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How To Save Power By Hibernating Your Windows 11 Computer

Hibernating your Windows 11 computer is an effective way to save power when you won’t be using your device for an extended period of time. Here is a comprehensive guide on how hibernation works and how you can enable and use it to conserve battery life.

What is Hibernation?

Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops running on battery power. When you put your computer into hibernate mode:

  • Your open documents and programs are saved to a hibernation file on your hard drive
  • Your computer then turns off completely, using no power at all
  • When you turn your computer back on, Windows 11 restores everything as it was before hibernation

Key Benefits of Hibernation:

  • Saves battery power when you won’t use your laptop for awhile
  • Lets you resume work quickly when you power back on
  • Protects unsaved work if your battery runs out

How to Enable Hibernation

Hibernation may be turned off by default in Windows 11, so you’ll need to enable it first:

  1. Open the Start menu and search for Command Prompt
  2. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator
  3. Type powercfg /hibernate on and press Enter

This turns on hibernation capabilities. Now you can configure hibernation settings:

  1. Go to Settings > System > Power & battery
  2. Click Additional power settings
  3. Click Choose what the power buttons do
  4. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable
  5. Check the box for Hibernate
  6. Click Save changes

Hibernation is now enabled and accessible from your Power menu.

Using Hibernation to Save Power

With hibernation enabled, you can now use it to conserve battery life when stepping away from your device:

  • Manually hibernate: Open the Start menu and click the Power button, then select Hibernate from the menu
  • Auto-hibernate when lid closed: Go to your power settings and enable “Hibernate after” under “When I close the lid”

Other Ways to Save Power

  • Use Battery Saver mode
  • Lower screen brightness
  • Shorten the screen and sleep timeouts
  • Close unused browser tabs and apps
  • Turn off Bluetooth and WiFi when not needed

Resuming from Hibernation

When you’re ready to resume work, turn your computer back on as normal by pressing the power button.

Windows 11 will take 10-15 seconds to resume from hibernation. It brings back your system state, reopening all your apps and documents exactly as they were before.

If the battery runs out while hibernated, don’t worry. Your work is all still saved to the hibernation file and will restore itself when you boot up your computer again.

Conclusion

Enabling and using hibernation is an easy way to extend battery life on your Windows 11 laptop when stepping away or traveling. It saves your system state to disk and cuts power usage to zero during hibernation.

Give it a try next time you need to pack up your work. You’ll preserve battery charge and can instantly resume where you left off when you power back on.

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