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Comment by jbergknoff | Hacker News Reader

I recently got an external monitor for my work Macbook. I plugged it in and soon found out that closing the laptop doesn't put it to sleep anymore. I can kind of see why somebody would want this behavior in some situations. I can't at all see why this would be the default, or why there would be no way to toggle the behavior.

> I continue to be disappointed with Apple's desktop experience.

Same here.

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> and soon found out that closing the laptop doesn't put it to sleep anymore

I'm fairly sure this has never been the case, or at least not for a very long time. As a long time Macbook user with external display, the expected behavior of closing the lid is to keep the laptop running as if the external monitor is the main display.

Isn’t that called clamshell mode? If so it’s been that way for years. Easy to change IIRC also.

At least going back to the original MacBook. The one with the 10GB hard drive, around 2001-ish, did this.

It's a feature, not a bug.

For myself, I expect to be able to close the laptop and continue using the external display.

Why? Maybe if there is an external keyboard and mouse, but even then it seems bad. As the default it seems counter productive -- closing a laptop should do the same thing regardless of peripherals, unless you specify otherwise.

I'm a fan of consistent behavior, but actually I'm on the side of not sleeping with a display plugged in. Going to sleep when there are no peripherals plugged in is only a sane default because there's no way to actually use the device with no access to the keyboard/mouse/screen.

OTOH, one can still reasonably use a closed laptop if it has a display plugged in, so closing the lid no longer implies an intent to stop using it. Because of this alone, going to sleep in this context might not be the most sane default.

Some examples of when I've personally closed a laptop with the screen plugged in without wanting it to sleep:

* Working at a desk where the laptop doesn't fit with the lid open * Starting a video when connected to a TV in a dark room, where the laptop's screen is a distracting source of light

I'm not saying it shouldn't be possible, just that it shouldn't be the default.

Mac laptops have done this for at least 18 years, probably longer. That's the way they're designed, and how they are used by many people.

Then why is anyone complaining about it? I mean, it seems like a silly default to me, but if it's expected then I'm on the wrong side of what to expect it seems.

For thermal reasons this used to not be possible, and probably still isn’t on older hardware.

Power + mouse + display = docking station.

you can turn this off.

system settings -> power adapter -> 1. option

I've run into https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an... so I need to use clamshell mode.

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