Over the past year Apple has really pushed their products as being environmentally friendly. They have redesigned their notebook lineup and made a number of changes to help in this cause. Their advertising department has taken advantage of these strategic moves and have pushed forward their “Green” marketing campaign.
If you don’t have the cash flow or replacing your current Mac isn’t a high priority there are still other little things that you can do to help reduce your Mac’s energy consumption.
Energy Saver
System Preferences Energy Saver options will allow you to setup your Mac that uses less energy based on your use patterns.
- Open System Preferences
- Select Energy Saver
- Drag the “Put Computer to Sleep When it is inactive” to the lowest time that makes sense to the way you use your Mac.
- Check the “Put the hard disks(s) to sleep when possible” option
Making these adjustments will reduce the power used and put your computer to a sleep state when not in use a few minutes earlier than before.
Active Screen Corners
In addition to setting the system settings to put the Mac to sleep earlier than before you can also take advantage of Active Screen Corners to reduce your energy use.
- Open System Preferences
- Select Expose & Spaces
- On the Expose Tab locate one of the corners under “Active Screen Corners” and set it to Sleep Display.
- close out of System Preferences
Now, you can quickly set your display to sleep when you know you’ll be leaving your Mac for a while. Move your mouse to the corner you selected for “Sleep Display” and after a second or two your monitor will turn off.
Let us know if you have other energy saving tips for our Mac use.
