App Nap is a feature introduced in OS X 10.9 Mavericks and has helped to boost battery life for portable Macs as well as reduce power consumption for the non-portable variety. While the feature is pretty great, sometimes App Nap can mess with your apps and put them to sleep when you don’t want them to be. If you need to turn off App Nap, it can be done on a per-app basis by viewing app information, but that’s not a good holistic approach if you’re trying to get if off for good.
With a little work, you can shut down App Nap across the board and make your apps behave more like they did in OS X 10.8 and below. Interested? Here’s how to turn off App Nap for all applications in OS X.
Turn Off App Nap on a Per-App Basis
Before showing you how to turn off App Nap completely, you may just want to disable it on one app at a time, which is perfect if only one app is giving you trouble. to turn off App Nap on a per-app basis, find the app you want it turned off for and right-click on it. In the right-click menu, choose Get Info.
With the Info window open, you should see a checkbox that says Prevent App Nap. Check it and close the window. Now that app won’t take a nap when not in use. Note that this checkbox only shows up for App Nap-enabled applications.
Now that you know how to turn App Nap on on a per-app basis, let’s look at turning it off entirely.
Turn Off App Nap for All Applications
Disabling App Nap for a single app is pretty easy and straightforward, but to do it across the board, you need to use Terminal to get the job done.
Open up Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and copy/paste the following command, hitting Return when you’re done.
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES
Once the command runs, you can quit Terminal and relaunch each app you have open, including any running in the OS X Toolbar.
Unlike when you turn off App Nap in the info window, there’s no proof that the process was done correctly that’s easily visible. If the command ran successfully in Terminal it will definitely disable App Nap across the board, but if you want to check it for yourself, open up Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) and click on the Energy tab.
As you can see, every app says No to App Nap. This means it’s shut off completely.
Enable App Nap
If you decide that you would rather have App Nap on, all you have to do is copy.paste this command into Terminal and hit Return. Once the command runs, relaunch all running apps and things will be back to normal.
defaults delete NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled
Now that you know a little more about turning App Nap on and off, hopefully you can get your Mac working a little closer to exactly how you want it to.
