Initiate actions when clamshell state changes
Clamshell is a tiny app that can run following actions when the clamshell (laptop lid) is closed:
‣ Sleep
‣ Shut Down
‣ Turn Off Displays & Prevent Idle Sleep
‣ Keep External Displays On & Prevent Idle Sleep
Sleep causes an immediate system sleep when your MacBook closes. It is very useful for users who use MacBook with external displays connected. When your MacBook connected to the power, Sleep will turn off a built-in display and all external displays, and the system will enter an idle sleep mode. If there are processes that hold assertions to prevent idle sleep, the system will wait before sleep with turned off displays while these processes are running. When your MacBook runs on battery, Sleep mimics the system default behavior.
Shut Down initiates swift and unavoidable system shutdown when the lid of your MacBook closes. No questions asked. This mode is useful, if you work on MacBook in the unsafe public places, such as parks, cafes, bus stations, etc. Mac will shut down automatically when lid closes, preventing anyone to bypass password protection with Touch ID/ Face ID, and preventing some advanced hacking techniques, such as cold boot attack, dumping RAM and circumventing FileVault. This mode also helpful, if your MacBook awakes often in your backpack.
Turn Off Displays & Prevent Idle Sleep puts all displays in the sleep mode and creates a power assertion preventing the rest of the system entering an idle sleep. This mode is useful for users who use MacBook with external displays connected. When you close the lid of your Mac connected to the power, a built-in display and all external displays go black but running applications remain working in the background, such as Music keeps playing, Safari keeps downloading big file, etc. When your MacBook runs on battery, Turn Off Displays & Prevent Idle Sleep works the same, i.e. mandatory sleep on lid close prevented.
Keep External Displays On & Prevent Idle Sleep creates two power assertions preventing external displays and the rest of the system entering an idle sleep. If some display is off, this action turns it on.
You can enable sharing states of all your Macs with iPhones and iPads that are signed in to the same iCloud account, and where the Clamshell app is installed. To do this, select the "Sharing Settings..." option in the Clamshell macOS app running on your Mac and enable "iCloud". Sharing is disabled by default. You should enable it by hand on all your Macs that you want to monitor remotely. After that, you will be able to control sharing settings from iOS versions of the Clamshell app.
Clamshell now supports sharing the laptop lid statuses and system statuses (Awake, Sleeping, Logging out, Restarting, Shutting down, Restarted, Shut Down, User Logged Out, App Terminated). More statuses will come in the year.
No data is shared with third-party providers. Clamshell is not using any external servers but only Apple's iCloud servers. You're in full control of your data!
Note for users of iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro: Clamshell is useful for you finally! Use it to monitor statuses of your Mac desktops remotely from iPhone/iPad. Yay!
Please stay tuned for updates. More actions to come.
With External Displays, the MacBook sleeps for only a few seconds before bringing all the external displays back with the login prompt. I have the same behavior occur with DisplayLink, which has a similar sleep displays in clamshell mode feature. Wish I had better news to report.
Developer Response
It seems like we don't have any useful data to work with right now. If you're having trouble, please reach out to our support team. They'd love to help you out and would appreciate any additional information you can provide:1. What are the names of the external display models?2. How are the external displays connected to your MacBook?3. What modes of Clamshell are you using?4. If you have any Clamshell logs, please share them as well.
Finally
Wallix
I spent several days trying to find something that does this. So far it is working great! Granted it’s only been 2 days - but here’s hoping there are no bugs lying in wait….
Developer Response
Thank you! Sadly, there is no software without bugs, but feel free to report any to support.
Brilliant...
fff3k
I've been exploring ways to make this happen: close the lid on my macbook, and have my external monitor also sleep. This is (finally) a way to (simply!) do that. so for me, an essential app....
Developer Response
Thank you!
This saved my day
ekzhang
New monitor, much appreciated. Found this on reddit. So demure, so helpful
Developer Response
Thank you!
Fixes a regression with "Keep External Displays On & Prevent Idle Sleep" and "Turn Off Displays and Prevent Idle Sleep" actions when the MacBook is not connected to the external power.
Version 2.3
The developer, Alexander Kovrazhkin, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
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