Topic: Is it ok to leave switch games running in sleep mode?

After a few weeks of not turning on my switch, I found that I had left a game on in the background for all that time. Could this cause damage to my switch?

The Switch will go to sleep if you leave the settings in default. You might or might not lose your saves from that time.

As long as the battery charge holds, yes. I've had my Switch in sleep mode for days at a time and was able to pick up immediately where I left off.

The switch can handle it, but it's draining energy. If you don't plan on playing for a while, save the game and turn your switch off. The world doesn't run on an eternal and clean energy source yet people.

It will just slowly lose battery if it isn't plugged in.

Not if docked it stays charged. Only if off power source then it will slowly drain. And for clean energy parts of the world does run on it so stop making misleading comments.

@SwitchForce @BMO_Advanced I fail to see how this comment is "misleading"... He is recommending turning the system off to save power. Just because "parts of the world have clean energy" doesn't make this misleading! You are being misleading by implying that because "parts of the world have clean energy", it's OK to not care about your own energy consumption! The world is a changing place... we seriously DO need to be not only thinking about these things but taking action too! Also, please do let me know where in the World there is 100% clean energy... because last time I checked, Iceland do a pretty good job but are still some way short of achieving that feat!

@jamestoaster it's safe to leave it in sleep mode, for sure. In fact, I'd suggest it's kinda a key selling point of the Switch! But I think @BMO_Advanced makes a really fair point.

Yeah, I think the OP knows how charging a device works...

@nocdaes Thank you, I was going to say something similar, allow me to continue

At the moment only a small amount of the energy produced in the world is green (meaning it doesn't have a negative impact on the environment) About 1/5 of the energy produced is renewable, unfortunately that doesn't mean it's harmless. Even though a few countries are taking good initiatives it doesn't mean you no longer have to worry about your energy usage and act like it's oxygen. There are people that leave their devices in sleep mode almost all the time, they should be more environmentally conscious. I'm not saying they're the problem, we all have an ecological footprint, but it's a good thing to try and be part of the solution instead. I'm trying to get more environmentally friendly myself, I hope others give it some thought as well.

As others have said, of course it's safe. That's a key feature of the console (as it was on the 3DS as well, and increasingly is for PS4 and XBox One. )

As for power consumption, 1 hour of running even an LED light bulb would eat more power than leaving your switch on suspend for a year. Of all the things that consume obscene amounts of power, a video game console on suspend wouldn't rank in the top thousand.

Very rarely my Switch will freeze when waking it from sleep mode with a game running, and I have to force the game to close (I can still access the home screen and close the game from there), but that has only happened to me once or twice. Perhaps that's the sort of bug Nintendo is fixing with their stability patches.

@JamesToaster Since everyone's pointing out the obvious, I'll point out the reverse. If you plan on playing again within a day or so, don't turn it off. The boot up sequence to turn on the OS and get it into the game is a larger drain on the battery than it's tiny amount of usage in sleep mode in a short period like that.

History speaks more to the idea that the world would be a more stable place if fewer people told others how to live their lives than it does the concept of shaming the world population for not powering down devices that draw only 7.5x39 watts (5 volts @ 1.5 amps x 15 volts @ 2.6 amps). The only world you're saving is the structural subatomic make-up of the copper and nickel alloy dime you're saving on your monthly energy bill, comrades.

I have a launch Switch. I've been doing this since day 1. Sometimes I leave games suspended and the Switch in sleep mode for days, heck, weeks before I go back into the game.

So far, so good.

/anecdoteforthewin

This was an awesome post.

The only time I ever turn my Switch off is if I need to remove the microSD card for whatever reason. Aside from that, it's been either on or in sleep mode since the day it came out.

Comment notwithstanding it wasn't to the OP fyi.