Now, learning how to put a Nintendo Switch into Sleep mode is easy enough. That’s actually the default result of simply pressing the off-button. But, in a very un-Nintendo fashion, that also causes some potential for difficulties for some users. Namely, figuring out how to turn the Switch off, since that other option is the default, won’t be intuitive to everybody. The fact that the Nintendo Switch only has a single way to actually turn it off doesn’t necessarily make matters easier. If anything, many users will find that to be counterintuitive. Fortunately, that’s exactly what this guide is here to discuss, whether you’re playing docked or in handheld mode. So let’s dive in.
How to turn off your Nintendo Switch
As noted above, using the software won’t be of any help at all here. The Nintendo Switch UI does, in fact, show a power button just below the row representing your games library. But that doesn’t actually power the Switch down. In fact, just as with the power button’s default, that simply puts the console into a power-saving sleep mode. Similarly, users are free to press and hold the house-icon bearing home button on any controller, attached to the Switch or not, to pull up the power menu. But the only option there is, of course, to put the console to sleep. But if you look to turn the console off completely, extra steps and the hardware itself are required.
Turning your Switch off using in docked mode still requires the power button
Now, the same steps will actually need to be followed to turn off the console, even if your Nintendo Switch is docked. And that’s because, as of this writing, Nintendo Switch is the only console for which there is presently no software-first way to accomplish the task. Instead, it’s entirely hardware-driven. The primary caveat to that is, of course, that you’ll need to keep the Switch firmly seated in its dock to accomplish that. If your Switch leaves the dock during the process or otherwise becomes undocked after turning it off, prior to reseating, it will turn back on. Since the Switch will actually turn on automatically, by default, if docked while turned off.
