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Idler

Keep your Mac awake with one click.

Sleep allowed
Sleep prevention active

Corporate-managed Macs often enforce aggressive sleep policies you can't override. Your screen locks, Slack goes "Away", colleagues think you disappeared — even though you just got coffee while a build runs.

Idler sits in the menu bar. Click once — it prevents system and display sleep via IOKit assertions and simulates user activity every 30 seconds. Click again to allow sleep normally.

Rewrite of the original Go version in native Swift.

$ brew install --cask alexrett/tap/idler
Download DMG Source on GitHub

Releases

v2.1.0Mar 15, 2026

Fixes

  • Fixed cursor jumping on external monitors — cursor nudge now correctly converts coordinates across multi-monitor setups instead of using only the primary screen height
  • Fixed build.sh recursive call failing when run via bash build.sh
v2.0.0Mar 15, 2026

Idler v2.0.0

Complete rewrite in Swift — native macOS menu bar app that prevents sleep.

Features

  • One-click toggle in menu bar (🌙 → ⚡)
  • Prevents system + display sleep via IOKit
  • Simulates user activity every 30 seconds
  • No dock icon, runs quietly in menu bar

Install

Download Idler.dmg, open and drag to Applications.

Signed and notarized with Apple Developer ID. Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Requirements

  • macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later
platform macOS 13+
architecture universal (arm64 + x86_64)
framework SwiftUI + IOKit
activity sim every 30 seconds
license MIT
privacy fully offline, no telemetry
update brew upgrade --cask alexrett/tap/idler
uninstall brew uninstall --cask alexrett/tap/idler