Shut off an iMac Without pressing the power button?

I would suggest a power strip that includes an on/off button that you could put in a location that is accessible to you.

 

You could search for one of the old keyboards that came with the G3s. Those had a power button on the keyboard, if I recall correctly.

EDIT: Yup, they do.

 

if your having random shut downs it might be your power supply that is failing

 

You need to read the thread more carefully. Random shut downs isn't the problem.

 

It should...it's just a regular USB keyboard. Can anyone else confirm that the power button does still work?

 

That's not normal. Have you tried

Disk Utility:
repair permissions
verify disk (and repair if needed)

 

Also I think that if you were to power down via the power strip, you would still need to touch the button on the iMac to power it back on. the power buttons are really not power switches anymore- they just direct something to the firmware.

 

lrn2 read the thread.

@OP, the G3 keyboard should work. If anything you'd need a driver.

 

We've still got several old keyboards with hardware power buttons on them at work, and I don't believe when I tried that the newer Macs have the necessary hardware for that button to act as a "true" hardware power button. It involved a special pin that was a sort of "hack" with the USB bus, and I don't think that exists on the computers anymore. Here's the relevant paragraph from Wikipedia:

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, but unfortunately it looks like a power strip that you can reach may be your best bet.

An alternative would be one of those "remote" power switches you can find at the hardware store; they're designed for lamps (usually to add a foot pedal, but there are more conventional switch shapes), but if you can find one with a three prong outlet that would let you have a reachable switch without moving the whole power strip onto the desk or wherever.

 

If you have "restart automatically after a power failure" turned on I think the Mac should start when the power strip is flipped back on.

On another note, if it's just a rogue process that's hanging preventing a shutdown, but you're still able to launch other apps, fire up the Terminal and enter sudo shutdown -h now. This has worked for me when the normal Shutdown command failed yet the apps were still accessible.

 

Thought I'd post, the power button on the old keyboards do NOT work on current machines. Sorry Tried this myself.