It makes sense in some situations to shut down your PC after a certain amount of time – for example, if you have a long download running or the defragmentation of your computer still takes a few hours. We show you how to perform a timed shutdown using Windows on-board tools and introduce a convenient free tool.
Shut down PC after time: with shutdown.exe
To automatically shut down your computer or laptop after a given time, you don’t need an extra tool. Windows can already do this by itself via the Windows console.
- Press [Win] + [R] to open the Run window and enter “cmd”. Confirm with “OK”.
- Enter “shutdown -s -t xxxx”. The xxxx here stands for the time in seconds after which the PC should shut down. For example, two hours correspond to 7200 seconds.
Shutdown.exe: More ways to use
Shutdown.exe can do more than just shut down the computer.
- If you want to cancel the shutdown, then enter “shutdown-a “
- If you did not want to shut down the computer but to retire or restart it, enter “-h” or “-n”.
- For more options, just type “shutdown” in the Windows console (cmd) and Windows will present you with all possible options.
You can also use the Windows task scheduler to have your PC shut down automatically. The advantage here is that the shutdown can not only be set as a one-time action, but can also be scheduled. For example, you can set your PC to shut down automatically at 0 o’clock from Monday to Friday if you have not used it for 30 minutes beforehand.
- Open the Run window via [Win] + [R] and enter “taskschd.msc”. Confirm with “OK”.
- Click on “Create task” in the top right-hand corner.
- Under “General”, set any name for the action, for example “Shutdown”. Also check the box “Run with highest privileges” so that the shutdown is not interrupted by another action.
- In the “Trigger” tab, set a trigger that starts the action. Click on “New” and enter the desired time. You can have the event repeat daily, weekly or monthly. In our example, click on “weekly” and place a tick next to the days from Monday to Friday.
- Enter the command “shutdown” in the “Actions” tab.
Under “Conditions” you can set that the PC should only be switched off if it has not been used before. You can do this by checking the box “Start task only if the computer is idle”. In this example, take 30 minutes as the time. In addition, place a check mark next to “Restart if idle for a longer period of time”.
Furthermore, in the “Settings” tab, you can define what happens if the task cannot be carried out. You can specify that the task should be repeated after 30 minutes. To do this, tick the corresponding box and set a desired time.
