Should you shut down your Mac every night?

What are the advantages of putting a Mac to sleep rather than shutting it down? We explain what each method has to offer.

- MARTYN CASSERLY

While Windows users often close down their PCs at the W end of the day, those with Macs tend to leave them on indefinitely. Many Mac users engage in this behavior because they want to pick up where they left off, but also because experience has shown them that Macs tend to cope well with this kind of behavior-probably because Apple has designed macOS and Macs to be very efficient in terms of energy use and performance. But is this a good idea?

There are three options open to every user when they've finished using the computer for the day: Leave it on, put it to sleep or turn it off. Want to know which one to choose? Read on.

DO I NEED TO SHUT DOWN MY MAC OR MACBOOK?

Over time, processes and apps can clog up your RAM and cause performance to drop slightly, especially on older Macs. As a result if it's been a few days since you last shut down your Mac, you may feel like your Mac is slowing down or not working optimally.

You can rectify this by closing and relaunching apps, shutting down some of those copious browser tabs you have open, or rebooting your Mac.

macOS does a good job of managing memory use, but sometimes the only way to really give your device the clean slate it needs is to shut it down and start it up once more. This will clear out the RAM and allow some processes that might have become stuck to get going once more.

It's also the case that some updates can only be applied when you reboot your Mac, so turning your Mac off and on again every so often will ensure that everything is working as it should.

But how often should you shut down?

SHOULD I TURN OFF MY MAC AT NIGHT?