You can finally remotely power on a Mac, even if it shut down normally! Things I referenced in this video (some links are affiliate links): - Apple's support article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/125517 - ThirdReality Zigbee Smart Outlet: https://amzn.to/4vxuhse - How I set up my power monitoring in Home Assistant: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/how-i-monitor-and-control-all-my-powered-devices-zigbee-ha/ - How to log into a Mac with SSH before FileVault is unlocked: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/you-can-finally-manage-macs-filevault-remotely-tahoe/ - 9to5Mac Article about the feature: https://9to5mac.com/2026/05/11/macos-26-5-adds-new-way-to-control-your-macs-power-state-via-switches/ - Reddit comment where I found this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1txnj04/comment/opyd44t/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/geerlingguy Sponsor me on GitHub: https://github.com/sponsors/geerlingguy Merch: https://www.redshirtjeff.com 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GeerlingEngineering 3rd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Level2Jeff Contents: 00:00 - What it's not 00:44 - Why this feature is actually useful 02:00 - Zigbee power control 03:26 - macOS's new power setting 04:38 - Remote access with FileVault 06:09 - Potential security hole 07:41 - I found a bug 09:36 - prodigalAvian
ADVERTISEMENT
200 watt in idle - heavy european breathing
Apple really does have inferior remote management capabilities. Which is frustrating considering its Unix heritage.
If Apple ever gets to build Terminator robots I am pretty sure they will have their power buttons in a hole in their feet.
Funny thing is Apple used to have this feature on many Macs model back in 90s, from mac II to powermac by just lock-on the power button (either by key on some Quadra models or by twisting power button) which is auto startup Mac when power applied.
A few notes after reading through your excellent comments: 1. If you use 'performance' mode in Screen Sharing, your session does get locked when closing out. Apparently the default mode I was using has regular VNC and doesn't lock. 2. Wake on LAN on *Macs* has never supported "cold boot", only sleep states. I think a lot of people coming from the PC side think "Wake on LAN" means both cold boot and sleep wake, but that's not the case in Apple-dom. 3. I will probably add in an ESP32 with ESPHome and solder to the power button inside the Xserve, or use an IP KVM with ATX power control to control its switch. I could use a Switchbot on the power button, but that would ruin the nice front aesthetic :)
Wow. That's one heck of a security oversight :00.
It would have been so easy for them to implement this on the last few Intel Macs, since they already contained an embedded low-power system (like the T2).
Thing I love about Jeff’s videos is simplicity focusing only and purely on content no AI no unnecessary content just simplicity!
7:00 Honestly, remote desktop being somewhat of a problem with both linux and macos shows how great of a job Microsoft did with the RDP protocol, that thing has been rock solid for decades with none of these issues
7:00 similar behavior to VNC (versus Remote Desktop) on Windows. I used to be a surveillance technician, and the monitor walls in the surveillance room were managed remotely. Using Remote Desktop to manage them always resulted in a logged-out user state on the monitors, thereby resulting in a monitor wall with a bunch of login screens rather than camera feeds. The answer was to manage the monitor wall PCs via VNC, so that when you close the VNC connection, the monitor wall stays logged in and the camera feeds don't disappear. This can also be an issue when remotely managing a device that's supposed to be in Kiosk mode - you (probably) don't want the kiosk to display a login screen when you're done managing it remotely!
7:29. I think when you remote into a Mac, you should hit a virtual terminal, that doesn't physically activate any monitor output at all.
Wonder why only 2024 Macminis and later. Why not older M series macs.
9:24 Sounds like Apple needs to bring back the “-u” option for the shutdown command. That would properly shut down the Mac as far as the OS was concerned, but would simulate a “dirty shutdown” that would result in the Mac turning back on when power was restored. Very useful when you’ve got a machine on a UPS. The -u option was apparently removed in macOS 14.4.
I installed hundreds of Xserve’s back in the day. I bitched to the Apple server team for years about Lights Out Management (LOM). I don’t know why it took a processor change to make it happen. At least we got it eventually.
2:39 You have remote control for "Sun"? This is amazing. Do not forget to turn it on and off every day.
y'all get copy/paste yet?
I let it log in automatically, then also run a script to start the screen saver on login, and require a password immediately on start of screen saver. It solved my problems right there !
That last bit is probably why every x86 system has the power on on power setting inside the BIOS. That way things aren’t handled at the OS level.
Based on the thumbnail I assumed they finally let you unplug the power cable of the Mac without it voiding warranty or something ridiculous.
9:03 I don't think it's an edge case. I could totally see someone plugging it in, then shutting down from the lock screen right after they boot it up. That means the feature has inconsistent behavior so it's kind of pointless in its current state imo, at least for how I'd use it. If I have to tell people not to shut down in a certain way, it's much easier to tell them not to shut down at all.