I recently had to rsync a large amount of data that would take several hours. My MacBook kept going to sleep so the rsync would never finish.
I learned about the caffeinate utility to prevent sleeping.
Usage examples are:
caffeinate rsync -vaP /path/to/source /path/to/destination
This keeps your Mac awake only for the duration of the rsync process. Once the transfer is complete, caffeinate will end, and your computer will resume its normal power-saving behavior.
If you wanted to keep the screen on for some reason (e.g., to monitor the progress), you would use the -d (display) flag.
caffeinate -d rsync -vaP /path/to/source /path/to/destination
If you just want to keep Mac running without waiting for some specific command:
caffeinate -t 36000
This command keeps the Mac awake for 10 hours (3600 seconds * 10 = 36000).