Mac Auto Power On: Skip the Button in macOS Tahoe 26.5

The power button on a Mac mini is in an awkward spot. It always has been. Tuck the machine behind a monitor or inside a desk cabinet and reaching round the back to press it becomes a daily annoyance. Mac Studio and iMac owners get a similar issue when the machine is mounted, racked, or pushed up against a wall.

macOS Tahoe 26.5 adds a small but useful fix. You can now set a compatible Mac mini, Mac Studio, or iMac to turn on automatically whenever it receives power. No button press required. This is the Mac auto power on feature, and once you switch it on, your desktop Mac behaves a bit more like a server, a smart appliance, or a docked iPad: power in, machine on.

What Mac auto power on actually does

The new setting lives in System Settings under Energy. Apple calls it "Start up when power is connected". With it set to Always, the Mac boots automatically the moment it detects power at the wall. That means three things in practice.

It boots when you first plug it in after unboxing or moving it. It boots when power is restored after an outage. And it boots when a smart plug, surge protector switch, or wall outlet is flipped back on. If you have ever come home to a dark Mac mini after a power cut and had to crawl under the desk to wake it, this is the feature that fixes it.

It is not a remote wake feature. Wake on LAN and Power Nap already handle that side. This setting is specifically about the cold start moment when a Mac has been fully shut down and gets power again.

System requirements: not every Mac qualifies

Apple has limited this to recent desktop hardware running the current macOS release. You need macOS Tahoe 26.5 or later, and one of three machine families:

• Mac mini introduced in 2024 or later
• Mac Studio introduced in 2025 or later
• iMac introduced in 2024 or later

Older Intel Macs, the M1 and M2 Mac mini, and earlier Mac Studio models do not get the option. If your Mac does not meet the requirements, the menu in System Settings simply will not appear, so it is easy to check whether you are eligible. The MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Neo are not part of this at all, which makes sense given they have batteries and a clamshell to handle wake behaviour.

This is a hardware feature as much as a software one. It needs firmware support in the power management controller, which is why older silicon does not get it via a simple software update.

How to turn it on

The process is straightforward and takes about ten seconds.

1. Open System Settings from the Apple menu.
2. Click Energy in the sidebar.
3. Find the "Start up when power is connected" menu on the right.
4. Set it to Always.

If you do not see the Energy section or the menu is missing, double-check the macOS version and the model year. The setting is locked away on hardware that does not support it, rather than showing a greyed-out option.

That is the entire setup. The next time the Mac loses and regains power, it will boot on its own. No login bypass, no security shortcut. You still hit the lock screen and Touch ID or your password as normal.

The 30 second rule

There is one quirk worth knowing. If your Mac has stayed connected to power since it was last shut down and you want to use this feature to start it up, do not flick power off and on in quick succession. Apple recommends waiting about 30 seconds between disconnecting and reconnecting power, because the power supply needs time to discharge before it can register a clean reconnect.

This is similar to the advice you sometimes get with smart home gear and televisions. It is also a reminder that this is genuinely a hardware behaviour, not just a software toggle pretending to be one. The Mac is watching for the power supply to come back up from zero.

In normal use, this caveat does not matter. Power cuts, plug changes, and travelling with a Mac mini all involve far more than 30 seconds of downtime. The only place I would expect to trip over it is if you are testing the feature for the first time and want to see it work.

Where this actually helps

The headline use case Apple lists is for Macs without easy access to the power button. That is dry, but the real-world implications are interesting.

Studio and creator setups. If your Mac mini or Mac Studio lives in a rack, a cupboard, or behind a wall-mounted monitor, this is the cleanest fix. The Studio Display, arm-mounted monitors, and most clean desk setups make it genuinely annoying to reach the power button. Now you do not need to.

Always-on home server Macs. Plenty of people use a Mac mini as a Plex server, a Home Assistant box, or a remote build machine. After a power cut, these machines used to need manual intervention. With auto power on enabled, the Mac just comes back up on its own.

Kiosks and signage. Schools, studios, and small businesses running an iMac as a kiosk, a meeting room display, or a check-in screen no longer need someone to press the button every morning if the building power is cycled overnight.

Travel and on-set work. A Mac mini used for video work on location is a good example. Pulling it out of a case, plugging it in, and having it boot itself while you get the rest of the kit set up is a small win that adds up.

If you are kitting out a studio space or upgrading from an older Mac mini, the Mac mini price changes earlier this year are worth reading before you buy. The current line-up is the one that gets this feature.

What about security?

A reasonable question: does this make your Mac less secure? In short, no. Auto power on only handles the cold boot. Once the Mac is on, FileVault, Touch ID, your login password, and any MDM policies behave exactly as they did before. Someone with physical access can already press the power button. This setting just removes the button press from the equation when power is restored.

The setting is a per-Mac preference, stored locally, and only available to an admin user. It does not sync via iCloud, and does not affect Find My or Activation Lock.

How this fits into the wider Mac line-up

This is the kind of small refinement that signals where Apple sees the desktop Mac going. The Mac mini and Mac Studio are increasingly treated as appliances. They get plugged in, they get racked, they get tucked away. The MacBook Pro is the laptop you carry. The desktop Macs are the things that sit somewhere and do work.

It is also a clear nod to the home server crowd. Apple has never officially courted that use case, but features like this make it easier. Combined with the move away from older Intel Mac Pro hardware that I covered when the Mac Pro was discontinued, the trajectory is obvious: Apple Silicon desktops are the workhorses now, and Apple is slowly adding the small quality of life touches that make them better at being workhorses.

If you want to get more out of a Mac mini or Studio sat permanently on your desk, my round-up of the best free Mac apps covers the menu bar utilities and productivity tools that pair well with this kind of setup.

FAQ

Does Mac auto power on work after a software shutdown?

Yes. Whether the Mac shut down because of a power cut, a manual Shut Down from the Apple menu, or a system restart that failed to complete, it will boot again automatically when power is connected, provided the setting is on.

Will my Mac mini turn back on if I just unplug and replug the power cable?

Yes, but wait about 30 seconds between unplugging and replugging. The internal power supply needs time to discharge before the Mac will register a clean power-on event.

Can I enable this on an M1 or M2 Mac mini?

No. The feature requires a Mac mini from 2024 or later, a Mac Studio from 2025 or later, or an iMac from 2024 or later, all running macOS Tahoe 26.5 or newer. The setting will not appear on unsupported hardware.

Source: Apple Support: Turn on a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or iMac without pressing its power button