find the date and time at which a Macintosh computer last entered the sleep mode?

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You can use the pmset command to obtain this information. The following command obtains a log of the sleep/wake entries then restricts this to the last entry in the list which should be the most recent sleep:

pmset -g log | grep sleep | tail -n 1

You can obviously play around with anything after pmset -g log to give you what you need.

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  • 2
    hey thanks that worked! just changed the grep command to grep -2 sleep to get the line with the date and time.
    – newenglander
    May 24 '12 at 18:24
  • Oh yes, now that's what I'm talking about. Precise sleep info and not some log file grepping hoping to catch a hint of sleep. :-)
    – bmike ♦
    May 24 '12 at 21:40
  • grep sleep might also match other lines. Something like pmset -g log | grep -E '^.{24} sleep ' should probably be used in scripts.
    – Lri
    May 25 '12 at 9:29
  • @Lri Agreed. I did lash the original command up in about 5 seconds and is also why I added the last sentence ;-) Thanks for the correction.
    – binarybob
    May 25 '12 at 9:38
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    This worked for me on 10.11.5: pmset -g log | grep "Display is turned off" | tail -1
    – rgajrawala
    Jul 1 '16 at 20:42
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Actually, something like

pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep  " -e " Wake  "

is what really gives me a clean timeline of sleep/wake events on 10.8.2. powerd does not log anything about it, at least on my system (10.8.2, MacBook Pro Retina 15).

02/03/13 19:48:37 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs   
02/03/13 19:49:03 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              27 secs   
02/03/13 19:49:30 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs   
02/03/13 19:49:56 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs   
02/03/13 19:50:22 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs   
02/03/13 19:50:48 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs   
02/03/13 19:51:14 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             1802 secs 
02/03/13 20:39:17 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:100%)                           244 secs  
02/03/13 20:43:21 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             51 secs   
02/03/13 21:07:17 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:100%)                           242 secs  
02/03/13 21:11:19 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             1103 secs 
02/03/13 21:29:42 GMT-03 Wake       Wake due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using AC (Charge:100%)                     
03/03/13 00:00:26 GMT-03 Sleep      Idle Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:85%)                                   96 secs   
03/03/13 00:02:02 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:85%)                              38 secs   
03/03/13 00:02:40 GMT-03 Wake       Wake due to EHC1/HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:85%)                        4338 secs 
03/03/13 01:14:58 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         48382 secs
03/03/13 14:41:20 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            728 secs  
03/03/13 14:53:28 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         415 secs  
03/03/13 15:00:23 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            718 secs  
03/03/13 15:12:21 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         156 secs  
03/03/13 15:14:57 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            834 secs  
03/03/13 15:28:51 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         378 secs 
03/03/13 15:35:09 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)
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  • This is great, ta!!
    – Ashutosh Jindal
    Dec 31 '14 at 0:29
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    Use pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep " -e " Wake " -e " DarkWake " for all wakes including DarkWake's
    – Tieme
    Nov 9 '15 at 17:24
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    @Tieme, pldg, How do I get more records? It only shows 2 weeks.
    – Pacerier
    Oct 1 '17 at 23:58
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    Best answer, accepted didn't work for me. 2016 Macbook.
    – digout
    Apr 12 '18 at 5:35
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You can also use pmset -g log | grep LidOpen if you want to know when the lid of your MacBook was opened.

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  • 1
    What about for lid closed?
    – Devin Rhode
    Dec 5 '18 at 18:20
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    MacBooks enter sleep mode 15 seconds after the lid is closed. You can see when your machine entered sleep mode due to closing the lid with the command pmset -g log | grep 'Clamshell Sleep'. Subtract 15 seconds to get the exact time the lid was closed.
    – SomeDude
    Dec 6 '18 at 8:31
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    On MacOs High Sierra 10.13 pmset -g log | grep -e "Display is turned on"
    – max4ever
    Mar 13 '19 at 10:43
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There may be a more efficient way to get the exact last time, but on lion you can search for powerd entries in /private/var/log/system.log

If you like terminal, something like grep powerd /private/var/log/system.log works well. The Console app also has a nice search ability to filter these logs.

If there was no sleep event since the last time the the log file rolled over, you can use Console or bzgrep instead of grep to search the system.log.*.bz2 files.

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  • I don't get any results for powerd in any of the system logs, could I be missing some setting for logging powerd activities?
    – newenglander
    May 24 '12 at 17:41
  • If you sleep and wake and that doesn't show, then you might just look at the file at the exact time you slept the mac to see the messages your mac is making.
    – bmike ♦
    May 24 '12 at 21:39
  • @bmike, How to see the time of the last screen password-unlock? (not sleep/unsleep)
    – Pacerier
    Mar 30 '18 at 11:12

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