powercfg - Check Power Settings and Battery

Maintained on November 9, 2026

Table of Contents

The powercfg command lets you view, change, and diagnose Windows power settings. Besides switching power plans and setting sleep timeouts, you can use it to create a report on battery wear and to investigate why your PC won’t go to sleep.

Basic syntax of the `powercfg` command

powercfg /option [arguments]

Commonly used options are listed below.

Option	What it does	Admin required
`/batteryreport`	Creates a report on battery usage and wear	No
`/list` (`/l`)	Lists the power plans	No
`/getactivescheme`	Shows the current power plan	No
`/setactive`	Switches the power plan	No
`/change`	Changes sleep and display timeouts	No
`/a` (`/availablesleepstates`)	Shows the available sleep states	No
`/requests`	Finds programs that are preventing sleep	Yes
`/energy`	Diagnoses power efficiency problems and creates a report	Yes
`/hibernate` (`/h`)	Turns hibernation on or off	Yes

Options start with a slash

powercfg options start with /. Run powercfg /? to see the help.

Create a battery report

A battery report shows how much your laptop battery has worn down.

powercfg /batteryreport

－ □ ×

Command Prompt

Microsoft Windows [Version xx.x.xxxxx.xxx]

C:\users\user>powercfg /batteryreport

Battery life report saved to file path C:\Users\taro\battery-report.html.

C:\users\user>

The report is saved as an HTML file named battery-report.html in the folder where you ran the command (the current directory). A Command Prompt run as administrator starts in C:\Windows\System32, so the file may end up there; use /output if you can’t find it. Open it in your default browser with:

start battery-report.html

Use /output to choose where the file is saved, and /duration to change the number of days covered.

Specify

powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\temp\battery.html"

Cover

powercfg /batteryreport /duration 14

What to look at in the report

Compare the following items under “Installed batteries” (the heading may appear in your Windows display language) to see how worn the battery is.

Item	Meaning
DESIGN CAPACITY	The amount of energy the battery could hold when new
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY	The amount of energy it holds now when fully charged
CYCLE COUNT	The number of charge/discharge cycles (not shown on some models)

If the full charge capacity is well below the design capacity, the battery has worn down. As a common rule of thumb, once it drops below about 60–70% of the design capacity, the shorter runtime becomes easy to notice.

Not available on desktop PCs

On a PC without a battery, the battery report cannot be created and the command returns an error.

Check and switch power plans

List the power plans with /list.

powercfg /list

－ □ ×

Command Prompt

Microsoft Windows [Version xx.x.xxxxx.xxx]

C:\users\user>powercfg /list

Existing Power Schemes (* Active)

-----------------------------------

Power Scheme GUID: 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e (Balanced) *

Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c (High performance)

Power Scheme GUID: a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a (Power saver)

C:\users\user>

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The plans shown depend on your PC model and settings. To see only the plan currently in use, run /getactivescheme.

powercfg /getactivescheme

To switch plans, pass the GUID to /setactive.

powercfg /setactive 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

GUIDs are long, so aliases are available for the common plans. MIN and MAX refer to the amount of power savings, so SCHEME_MIN is High performance and SCHEME_MAX is Power saver.

Alias	Plan
`SCHEME_BALANCED`	Balanced
`SCHEME_MIN`	High performance
`SCHEME_MAX`	Power saver

Switch

powercfg /setactive SCHEME_BALANCED

Some plans may not be listed

On many recent laptops, plans such as “High performance” do not appear in the list. In that case, change the power mode in the Settings app (System → Power & battery; in Windows 10, System → Power & sleep).

Change sleep and display timeouts

/change changes the timeouts of the current power plan. The unit is minutes, and 0 means “never”.

Turn

powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 10

Sleep

powercfg /change standby-timeout-dc 15

Never

powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0

The ac suffix means plugged in, and dc means running on battery.

Setting name	Meaning
`monitor-timeout-ac` / `-dc`	Time until the display turns off
`standby-timeout-ac` / `-dc`	Time until the PC goes to sleep
`disk-timeout-ac` / `-dc`	Time until the hard disk spins down
`hibernate-timeout-ac` / `-dc`	Time until the PC hibernates

Check the available sleep states

powercfg /a

This shows the power-saving states your PC supports and, for those it doesn’t, the reason. Try it first when hibernation is missing or sleep doesn’t work.

Find out what prevents sleep

If your PC won’t go to sleep on its own, use /requests to see what is blocking it (run as administrator).

powercfg /requests

－ □ ×

Command Prompt

Microsoft Windows [Version xx.x.xxxxx.xxx]

C:\users\user>powercfg /requests

DISPLAY:

None.

SYSTEM:

[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Example\player.exe

Video playback

(other sections omitted)

C:\users\user>

If a program appears under SYSTEM, it is preventing the PC from sleeping. If only the display stays on, check the DISPLAY section.

Diagnose power problems

By default, /energy observes your PC for about 60 seconds and diagnoses settings and devices that reduce power efficiency (run as administrator). Close your apps and leave the PC idle during the test for accurate results.

powercfg /energy

The result is saved as energy-report.html in the current directory. Look at the “Errors” and “Warnings” sections.

Turn hibernation on or off

Hibernation saves the contents of memory to disk and powers off. Switch it in a Command Prompt run as administrator.

Turn

powercfg /hibernate on

Turn

powercfg /hibernate off

Turning it off deletes the hibernation file hiberfil.sys and frees disk space, but Fast Startup also becomes unavailable.

Summary

Goal	Command
Check battery wear	`powercfg /batteryreport`
List power plans	`powercfg /list`
Switch power plans	`powercfg /setactive <GUID or alias>`
Change the display timeout	`powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 10`
Check available sleep states	`powercfg /a`
Find what prevents sleep	`powercfg /requests`
Diagnose power efficiency	`powercfg /energy`
Turn hibernation on or off	`powercfg /hibernate on` / `off`