Prevent the Mac from going into sleep mode during transfers

[cloudres]

Hi everyone, I need to transfer several hundred GB to my online storage. What is the best way to keep the computer running, but without keeping the screen active? I would like to have it work overnight, but without wearing out the screen. Setting the brightness to the lowest level might be a solution? Alternatively, I could leave it working every time I'm at the computer, but this could take one or more weeks, which I would like to avoid. Thanks to those who want to share their experience.

[Rich]

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@cloudres wrote:

What is the best way to keep the computer running, but without keeping the screen active?

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Dropbox doesn't control any of that, so you would need to look to your OS for such options. I'm not a Mac user so I don't know what options are available to you, but doesn't your OS have power settings that you can use to control when the screen turns off and when the computer goes to sleep?

[cloudres]

On Mac, unfortunately, when the screen goes into standby, the system also stops. At that point, the synchronizations of DropBox stop working. Currently, the only solution I have found is to disable the stop timer and turn off the monitor manually. This way, the system remains active and the synchronization never stops.

[Megan]

Hi @cloudres, thanks for posting here! 

As Rich said, this would have to do with your OS, however what I personally do is to also lower my brightness to the lowest level when I need to keep the app running, in order to sync content. 

In any case, I am going to keep this thread open, so others can also contribute and share their tips and tricks on this. 

If you need anything else, let me know!

[BSTARD]

heyo, so I'm having a similar issue and was reading this thread for some clues, I;ve also been in contact with Dropbox tech support and Apple tech support and finally got an answer from Apple tech support that may solve the issue.

Under my 'energy saver' system preferences I had 'Wake for network access' switched off. This means that when the display turns off, even though I've told the Mac not to sleep while the display is off, it is still shutting down the network activity and killing my dropbox upload.

So I'm trying again but with 'Wake for Network activity' switched to YES. I'm just reporting this while I have your thread open because I'm likely to close this window and never come back to it,. Cheers.

[cloudres]

Hmm, hate to rain on the parade, but that's something I've already tried. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Dropbox doesn't have that kind of "power." Maybe iCloud Drive does. But definitely not Dropbox. Don't ask me why.