Usage
Web Access - Network Access During Sleep - ONA.UNO Docs
How Web Access works when your Mac is sleeping
This page explains how ONA.UNO Web Access can remain accessible even when your Mac appears to be asleep.
You might notice that you can browse your ONA.UNO timeline from your phone — even when your Mac’s screen is off and you thought it was sleeping. This is normal and expected behavior on modern Macs.
Web Access always shows the currently selected Set. If your web UI looks “wrong”, make sure you’re in the correct Set in the ONA.UNO app. See Sets (Libraries).
What happens when your Mac “sleeps”
Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3, M4, and later) don’t truly sleep like older Intel Macs did. Instead, they use “always-on” processor technology — similar to iPhones and iPads.
When you put your Mac to “sleep,” it enters a low-power state called Dark Wake (or Power Nap) where:
- The display stays off
- The CPU can wake instantly to handle tasks
- Network connections are maintained
Your Mac wakes briefly every 15–60 minutes to run maintenance tasks:
- Checking Mail for new messages
- Syncing iCloud data
- Running Time Machine backups
- Responding to network requests
On Apple Silicon Macs, Power Nap is always enabled and cannot be turned off. This is part of the chip’s design.
What this means for Web Access
When Web Access is enabled and your Mac is “sleeping”:
- The ONA.UNO web server continues listening for connections
- Your Mac wakes briefly to handle requests, then returns to low-power mode
Without Tailscale: Your phone and Mac must be on the same local network (WiFi or Ethernet).
With Tailscale: Your phone can be anywhere — on mobile data, a different WiFi network, etc. Your Mac just needs internet connectivity.
This is a feature, not a bug. You can put your Mac to sleep and still access your timeline from your phone.
What works during sleep
| Feature | Works? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Browse timeline | ✓ Yes | All indexed items are accessible |
| View item details | ✓ Yes | Summary, content, tags |
| Text search | Likely | Database queries only — needs verification |
| Semantic search (Online) | ? Uncertain | Requires API call to embed the query |
| Semantic search (Mixed) | ? Uncertain | Requires local mxbai to embed the query |
| Chat (Online mode) | ? Uncertain | RAG retrieval runs locally before API call |
| Chat (Mixed mode) | ? Uncertain | May be unreliable because query embeddings run locally |
| Star/unstar items | ✓ Yes | |
| Web clipping | ✓ Yes | The clip is queued |
Some features haven’t been tested during Dark Wake yet:
- Text search uses SQLite FTS queries only — should work, but not confirmed
- Semantic search needs to embed your query before searching. In Online mode this calls the remote API; in Mixed mode it runs the local mxbai model
- Chat always uses a cloud LLM, but retrieval runs locally first and may require embedding your question (Online mode typically embeds queries via the API; Mixed mode embeds queries locally)
These will be updated once tested during an actual sleep cycle.
What won’t run during sleep
Heavy tasks are paused until the Mac fully wakes:
- AI processing (summaries, titles, embeddings) — requires significant CPU/GPU
- Source syncing (Feedbin, file watchers) — may be delayed
- Local model inference (Mixed mode embeddings) — may be delayed or unreliable in Dark Wake
So if you check Web Access from your phone at 7am and see new emails that arrived at 3am:
- The emails were synced by Mail during a Power Nap cycle
- They appear in your timeline (unprocessed)
- They won’t have AI-generated titles or summaries yet
- Semantic search won’t find them yet
Once you fully wake your Mac, the AI pipeline processes everything.
Is this secure?
Yes — the same security measures apply whether your Mac is awake or in Dark Wake:
- Web Access still requires password authentication
- Remote access is still gated by Tailscale (if enabled)
- Your Mac is not exposed to the public internet
If you prefer your Mac to be completely unreachable when sleeping, you can disable “Wake for network access” in System Settings → Battery → Options. However, this will also affect other features like Find My Mac and remote management.
Requirements
For Web Access to work during sleep:
- Power adapter connected (recommended) — some wake features are limited on battery
- Wake for network access enabled (this is the default)
- Web Access enabled in ONA.UNO Settings
Troubleshooting
Web Access doesn’t respond when Mac is sleeping:
- Check that your Mac is connected to power
- Verify “Wake for network access” is enabled in System Settings → Battery → Options
- Ensure the web server was running before you put the Mac to sleep
Items appear but aren’t processed:
- This is expected — AI processing runs when the Mac is fully awake
- Wake your Mac normally and the items will be processed
Semantic search doesn’t find new items:
- New items need embeddings before semantic search can find them
- Embeddings are generated when the Mac is fully awake
Semantic search or chat doesn’t respond:
- These features may not work reliably during Dark Wake
- Semantic search requires embedding your query (API call or local model)
- Chat requires RAG retrieval which may also need embedding
- If these don’t work, wake your Mac fully and try again
Chat or semantic search is unreliable in Mixed mode:
- Mixed mode may need local embeddings for your query, which can be unreliable in Dark Wake.
- Wake your Mac fully and try again.
- If you need maximum reliability while your Mac is asleep, Online mode may work better (it relies more on cloud requests than local inference).