How to sleep a Windows computer from the command line

Recently one of our readers asked us how to make his Windows PC enter sleep from the command line. This can be definitely useful if you are using the sleep mode frequently and want to create a shortcut to put your PC into sleep directly or via some batch file. In this article, I would like to share a working way to initiate sleep from the command line.

Windows only allows the hardware Power button or the Start Menu/Start screen power button to enter Sleep (standby) mode. It does not provide a command line tool to directly enter sleep.

If hibernation is disabled on your PC, you can enter Sleep mode using the following command:

rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

But if you have enabled hibernation, then the above command hibernates the PC instead of entering sleep mode. So you need to apply a workaround which isn't exactly ideal, something like this.

powercfg -h off
rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
powercfg -h on

In the example above, I've used the powercfg command to disable hibernation, just before using the Rundll32 command. Then the rundll32 command will work correctly and put the PC into sleep. When it wakes up, the last line will turn on hibernation. Another issue with this workaround is that it must be executed from an elevated command prompt.

Instead, I will show you how to enter sleep without disabling hibernation and without requiring elevated (administrator) privileges.

Download the PsShutdown tool by SysInternals. Using this tool, you will be able to make the PC enter sleep mode directly by giving a single command:

psshutdown.exe -d -t 0 -accepteula

I recommend PsShutdown as the preferred way to send a PC to sleep.

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