I want my Mac Mini power button to shut down the computer I’ve recently started using my Mac Mini as a media server. I really don’t want it to be powered on all the time though. I’ve removed the password prompt and have told Plex to automatically open on startup which works great, but I now need a way to shut down the computer when I’m done using it.

The box sits on a shelf in my room and isn’t connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and I’d like it to stay this way. From what I can tell the only actions the power button can take are putting the Mac to sleep, displaying the shutdown dialog, and forcing power off.

Is there any way to change my settings such that a simple press of the power button initiates a full system shutdown?
I'm not aware of a way to make the power button tell your Mac mini to perform a normal shutdown, however one solution that comes to mind (assuming you have an iOS device) is to shut your Mac mini down from your iPhone or iPad using an app like iShutdown.

There is a small application that you install on your Mac.

And then you have the app on your phone that has a list of computers you can shutdown and a big virtual power button for each.