How to keep your laptop active or awake, without having to touch your mouse and move it every so often. You can do this by changing your laptop power settings or by downloading a program to move your mouse for you.
How Do I Make My Laptop Active?
If you want to stop your laptop from going to sleep, you can do so from Windows power settings. This method will keep your computer on no matter how long you may be “inactive” on it, not moving the mouse or touching the keyboard.
- Go to the search bar and find the Control Panel.
- Select System and Security.
- Select Power Options.
- Next to the plan set you have checked, select Change plan settings.
The Turn off the display option allows you to choose how long the laptop display stays on, both on battery or plugged in. You can choose an amount of time, or choose Never. The put the computer to sleep option determines how long the computer itself stays on until it is put into sleep mode.
- Select Save Changes.
How Do I Make My Cursor Move Automatically?
If for any reason you are unable to change the power settings on your computer, you can also use a program that moves your mouse or presses a button automatically. In these steps, we’ll use the program Coffee.
- Download the Coffee program. Next, open the installer and follow the prompts to install the program.
- Once installed, go to the search bar and find the Coffee program.
- Once you open the program, it will start pressing the F12 key in the background every minute to keep your computer awake.
- If you want to close the program, go to your toolbar at the bottom of your desktop, right-click on the Coffee app, and select Exit.
How Do I Stop My Computer From Locking?
If your computer goes to sleep after periods of inactivity, you may find you have to enter your password to start using it again. This is actually another setting you can change if you don’t want this to happen.
- Go to the Start menu and select Settings.
- Select Accounts.
- On the sidebar, select Sign-in options and then scroll down to require sign-in.
In the drop-down box under if you’ve been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again? Select Never. Now you won’t have to sign back into your computer when you wake it from sleep.
Have Your Computer Start Itself While You Sleep
If you’ve got your work notifications going to your phone, and you’re working from home, you could stay in bed a little longer and set your computer to start up by itself and start up your work programs on its own.
Setting your Laptop to Start Up by Itself
This next method is the nerdiest, and it’s possible that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you might mess something up and cause your computer to not start properly. While it won’t completely brick your computer, this tactic is only for people who feel comfortable going into their computer’s BIOS settings.
What you’ll want to do is press the power button to turn your computer on (assuming that your computer is shut off first). And—before anything comes on the screen—press either F1 or F2 on your keyboard (it varies by manufacturer) to bring up the BIOS menu.
Look for a setting that says “Power On By RTC Alarm” and then set the Hour and Minute to the time of day. That you want people to believe you started working (maybe even a few minutes before you need to be there).
Setting Your Laptop to Start Programs by Themselves
Any programs that you want to start when the system starts can be put into the Startup folder. This folder isn’t as easily accessible on Windows 10, but it’s still accessible. To access it, press Windows Key + R, type “shell:startup” into the Run dialog, and press Enter.
This will open up the Startup folder window. Put the shortcut for any programs you want to start up automatically in this folder. You won’t be able to automatically log in to the programs this way, but at least the programs will be started.
FAQ
How Do I Keep My Laptop Active or Awake Without Changing Settings?
In addition to a program that moves your mouse automatically, such as Coffee (described above), you can adjust your screensaver. Go to Control Panel > Personalization > Change Screensaver. Next to On Resume, Display Logon Screen, and uncheck the box. This prevents your system from sleeping.
Can Anyone Detect Mouse Jiggler On My Computer?
No. If you’re using the Mouse Jiggler plug-in device to stop your computer from going to sleep, employee monitoring software or network personnel won’t be able to detect it because there’s no software involved; it acts as a pointer device.
How Do I Keep A Mac Laptop Active, and Awakened?
From the Apple menu, select System Preferences > Energy Saver. Check the box next to prevent the computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off. Uncheck the box next to put hard disks to sleep when possible. Then, drag the Computer Sleep and/or Display Sleep sliders to Never.
Read More: How to Clear Work Laptop before Returning
