I have a late 2012 iMac. I use to shut it down with the `shutdown` command, in order to be able to delay the shutting down. Here's how I use it: sudo shutdown -h +30 # shuts down in 30 mins sudo shutdown -h 04:00 # shuts down at the next 04:00 AM sudo shutdown -h 1304302100 # shuts down on 04/30/2013 at 09:00 PM I noticed that the latter two options don't work every time for me. Since I'm sure I entered the right time/date, what could prevent my Mac from shutting down? I set it to **never** go into stop, and to lock the screen after 30 mins of inactivity. I'm on 10.8.3. ## Little edit Just a few minutes after I wrote this question, my Mac shut down unexpectedly (where I am now it was 03:40 PM. I never set this time anywhere. Yesterday night I set it to `shutdown -h 04:00` and it was about 03:00AM. This is becoming strange. ## Little edit #2 After suggestions from the comments, I looked at `system.log` and I found this (where `ironmac` is my user - original uh? - and `Andreas-iMac` is the name of my computer). Apr 30 02:33:28 Andreas-iMac.local sudo[32613]: ironmac : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/ironmac/Dropbox ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/sbin/shutdown -h 04:00 Apr 30 15:41:26 Andreas-iMac.local shutdown[32620]: halt by ironmac: Apr 30 15:41:26 Andreas-iMac.local shutdown[32620]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1367329286 508163 You can see the `shutdown` command was received and scheduled, but the shutdown time seems to be random.