How to Enable or Disable Auto-shutdown

Machines are Linux and Windows virtual machines with persistent storage, GPU options, and free unlimited bandwidth. They’re designed for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

The auto-shutdown feature places your machine in a stop state after a predefined period of inactivity, which can range from one hour to one week. For example, if you select one hour, the machine automatically shuts down after an hour of no activity. For more details on machine states, see the Machine States and Error Codes reference.

On Windows-based machines, auto-shutdown occurs only if the machine is idle with no active connections. In contrast, Linux-based machines shut down after the specified idle time, regardless of whether any users are connected.

Note

As of 1 July 2024, Windows-based templates are retired and unavailable to new Paperspace users. If you joined Paperspace prior to this date, you can still start, manage, and create Windows-based template machines.

The Paperspace API and Paperspace CLI cannot enable or disable auto-shutdown on existing machines. You can only manage the auto-shutdown feature via the Paperspace console.

To enable or disable auto-shutdown on your machine, go to the Paperspace console, in the top-right corner, click the dropdown menu, select CORE, then click the Machines tab. In the Machines section, find and select the machine you want to enable or disable auto-shutdown for. In the machine’s overview page, click the Settings tab, then at the bottom is the Auto-shutdown section.

To enable auto-shutdown, toggle the option on, click the dropdown menu, then select the idle time after which your machine automatically shuts down. After you’ve selected an idle time, click SAVE. To disable auto-shutdown, toggle the option off.