How can I automatically shutdown the system after a specific time?

Question

How can I automatically shutdown the system after a certain customizable time?

Answer 1

Open a terminal window and type in:

sudo shutdown -h +60

and just replace 60 with whatever number of minutes you want to take.

More info here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-473173.html http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/l5/lesson5a.html

Answer 2

• You can use gshutdown
• After installation it can be found under Applications → Accessories → GShutdown
• Also have a look at this method.

Answer 3

Because the topic abt shutting down PC after certain period of inactivity is redirected to this topic, I will explain this issue here.

I spent lots of time to solve this problem, so I find it useful to share it, to make the same issue simple for others. I hv tried different programmes but they haven't work for me so I found using short script with cronjob the best solution.

Firstly I refered to post Timed Shutdown - shutdown after 30 minutes

I will copy it below and then explain improvements to make it work:

Install xprintidle. This tool gives the idle time of a user.

sudo apt-get install xprintidle

Make a script autoshutdown.sh which checks for the idle time and instructs the computer to shutdown if idle for 30 minutes.

idle=$(xprintidle)

if [ $idle -gt 1800000 ]; then
    shutdown -h now
fi

Make a cronjob for this that checks from time to time if the system has been idle for too long and if it has been idle for a longer than 30 minutes it will shutdown. Note that the cronjob has to be made for the root user.

---

This script needs some improvements to work, like:

idle=`env DISPLAY=:0 su OUR_USER -c xprintidle 2>&1`

OUR_USER is the user we refer to for checking idle time (not root user)

DISPLAY=:0 is correct for one desktop display (run env command to read DISPLAY in your situation)

if script is run by OUR_USER, line above can be reduced:

idle=`env DISPLAY=:0 xprintidle 2>&1`

This topic is described http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1069602

if script is run by OUR_USER, shutdown command should be preceded by sudo

sudo shutdown -h now

---

My script was run from cron by line in cron file:

*/5 * * * * /home/OUR_USER/autoshutdown.sh 

• every 5 minutes
• OUR_USER should be replaced as earlier to the user we refer to.

---

If script is not run by root we should remember to add the line:

ALL ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown 

in sudoers file, so shutdown command won't need a password to be executed.

---

I tried such cronjobs on 2 similar distro Lubuntu 12.04.4 RC LXLE 32-bit ( http://www.lxle.net/ )

In one system it works only using root cronjob set in file:

/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root

---

CAVEAT

Another problem is that xprintidle in my system has given sometimes random for me values and sometimes logically incremental. The final result - my system has been usually shutdown after 20 mins maybe, if I set the max idle value to 30 mins. I think the culprit is xscreensaver which doesn't work as is set by entered parameters.

Answer 4

You can use sleep for that. They're used to delay/ pause an operation. Combine that with shutdown you get a power off timer. Example to sleep after 1 hour:

sleep 3600 && sudo shutdown now

You can use math as well, here's to power off after 3 hour:

sleep $((3600*3)) && sudo shutdown now

Answer 5

You can use

ComplexShutdown https://launchpad.net/complexshutdown

or EasyShutdown https://launchpad.net/easyshutdown

Answer 6

Crontab seemed like the perfect and most convenient solution for a scheduled shutdown.

But I could not get it running for quite a while using (as supplied by Chat):

crontab -e
30 22 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h now

My solution was to create a crontab, but as superuser. Makes sense, dont want any old bod shutting down the server.

sudo crontab -e -u root 

Then add PW,select text editor

Then:

30 22 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h now

Works for me.

Answer 7

Another option is Shutdown Timer, a GNOME Shell extension.
An old version for older GNOME version is still available.

To be able to use GNOME Extension, type into a terminal:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-prefs

Answer 8

sudo shutdown -h +$(( ($(date -d "2025-08-23 15:30" +%s) - $(date +%s)) / 60 )) "Scheduled shutdown"

1. $(date -d "2025-08-23 15:30" +%s)

   • date -d = interprets a specific date
   • "2025-08-23 15:30" = the target date and time
   • +%s = converts that date to Unix timestamp (seconds since January 1, 1970) Example: If the target date is 23/08/2025 15:30, this returns something like 1756044600

2. $(date +%s)

   • Gets the current Unix timestamp
   • Example: If it's 6/08/2025 10:45, returns something like 1754570700

3. The subtraction: $(target_date) - $(current_date)

   1756044600 - 1754570700 = 1473900
   

   • Result: 1,473,900 seconds difference

4. Division by 60: / 60

   1473900 / 60 = 24565
   

   • Converts seconds to minutes
   • Result: 24,565 minutes

5. $(( ... ))

   • This is bash arithmetic to perform mathematical calculations

6. shutdown -h +24565

   • shutdown interprets +24565 as "shutdown in 24,565 minutes from now"

Simpler practical example: If you wanted to shutdown in 2 hours (120 minutes):

# Current date: 6 Aug 2025 14:00
# Target date: 6 Aug 2025 16:00

TARGET=$(date -d "2025-08-06 16:00" +%s)    # 1754575200
CURRENT=$(date +%s)                          # 1754568000
DIFF=$((TARGET - CURRENT))                   # 7200 seconds
MINUTES=$((DIFF / 60))                       # 120 minutes
sudo shutdown -h +120

The command does all of this automatically in a single line.