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Mavericks changed the behavior of my MacBook Air's power key to put the Air to sleep immediately when pressed briefly. Prior to Mavericks, the power key would summon the Shut Down dialog.

As detailed in OS X Mavericks: Using the power button, holding the key for 1.5 seconds brings up the old Shut Down dialog, and holding for 5 seconds will shut down unconditionally. Holding control while pressing the power key will also bring up the Shut Down dialog.

Is there any way to restore the old, pre-Mavericks behavior as a preference? I'm used to using the power key to get the Shut Down dialog and seem to not be able to retrain myself particularly effectively.

Mattie
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3 Answers3

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Since Mac OS 10.9.2 you can go back to something close to the pre-Mavericks behavior easily.

Type in terminal:
defaults write com.apple.loginwindow PowerButtonSleepsSystem -bool no

It's not exactly the same, since you still need to press the button for 1 sec. But if you press the button accidentally, the shut down dialog is not going to appear.

Note: if you want to go back to the Mavericks behavior, juste change no to yes.

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André Rodrigues
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The file to change would be /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist (cf this AD post)

In Lion/Mountain Lion we had a key Power Button. Unfortunately it's not recognized anymore. I'm pessimistic about restoring this behaviour.

Community
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Matthieu Riegler
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  • You're right; looks bleak. – Mattie Oct 31 '13 at 14:08
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    In OS X 10.9.2 the Power key can be restored to roughly pre-Mavericks behavior with defaults write com.apple.loginwindow PowerButtonSleepsSystem -bool NO – pkamb Apr 22 '14 at 20:00
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power_fixer

OSX command line utility that attempts to restore pre-Mavericks power button behavior. Written in C.

Problem in a nutshell

In OSX Mavericks short tap on power button instantly puts the system to sleep. It is very annoying if you don't mean to press power key, but mishit delete key or F12 key. In that case downloads stop, VPN, SSH and RPD sessions break, and all world goes to chaos. This disturbing new feature is implemented in CoreService loginwindow.app. power_fixer tries to fix loginwindow.app in memory to bring back old behavior - show shutdown dialog instead of instant sleep.

nohillside
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Pym
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  • Found a working answer to this, sort of, for Sierra, at http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/28166/33389 : Keyboard shortcut is Option+Cmd+Eject (the Eject key is at your keyboard upper right corner). – WHO'sNoToOldRx4Covid-CENSORED Oct 03 '16 at 16:02