Keep Your Mac Awake for Remote Access, Even With the Lid Closed

The one thing remote access cannot fix is a Mac that has gone to sleep. Here is how to stop that.

Keep Mac awake

Stops idle sleep and display sleep while Peering is running, with no system permission to grant. It is lifted automatically when Peering quits, so you cannot forget it on. It does not survive the lid being shut; the fourth switch is the one that does.

Keep it awake only between these hours

If you only need the Mac during the working day, give it hours. Outside them it sleeps as it normally would, which saves power overnight.

Wake it up every day

Once a Mac has slept, nothing can reach it until something wakes it. This switch schedules a daily wake, so a Mac that did fall asleep comes back on its own at a time you choose.

Keep running with the lid closed

A MacBook normally sleeps the moment its lid shuts. macOS only lets an app change that through pmset, so Peering asks for your administrator password once. While it is on, the Mac does not sleep at all: leave it on a desk in the open air rather than shut in a bag. It is undone when Peering quits, and repaired at the next launch if Peering was force quit instead.

Waking a Mac on the same network

When your iPhone is on the same network as the Mac, the app can send a Wake on LAN packet to wake it before you connect. That packet is a local broadcast and does not cross the internet, which is why the switches above matter when you are away.

Check macOS's own setting too

If macOS itself is set never to sleep (in Energy Saver or Battery settings, "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off"), that wins over everything here: the Mac stays awake whatever Peering's switches say. Peering points this out when it notices it.

Then reach it from anywhere

With the Mac awake, pair your iPhone once on your home network and it will find the Mac from anywhere after that. Access your Mac from anywhere explains how the connection works.