---
layout: page
category-page: intermediate
category-title: Intermediate commands
tags: sleep coffee kafee stand by buongiornissimo
author: Joao Tomazoni
title: caffeinate
previous-page: pages/cmd/interm/bash.html
next-page: pages/cmd/interm/cat.html
---

The <code>caffeinate</code> command prevents the computer to go into sleep mode,
just as if you would set it to never sleep in the system preferences.
Type <code>caffeinate -d</code> in your terminal and it will prevent your screen to sleep
without changing the system preferences.</p>

<pre>
caffeinate -d
</pre>

You can also prevent your computer to go sleep while another process is taking place, but turn sleep
mode on again when the process is over, for that you use the same code as above, and then type the
arguments you want to run and prevent computer to go on sleep mode. For example, say you have a
big file on your desktop that you want to md5, and you want to prevent your computer to enter
the sleep mode:

<pre>
caffeinate -d ~/Desktop/bigfile
</pre>

Doing so, your computer is now prevent to enter on sleep mode while the md5 process is running,
and automatically turn the sleep mode on again when the process is completed.