PCs are power-hungry machines and can affect your electricity bill or battery life even when in hibernation mode. Maybe you often forget to turn off your PC at night or when you leave it off. Do you leave your PC idle for a long time?
By default, Windows will activate “Sleep” mode after a few minutes of inactivity. But you can shut down your computer when it has been idle for a long time by using Task Scheduler to schedule an automatic system shutdown.
If only you could create a Windows 11 shutdown timer that only runs when you haven’t used your PC for a long time. This Bardimin article will explain how to turn off the computer after a long period of disuse.
How to automatically shut down PC at idle with Task Scheduler
Making the task of automatic shutdown of the PC very easy to do. You can add trigger conditions to a task to specify when the task should run. This is very useful when you want to run shutdown tasks after a certain period of inactivity.
1. Open “Task Scheduler“
You can open “Task Scheduler” through the Windows search menu. Click the “Start” button and type “Task Scheduler” in the search field and press “Enter”. Task Scheduler will appear on your screen.
Alternatively, you can open Task Scheduler through Control Panel by clicking the “Start” button or pressing the “Windows” key on the keyboard. Type “Control Panel” in the search field and press “Enter. Select “System and Security” and click “Administrative Tools. Select “Task Scheduler” from the list of administrative tools.
2. Create a new Task
In the Task Scheduler window, click “Create Task” in the right-hand task pane. Then the “Create Task” dialog box will appear
3. “General” Tab Settings
In the “Name” field, provide a name that makes it easy for you to recognize. For example, “Auto Shutdown” or whatever name you want.
Then in the Security section, select the option “Run whether user is logged on or not” and check the box “Run with highest privileges“.
Next, in the “Configure for” field, click the dropdown button and select the “Windows 10” option.
4. “Triggers” Tab Settings
On the “Triggers” tab, click the “New” button to add a new trigger. Then it will open the “New Trigger” dialog box. In the “Begin the task:” field, click the dropdown button and select the “At startup” option.
This option will run the task on every computer that starts Windows. Idle monitoring will run every time you turn on your computer. If you only want to run this process at certain hours, select the “On a schedule” option, then select “Daily” and specify the start time.
Click the “OK” button to save changes.
5. “Actions” Tab Settings
Click the “New” button on the “Actions” tab to add a new action. In the “New Action” dialog box that opens, select the “Start a program” option in the “Action:” field.
In the “Program/script” field, click the “Browse” button and navigate to “C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe“. Next, add the parameter “/s” in the “Add arguments” field.
Other Interesting Articles
6. “Conditions” Tab Settings
In the “Conditions” tab, check the option “Start the task only if the computer is idle for:“. Then type the time limit before automatic shutdown starts and type the same time limit in the “Wait for idle for” field.
Next, make sure the options in the “Stop if the computer ceases to be idle” and “Restart if the idle state resumes” fields are checked.
7. Settings Tab “Settings”
In this “Settings” tab, change your settings so that it will run again automatically if it fails.
Check the field “If the task fails, restart every:” and then set the time and repetition or leave it at its default values.
If you have done all the settings, click the “OK” button to save the Task you created. You will be prompted to enter the Windows password you used. Windows will not let you make such changes to your PC without further authorization. Type the Windows password and click “OK”.
To test whether the Task you created is working or not, restart the computer and then leave the computer idle. If at the specified time the computer shuts down, the task is already working correctly. And if it doesn’t turn off, double-check the settings you made.