You just finished a grueling six-hour session of Elden Ring. Your eyes are stinging. Your thumbs are sore. The last thing you want to do is physically crawl over to your entertainment center to poke a tiny plastic button on a console that looks like a futuristic space heater. Honestly, I get it. Most of us just want to drop the controller and melt into the sofa. But leaving that machine humming all night is a bad move for your power bill and the longevity of the hardware itself.
Learning how to turn off ps5 with controller is basically the first thing every new owner should master, yet Sony hides the toggle behind a UI that feels slightly less intuitive than the PS4’s old quick menu. It's not just about hitting a "Power" button. It’s about navigating a specific overlay that Sony calls the "Control Center."
If you're staring at your screen wondering why there isn't a giant "OFF" icon on the home dashboard, don't worry. You're not losing your mind. The interface is designed to keep you in the game, which makes the exit strategy feel like a secondary thought.
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Using the DualSense Button to Power Down
The magic happens with the PlayStation button—that little transparent icon shaped like the PS logo sitting right between the thumbsticks. Give it a short, single press. Don't hold it down. If you hold it, you’ll just jump back to the home screen, which is helpful if you want to switch games but useless if you’re trying to go to bed.
Once you tap it, a row of icons pops up at the bottom of the screen. This is the Control Center. You need to navigate all the way to the far right. There, you’ll find a circle with a vertical line through it—the universal power symbol.
Click that.
Now, you’ll see three distinct options. It's easy to accidentally hit "Enter Rest Mode," which is the default selection. If you want the console completely dead—no fans spinning, no orange light—you must specifically select "Turn Off PS5." The screen will flicker, a message will tell you not to unplug the AC power cord, and the white lights on the console will eventually blink out. Done.
Why Rest Mode Isn't Always the Answer
A lot of people think Rest Mode is the same as turning the console off. It isn't. Not even close. In Rest Mode, the PS5 is still "breathing." It’s downloading patches, charging your controllers via the USB ports, and keeping your game suspended in RAM so you can jump back in within seconds.
It’s convenient. But it’s also a vulnerability if you live in an area with frequent power flickers or lightning storms. If the power cuts while the PS5 is in Rest Mode, you risk database corruption. I’ve seen enough "Repairing Console Storage" progress bars to know that a full shutdown is often the safer bet for long-term health.
Turning Off the PS5 with a Media Remote or TV Controller
Maybe your DualSense is across the room or the battery finally gave up the ghost. You can still shut things down. If you have the official PS5 Media Remote, it has a dedicated button for this, though it mostly just triggers the same menu we discussed earlier.
However, the real "pro tip" involves HDMI-CEC.
Sony calls this "HDMI Device Link." If you enable this in your System settings, your TV and PS5 start talking to each other. When you turn off your television with its standard remote, the TV sends a signal through the HDMI cable telling the PS5, "Hey, we're done here." The console will then automatically enter Rest Mode or shut down depending on your specific settings.
To set this up, go to Settings, then System, then HDMI. Toggle Enable HDMI Device Link to on. It saves you from juggling three different remotes just to go to sleep.
Dealing with a Frozen Console
Sometimes things go sideways. Maybe a game crashed so hard the Control Center won't even appear when you press the PS button. In these rare, annoying scenarios, the controller is useless. You’ll have to resort to the "Hold and Pray" method.
Walk over to the console. Press and hold the power button on the front of the unit. You’ll hear one beep immediately. Keep holding. After about seven to ten seconds, you’ll hear a second beep. That’s the hard shutdown. It’s not elegant, and the PS5 will probably scold you with a warning message the next time you boot it up, but it beats pulling the plug and risking a bricked SSD.
Common Mistakes When Shutting Down
One of the weirdest quirks of the PS5 is how people mistake the "Switch User" or "Log Out" options for a power-down sequence. Logging out just takes you back to the profile selection screen. The console is still fully powered on, spinning the fans and drawing significant wattage.
Another frequent blunder? Pulling the plug while the light is still pulsing white.
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Wait for the light to stop completely. The PS5 is basically a high-end computer. It needs time to park its data and close out background processes. If you yank the cord while those lights are blinking, you're asking for a "Rebuilding Database" headache the next morning. It takes about 15 seconds. Just wait.
Customizing Your Power Settings for Efficiency
If you find the process of navigating to that far-right icon annoying, you can actually customize the Control Center. While the Power icon itself can't be moved, you can hide other icons you don't use—like Music or Game Base—to make the path to the power button shorter and less cluttered.
Press the Options button (the one with three lines) while the Control Center is open. This lets you toggle which icons appear. Slimming this down makes it much faster to turn off ps5 with controller because you aren't scrolling past six things you never click on.
The Impact on Your Hardware
Long-term, consistently turning your console off instead of leaving it in Rest Mode for months on end can prevent dust buildup. When the console is in Rest Mode, the fans still spin occasionally to manage heat during downloads. This acts like a tiny vacuum cleaner, pulling pet hair and dust into the intake fins.
A cold console is a clean console.
Plus, if you're using an external M.2 SSD—which many of us bought to expand that cramped 825GB internal drive—some of those drives run hot. Giving them a total break from power ensures they stay within their optimal heat cycles over the years.
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Managing the Controller Power Separately
Sometimes you want the console to stay on (maybe to finish a 100GB download of Call of Duty), but you want the controller off to save its notoriously short battery life. You don't have to wait for the 10-minute auto-timeout.
Go back to that same Control Center menu. Look for the Accessories icon (it looks like a controller). Click it, select your DualSense, and hit Turn Off. This kills the controller's power immediately while the PS5 continues its work in the background. It's a lifesaver if you're watching Netflix and don't want the bright blue LEDs of the controller glowing in your peripheral vision.
Actionable Next Steps for PS5 Owners
To ensure your console stays in peak condition while making your life easier, follow these specific steps:
- Audit your HDMI settings: Check if "HDMI Device Link" is active so you can potentially use your TV remote to trigger a shutdown.
- Set a Power-Off Timer: Go to Settings > System > Power Saving. Set the "Time Until PS5 Enters Rest Mode" to 20 minutes for media and 1 hour for games. This acts as a safety net in case you fall asleep mid-session.
- Update your Controller: Ensure your DualSense firmware is current. Occasionally, bugs can cause the PS button to become unresponsive, making it impossible to access the power menu.
- Clean the "Power Icon" path: Use the Options button in the Control Center to remove unnecessary icons, creating a "straight shot" to the power menu.
Taking these small steps moves you from just "using" the console to actually managing it. It’s a $500 piece of hardware; treating the shutdown process with a bit of intent goes a long way.