I switch back and forth between my Chromebook and a Windows tablet, and every time, the Chromebook goes to sleep too quickly and forces me to enter my password again. Very tedious! How can I extend the time to sleep setting in ChromeOS?
While every device from your mobile phone to your PC to your Smart TV allows you to have at least some level of control over the time to sleep or shutdown, oddly ChromeOS doesn’t offer an actual setting in this regard. I believe that there was a setting like this in earlier versions of Chrome OS but for some reason all we have now are the default time out setting, permanently turning off the screen, or permanently leaving the screen on and never going to sleep. Perhaps there’s some secret tweak or setting but it’s certainly not documented anywhere I can find.
But let’s start with simplifying the situation when you do find that the sleep screen is prompting you to confirm your identity! It turns out you can change to a PIN or even biometrics like a fingerprint, depending on your Chromebook. here’s a tutorial on how to change your Chromebook prompt from a password to a PIN. Back? Let’s have a closer look at that sleep timeout…
SWITCH TO SETTINGS IN CHROMEOS
The first step is to move into the Settings area on your Chromebook. Well, no, the first step is to ensure that you have the most recent version of ChromeOS, always good digital hygiene! Up to date? Then click on the time display on the Shelf [what PC folk would call the Taskbar] and choose the tiny gear icon on the lower right of the pop-up window:
You can see it on the lower right, next to the battery status information. A click and the Settings window appears:
As befits a simplified operating system, the Settings area in ChromeOS is pretty simplified too, with just the minimum of options and controls needed to improve your user experience without too many complex options that can mess things up. Unlike most similar areas in other operating systems, however, this is actually one long list, where the entries on the left side are essentially shortcuts to that one long page.
SETTINGS: DISPLAY SLEEP
You can use the search box to try and find the specific setting, but that can sometimes become guess the synonym so it’s often easier to just scroll down or use those shortcuts on the left side. For this task, click on “Device“…
A lot of different things you can tweak and modify, but to change the sleep behavior, choose “Power” from the list.
This is where a set of timeout options would be a logical inclusion, but as you can see, it’s not present. Instead, you get a much simplified set of choices:
So those are your choices: Keep the display on regardless of how long since you’ve used it, turn off the display when you’re on battery (or plugged in, charging), or use the default sleep settings. If you look closely, though, you’ll notice that there’s a “Sleep when lid is closed” which is probably the best solution, coupled with “Keep display on” so that when the computer’s open, it’s awake and ready to use.
OR MAYBE IT’S PART OF THE LOCK SCREEN SETTINGS?
A logical question to ask is whether we’re simply looking in the wrong place in Settings, so the next logical place to find a sleep timeout setting would be in Security and Privacy > Lock screen and sign-in:
Once you get to this spot – and you’ll have to enter your password again – turns out that while there are useful settings you can consider adjusting, there is in fact no sleep timeout setting:
And that’s the state of things with the current version of ChromeOS. I can’t for the life of me explain why there isn’t some way to change the timeout on sleep so that you can have “go to sleep if I walk away for an hour, but not if I’m doing something else for three minutes” feature. Perhaps that’ll be in a future release. Meanwhile, you now know the various options and possibilities and should be able to adjust things to best meet your needs.
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about ChromeOS since it was introduced and have accumulated a LOT of helpful tutorials. Please check out my ChromeOS Help Area while you’re visiting. Thanks!
People working at Google are well paid. They don’t use a cheap Chromebook. As a result they didn’t ever encounter a sleep problem.
Macbook pro is a good choice for anyone wanting that feature.
Well, sure, going from a $300 laptop to a $2500 laptop is going to get you the “sleep timer” improvement. As long as the slimmer wallet is in your gameplan too. 🤣