Modern Standby blurs the line, but it’s designed for lightweight updates and notifications, not heavy file transfers. If you want to wake up to a finished download, either disable sleep entirely or just turn off the screen manually.

Sleep is for pausing your work, not your downloads. Have a different experience with your specific PC? Check your motherboard’s “ErP” settings and Windows’ “Network Connectivity in Standby” options—some desktops can be tweaked to stay connected during sleep, but it’s rare by default.

But then the doubt creeps in: Will the download finish? Or will it pause the moment the screen goes dark?