It’s frustrating to wait for files to finish downloading before shutting down your computer, especially if they are large files like games. You have no choice but to wait for the download to complete. At the same time, you can’t browse the internet while waiting because it will slow down the connection and prolong the download time. What if you want to go to sleep, but there are still large files downloading? What would you do in this case? Wouldn’t it be better if you could set your computer to shut down automatically once the download is complete? Fortunately, you can do that in different ways which we will discuss below.
If you are using the popular download manager software Internet Download Manager on your computer, you should know that IDM provides a feature that allows you to shut down the computer automatically when the download is complete. This can be particularly useful when downloading large files that take a long time to finish, depending on the internet connection speed.
To enable this feature, all you need to do is start downloading a file via the IDM program. In the window that shows information about the download process, go to the “Options on completion” tab and uncheck the “Show download complete dialog” option to access other options, including the actions you want the program to take after the download is complete.
And you will find “Turn off computer when done” option among these options, so activate it by placing a checkmark (✔) next to “Turn off computer when done.” You can also enable the “Force processes to terminate” option to force the computer to shut down even if there are other open programs. You can also open the drop-down menu and choose to enable standby or sleep mode instead of shutting down the computer completely.
After setting up Internet Download Manager to shut down the computer, a similar window to the one in the image above will appear on the screen once the file download is complete. This window gives you a short time before the computer shuts down automatically, allowing you to either cancel the shutdown if you want to continue using the computer, or you can proceed with the shutdown immediately if you are already in front of the computer.
There are many download manager programs for Windows, some of which are similar to IDM and provide the feature to automatically shut down the computer after completing file downloads. However, the activation process of this feature may vary in terms of steps. Therefore, I suggest using the free program AMP WinOFF, which is a general solution to shut down the computer completely after completing file downloads, regardless of the download manager you are using. It is a scheduling tool to shut down the computer based on specific conditions, including when there is no network activity, meaning when there are no files downloading.
To specifically use AMP WinOFF for this purpose, after running it on your device, check the box [✔] next to Enabled in the Network transfer section. Then select “Input transfer” from the drop-down menu responsible for download activity. Then select the network adapter you use on the device to connect to the internet from the Network adapter menu.
Now you can use the “blow” box to specify the minimum internet consumption on the computer. For example, if you select 5KB/s, it means that the computer will automatically shut down if internet consumption is within 5 kilobytes per second. Then specify the duration for the computer to remain on when internet consumption is at the specified level in the “during” box. For example, if you set it to 60Secs, the computer will shut down when internet consumption is only at 5KB/s for 60 seconds. If the computer consumes more than 5 kilobytes per second, the automatic shutdown process is canceled.
Once you have finished setting up AMP WinOFF, click the “Activate” button to activate automatic shutdown based on the conditions you specified. You can now close the program, and it will continue running in the background, with a small indicator above the clock (as shown above) indicating the current internet consumption of the computer. If there are ongoing downloads, this number should be higher than what you specified in the “blow” box – which in our case is 5 kilobytes per second.
When the files are successfully downloaded, the computer’s internet consumption decreases. AMP WinOFF will then automatically shut down the computer if it confirms that the computer has not consumed more than 5 kilobytes per second continuously for a minute, or as specified in the “during” box. But before shutting down the computer, a window will appear informing you that the computer will shut down in 15 seconds. You can cancel the operation by clicking Cancel, reactivate the program by clicking Reactivate, or change the specified shutdown conditions by clicking Reconfigure.
