Macbook wakes up and powers on by itself during sleep or shutdown

Question

Level 1

4 points

Macbook wakes up and powers on by itself during sleep or shutdown

device: macbook pro

os: macos 26.2

my macbook is connected to an external monitor and used in clamshell mode.

after updating to macos 26.2, it started behaving abnormally. this setup has been used for years with the same monitor and cables, and this never happened before.

problem description:

• when the mac goes to sleep at night, it wakes up by itself without any user interaction and turns on all connected displays

• if the lid is closed, the screens stay off, but the mac periodically plays a system sound similar to power being connected or disconnected

• if the mac is fully shut down, it can turn itself on after 15–30 minutes and play the normal startup sound

no keyboard, mouse, trackpad or other input devices are being used at the moment of wake.

power nap, wake for network access and related features are disabled.

logs:

system logs show repeated wake events with:

wake reason: host (0x01)

there are also multiple entries from the wifi driver:

AppleBCMWLANCore::systemWokenByWiFi — unknown wake reason

this looks like a system or driver-level wake, not user activity.

the issue happens repeatedly at night and makes sleep mode and even full shutdown unreliable.

questions:

• is this a known issue in macos 26.2

• can this be related to clamshell mode, external displays, or wifi

• what diagnostic steps or workarounds are recommended to prevent the mac from waking up or powering on by itself

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 26.2

Posted on Dec 18, 2025 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

68,702 points

Dec 18, 2025 7:49 PM in response to IvKate

Run the third party app EtreCheck and post the complete report here so we can examine it for possible clues. More than likely you have some third party software installed which is causing problems. Other possibilities is file syncing to the cloud.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting an EtreCheck Report - Apple Community

Try selecting the Sleep option from the Apple menu. Before you do though, press the Caps Lock key so you when the Caps Lock LED goes out, then you know the laptop went to sleep. Closing the display clamshell lid does not guarantee the laptop will sleep (software may not allow it, or the Lid Angle Sensor may not be bad).

Plug in the laptop whenever you can do so to keep your battery charged. You can also select "Shutdown" from the Apple menu to completely power off the laptop.

Keep in mind that pressing any key or even touching the Trackpad can wake up or power on the laptop. Connecting or disconnecting any external devices can also wake up or power on the laptop. So disconnect them before initiating sleep or power off.

You can use the following Terminal command to see the sleep & wake & start/power on events for the current day:

pmset  -g  log  |  grep -iE 'Sleep  |Wake  |Start  ' | grep  -E  "^$(date  "+%F")"

If you want to see the sleep & wake & start/power events for the overnight hours when you put the laptop to sleep the night before, you can use this command (it will include all events for both days, not just for sleeping the laptop at night):

pmset  -g  log  |  grep -iE 'Sleep  |Wake  |Start  ' | grep  -E  "^$(date  "+%F")|^$(date -v -1d "+%F")"

You need to copy & paste the commands since there is very critical spacing involved or it will fail or deliver incorrect results.

The output of the commands will show the battery charge level at each event, and will provide the reason for the sleep & wake events although many of them may be cryptic. There may be a lot of entries shown since Macs tend to wake & sleep a lot overnight.

Edit: You can also try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. A passing diagnostic is meaningless since it rarely detects actual hardware issues, but it never hurts to try because if an issue is detected, then you do have a hardware problem.

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