Okay, so I wanted to figure out how to turn on my Mac Mini when I wasn’t actually sitting in front of it. Sometimes it’s off, you know, maybe after a power blink or I shut it down properly and then needed it later while I was out.
First thoughts and tries
My first idea was that maybe Wake-on-LAN thing. Heard about it before. So, I dug into the Mac Mini’s settings. Found it under Energy Saver in System Preferences. There’s a checkbox like “Wake for network access”. Made sure that was ticked.
Then you need the MAC address, that unique number for the network card. Found that buried in Network settings, under Advanced, then Hardware. Wrote that down.
Next, I grabbed my phone and looked for apps that send the “magic packet” for Wake-on-LAN. Tried a couple. Sent the packet. Nothing happened.
Did some reading. Seems Wake-on-LAN is mostly for waking a sleeping Mac, not turning it on from completely off. Especially tricky over Wi-Fi. Maybe works better with Ethernet cable plugged in, but still wasn’t what I needed for a full power-on.
Thinking about smart plugs
So, Wake-on-LAN felt like a dead end for a real power-on. Then I thought, what about those smart plugs? The ones you control with your phone to turn lamps on and off?
The idea was simple:
- Plug the Mac Mini into a smart plug.
- Tell the Mac Mini to automatically turn itself back on if the power comes back after an outage.
- Use the phone app to remotely “cut” the power using the smart plug (turn it off).
- Then use the app to “restore” the power (turn it back on).
- The Mac Mini should think the power just came back after failing and start itself up.
This sounded much more likely to work for a cold boot.
Making it work
I got myself a basic Wi-Fi smart plug. Nothing fancy. Setting it up was easy, just followed the app instructions, got it on my home network.
Then, I plugged the Mac Mini’s power cable into this smart plug, and the plug into the wall.
Next step, back on the Mac Mini. Went to System Preferences, then Energy Saver again. Found the option “Start up automatically after a power failure”. Checked that box. Super important.
Time for the real test. I shut down the Mac Mini completely. Waited till it was fully off.
Opened the smart plug app on my phone (I was just using my home Wi-Fi for the test, but it works over the internet too). Tapped the button to turn the plug OFF. The Mac Mini now had no power.
Waited about 15 seconds. Just to be sure.
Tapped the button in the app again to turn the plug ON.
And boom! Heard the Mac Mini chime and saw the little light come on. It started booting up all by itself. Success!
Final thoughts
So yeah, for me, using a smart plug combined with that ‘start up after power failure’ setting is the way to go. It reliably lets me power on the Mac Mini from cold, even when I’m miles away, just using my phone. Wake-on-LAN didn’t cut it for this specific need, but the smart plug trick works like a charm.