SafeSleep lets you use safe sleep on demand on your Mac
Editor's note: This app is no longer being developed or supported by the original developer.
If you've ever wanted more control over Apple's "safe sleep" mode, the free SafeSleep.app from Side Tree Software is for you.
If you've never heard of it before, you might be wondering what "safe sleep" is (but if you have heard of it, you can skip the next couple paragraphs). When the battery on one of Apple's notebook computers (including the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and some late-model PowerBooks) is very low, OS X will put the machine into what Apple calls "safe sleep" mode. This is similar to standard sleep, except the contents of the RAM are completely written to the hard drive and all power shuts down. You can even remove the battery while the machine is in safe sleep. To wake the computer from safe sleep, press the power button on the computer. A progress bar will display (startup will be noticeably slower than a normal wake from sleep), then your computer will be restored to how it was before safe sleep was invoked.
This feature is called "hibernation" in the Windows world, and it's one of the very few features I missed when I switched from Windows to Mac. (The other big one was how Windows deals with moving files, which can be replicated on the Mac side using moveAddict.) One of the nice things that Windows computers have is the ability to choose to hibernate when you are shutting down the machine. For years, I never turned my Windows laptop off; I only hibernated. Unfortunately, Apple has not made that feature available to Mac users.
That's where SafeSleep.app comes in. When you launch the app, it displays several options. The one I'm most excited about is "Safe Sleep Now," which lets me choose safe sleep without having to change the way the Mac usually works. I can still just close the lid for normal sleep (or choose it from the window above), but if I want to make sure to trigger safe sleep, it's now much easier to do.
"Always use Safe Sleep" will tell the computer to never use the normal, faster sleep mode. If you choose that and want to change it back later, select "Only Safe Sleep in Emergencies." You can also totally disable safe sleep; this isn't recommended for obvious reasons, but if you're willing to take the risk, disabling it can make the process of putting your Mac into "normal sleep" faster.
Although safe sleep was designed for portable Macs, you can also use it on desktop Macs. At night, I use safe sleep on my iMac because, otherwise, it seems to wake from "normal sleep" on its own. A word of caution, however: be sure to unmount any external drives that are connected to your Mac before entering safe sleep. Even if they remain physically attached to the Mac, OS X thinks that the disk was ejected without being unmounted, which is something you want to avoid. Physically connected drives will automatically be remounted when the machine wakes from safe sleep.
SafeSleep is free and can be downloaded from MacUpdate.
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Editor's note: This app is no longer being developed or supported by the original developer. If you've ever wanted more control over...
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According to their website, the SafeSleep program is discontinued. It's interested that it is just making the news here on TUAW :)
October 21 2010 at 12:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYeah, I also noticed the date on the app is 2007, it was developed for OS 10.4, and the author hasn't tested it on 10.6. I really think TJ Luoma should mention these very relevant facts before recommending this application (or if TJ tested it on 10.6, that would be important info to mention in the article). I always thought TUAW did more homework before making a recommendation...
October 21 2010 at 10:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replythe reason why hibernation even exists on windows computers is because for a very very long time MS could not figure out how to keep computer in sleep mode while requiring very little power. This could be potentially due to the fact that windows computers still use BIOS but I very much doubt that. You are right that the safe sleep mode should be user visible but it should come up when you press command key or something like that. It is very rare that you would really need to use safe sleep and you would never choose safe sleep over regular sleep if you had the option. Safe sleep takes long time to sleep and long time to wake up. Sleep on the other hand is near instant.
October 21 2010 at 4:54 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI've been using Deep Sleep 1.2. It's a dashboard widget that allows you to put your computer into hibernation mode. I like it because it doesn't change the basic functionality of pressing the power button so I still have standard sleep mode available and it's easy to access. You can even change the type of sleep modes and how to access them from within the widget.
Oh, and it's free too!
Check'em out!
http://deepsleep.free.fr
Add my vote to Deep Sleep. I've been using it for years, and it's very convenient. As user onemeangato pointed out, it keeps the functionality of pressing the power button to do a regular sleep and it's easy to reach via Dashboard. Highly recommended.
October 21 2010 at 6:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis seems like it might come in handy for any Hackintosh users with motherboards which don't seem to want to play nice with OS X's power management. Mine will go into what it thinks is sleep mode, but the hard drives and fans will keep spinning, and the machine can't be woken up afterwards — it has to be hard-rebooted, defeating the point of a "sleep" mode. I'll try this out and see if it saves me having to shut all the way down every night (if I *wanted* to be in the habit of doing that, I'd just use Windows, right?).
October 21 2010 at 2:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWell, no go on that. It just started up normally this morning, leaving a 2½ GB sleep image behind on my primary drive. Maybe next time I start up, I'll look at the available startup options (i.e. -v for verbose startup, -x for safe mode) and see if there's one that makes it look for a sleep image to resume from.
October 21 2010 at 12:59 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply1) For a long time, you could put your Mac laptop to sleep (not hibernate/safe sleep), swap batteries, then wake it up again, no problem.
2) You can boot from a FireWire drive, put the laptop to sleep, disconnect the FireWire drive, reconnect it, then wake it up without a problem.
I believe that portable Macs will enter safe sleep as soon as you put them to sleep. The contents of RAM will always be transferred, and the Mac then enters standard sleep mode.
Just so if the battery dies or power is yanked while a batteryless MacBook is sleeping, it resumes when you can get power back.
I agree. I think the default when closing the lid on MacBooks is safesleep.
October 21 2010 at 12:56 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI believe traveling with a laptop in sleep mode can be a problem with the hard drive. Vibrations can destroy the hard drive. That is one of the advantages of SSD drives. First of all, is this right? If you put the laptop to safe sleep, is it safer for your hard drive?
October 20 2010 at 9:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI've had the same problems with my iMac. This is exactly what I have been looking for! Thanks!
October 20 2010 at 9:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf you have Bluetooth accessories, be sure to go to System Preferences » Bluetooth » Advanced and UNcheck the box next to "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer."
Once you've done that, you'll have to press the power button to wake your iMac. A little more of a hassle, but much nicer than waking up with the iMac screen illuminating the bedroom.
I've been using a different app (actually, a preference pane) called SmartSleep, which is excellent.... no menus, etc. Just set it up once, and you're good to go.
http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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