How to determine Mac shutdown causes

Step 1 Open Terminal.app

• Open Terminal.app
Step 2 Listing previous shutdowns

• Copy and paste the following command in your Terminal window:
• log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h
• The "24h" portion of the command can be changed to any number of hours, depending on how far back you need to see.
Step 3 Determining Shutdown Causes
• The previous shutdown causes in the timeframe you selected will appear as a list.
• Common shutdown causes include 5 which indicates a normal shutdown, 3 which indicates a hard shutdown (i.e. holding the power button), and 0 which indicates the power was disconnected.
• A full list of shutdown causes can be found here: Shutdown Causes.
• Another, more recently updated, list of shutdown causes can be found here: Shutdown causes (from George Garside blog)

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