How to Enable or Disable Hibernation in Windows 10

Hibernation can be a useful tool if you want to completely shut down your PC but at the same time you want to continue working where you left off before shutting it down. This article will guide you on how to enable or disable hibernation and the ways that you can do it.

Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate

Before we move on, it’s important to understand what is the difference between putting the PC to sleep/hibernate mode. That is so that you can understand where you should, or shouldn’t enable it.

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Sleep

Sleep mode puts the computer into a power saving state by disabling all the components of the computer except the RAM memory. That is because the RAM modules need to be supplied with electricity all the time, or they’ll lose any data that is stored to them.

The PC will wake up in seconds as all it has to do is to power up all of its components again. There are no known downsides to sleep mode except the fact that it still uses a minimal amount of electricity.

Hibernate

Hibernation transfers everything from the RAM memory to the main storage drive that you have and then proceeds to power off the computer. When you boot up the PC again, the data that was saved on the storage drive will once again get transferred to the RAM memory.

That will result in having your PC running again at the very same spot that you powered it off. Hibernation uses almost no electricity since the computer is turned off, but as it requires a small amount of data to be transferred, it’s a bit slower than putting the computer to sleep.

It was mostly created for Laptops but it’s also useful for those who are using a desktop with an old school HDD drive, they commonly have slow transfer speeds which results in an extremely slow boot time. Using Hibernation on a desktop with an HDD will drastically improve the boot time. (It’s not really booting but you get the point)

ATTENTION: Do not use Hibernation if you have an SSD as your main storage drive. The more data that you write on an SSD, the sooner that it will fail. Hibernation writes data to the drive each time that you use it which will lower the lifespan of an SSD even if for a little. If you consider how many Terabytes the average SSD can withstand, then it really doesn’t seem like a big deal. But, then again, what for? SSD drives offer super-fast boot times since the let go, there is really no advantage in using hibernation when you have an SSD.

  Difference Between Sleep, Hibernate and Hybrid Sleep

Ways To Enable/Disable Hibernation

Now you know how Hibernation works and how it’s different than sleep mode. If you’re still up for enabling/disabling it, you can you can do so with:

  1. The power button
  2. The sleep button
  3. Closing the lid (if you have a Laptop)

You can also set it as a power option or you can set your computer to hibernate automatically after a certain amount of time. To disable it just replace the hibernate option with the desired action.

Hibernating With Power/Sleep Button, Lid, Power Option

  1. Right-click on the battery icon on the left part of the taskbar.

  2. Select “Power Options”

    Power Options

  3. On the left pane, select “Choose what the power buttons do”

    Choose what power buttons do

  4. Choose Hibernate

    Choose to hibernate with the power button, the sleep button, by closing the lid of your Laptop, or you can make it so that all of them will hibernate your PC.Enable Hibernate

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Hibernate Option in Power Options

Follow these steps if you want to have the hibernate option on your power options.

  1. Click on the “change settings that are currently unavailable” button on the same window as of the previous method. Change settings
  2. Then you’ll have the option to enable hibernate on your power options by clicking on that setting.Enable Hibernate

Hibernating Automatically After A Certain Amount Of Time

To enable automatic hibernation,

  1. Again go to Power Options, select “Change plan settings” on your current active plan.Change Plan Settings
  2. Then select “Change advanced power settings“.Advanced power settings
  3. Rolling downwards on the window that came up you’ll see an option that says “Sleep“, clicking on it will reveal the options.
  4. At this point, you can set your PC to either sleep or hibernate after a certain amount of time.Automatic Hibernation
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Advanced Options

In the rare case that hibernate is not visible anywhere, you can enable it by using the hibernate command.

  1. First, right-click on the Windows logo which is on the lower left part of your taskbar.
  2. Then, open Windows Power Shell as Admin.
  3. At last, copy and paste this command to turn on hibernation.
powercfg.exe /hibernate on

In order to turn it off again, copy and paste this command.

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

31 thoughts on “How to Enable or Disable Hibernation in Windows 10”

  1. So far, I have no luck with hibernate. I usually just put it to sleep only. Maybe it will be better in winX.

    Reply
    • So you go to Windows 10 key + X –> Power options –> Change plan settings –> Change advanced power settings –> Scroll down to “Power buttons and lid” –> Sleep button action –> Change settings to Hibernate 🙂

      Reply
  2. My windows 10 has always had the option to hibernate. Few days ago I noticed dat when I close d lid instead of it to hibernate as it usually does it started to sleep.. I went fact finding and found out that d hibernate option has virtually disappered. … av tried to folo all dese instructions here but I still can’t get my hibernate option back… Plas help

    Reply
    • You can set your pc to hibernate by: Windows Button + X>>Power Options>>Change plan settings (on the plan you are using)>>Change advanced power settings>>Power button and lid>>Lid close action>> Then select either on battery or plugged in>>Hibernate. Now whenever you close your lid, you immediately hibernate. Hope that helps, though it is a bit late to say this.

      Reply
  3. None of these worked, hibernation shows up nowhere in power settings or otherwise (yes I’m admin, and yes it Windows 10)

    Reply
    • I would offer that you read Said Bakr’s instructions by going into the Control Panel…etc. Microsoft has made it a bit user friendly to get there but, its there. It as it is hidden behind Change settings currently unavailable.

      Reply
  4. Holy shit this website sucks balls. I’m fucking sick of wading through 1000 ads just to find basic information.

    Reply
  5. You can set your pc to hibernate by: Windows Button + X>>Power Options>>Change plan settings (on the plan you are using)>>Change advanced power settings>>Power button and lid>>Lid close action>> Then select either on battery or plugged in>>Hibernate. Now whenever you close your lid, you immediately hibernate. Have fun!

    Reply
  6. I did everything said above but nothing happens since one week. Formerly hibernation option was there.

    Reply
  7. Switching off hibernation also has a disadvantage. Every time you shut down your computer, you also have to save all changes, otherwise they will be lost. So a (slightly) shorter life span of the SSD is worth considering.

    Reply
    • Of course. In the end, it all comes down to personal preference. The whole lifespan thing had to be mentioned because many non-tech savvy people are unaware of this.

      Reply
  8. powercfg.exe /hibernate on does NOT work!
    the following items are preventing hibernation on this system.
    an internal system component has disabled hibernation
    Windows To Go

    Reply
  9. Years ago I turned off hibernate and got rid of the hibernate file. I also turned off paging and got rid of the paging file. I also set my system to never sleep. If I don’t use my system for 15 minutes the monitor goes black but that’s it. I have 24GB of memory and an SSD. I do a shutdown every night and start fresh every morning. I have never had any problems.

    Reply

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