Regardless of the CPU platform, MacBooks have been known for 1 major advantage over Windows laptops: The ability to put the laptops to sleep, wake up “instantly”, and do it without bugs. However, lately, my 16-in 2019 MacBook Pro on Tahoe (I’ve yet to “upgrade” back to Sequoia) has been having troubles, where no matter how I try to put it to sleep, the laptop would actually remain awake, and I’d found out when I’d remove the hot MacBook out of the bag, with a partially discharged battery.
After some digging and help from Gemini, it seems that Meta’s WhatsApp desktop app seems to override system settings that would allow the laptop to sleep. The laptop would not sleep after following these recommendations:
1) disallowing camera access
2) disallowing media auto-download
No 1 is the problem, as even with camera access restricted here, WhatsApp still has camera access, inhibiting sleep:
I’ve truncated the output from pmset to highlight WhatsApp:
pmset -g assertions 2026-03-24 11:04:19 +0800 Assertion status system-wide: BackgroundTask 0 ApplePushServiceTask 0 UserIsActive 1 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep 0 SoftwareUpdateTask 0 PreventSystemSleep 1 ExternalMedia 0 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 1 NetworkClientActive 1 Listed by owning process: pid 3665(WhatsApp): [0x000013c90001a08d] 09:27:40 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "cameracaptured-idleSleepPreventionForBWFigCaptureDevice"
Gemini also suggested running the following, which also doesn’t work, cause WhatsApp would have camera access regardless on launch without a notification:
tccutil reset Camera net.whatsapp.WhatsApp pmset -g assertions 2026-03-24 11:10:36 +0800 Assertion status system-wide: BackgroundTask 0 ApplePushServiceTask 0 UserIsActive 1 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep 0 SoftwareUpdateTask 0 PreventSystemSleep 1 ExternalMedia 0 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 1 NetworkClientActive 1 Listed by owning process: pid 3665(WhatsApp): [0x000013c90001a08d] 09:33:57 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "cameracaptured-idleSleepPreventionForBWFigCaptureDevice"
Based on this, the only way MacBooks can sleep is if WhatsApp is quit prior. After the debacle that is Tahoe, another chink in MacBook’s armor over other laptops.