Get your Mac to wake up for incoming connections

Keep your Mac Turned On

Make sure your Mac or MacBook is connected to a power source and turned on or it will not be able to wake up for incoming connections.

When plugged into a power source, your Apple laptop can be in clamshell mode and it will still respond to connection requests.

Enable Wake for Network Access

On the Mac you wish to connect to:

macOS 13 Ventura or later

  1. Click this link to open System Settings.
  2. Select Battery or Power Adapter, depending if your Mac is a laptop or a desktop
  3. Select Options…
  4. Under Wake for network access, select Always

macOS 12 Monterey or earlier

  1. Click this link to open System Preferences.
  2. Select Energy Saver
  3. Select Power Adapter if present
  4. Turn on Wake for network access

Possible Issues and Workarounds

Some factors can prevent incoming connections to get through:

FileVault and Screen Savers

Your Mac's FileVault feature could prevent you to connect to your Mac, especially if you find that a user must physically log into the Mac before Screens can connect:

“To ensure security when you turn on FileVault, other security features are also turned on. For example, when you turn on FileVault, you need a password to log in when your Mac is in sleep, or after leaving the screen saver.”

There are a couple of work-arounds available to you:

Reinstall ARD

It is also a known issue that ARD may cause connection issues in some circumstances. The solution for this is to re-install ARD, as mentioned in this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8354421

The latest of Remote Desktop is available here.

Get Help from Apple

You can consult these articles from Apple in order to solve wake issues:

Reset the SMC of your Mac

Reset NVRAM on your Mac

If your Mac sleeps or wakes unexpectedly

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