Your Mac sleeps mid-download, mid-render, mid-agent-run. Keepresso keeps it awake exactly when it should, with smart triggers, timed sessions, closed-display mode, and a headless-Mac toolkit. Native menu-bar app. Free, open source, macOS 14+.
This started with a small, recurring annoyance. My Mac kept dozing off at the worst possible moment, mid-download, mid-render, and increasingly mid-agent-run while I was away from the keyboard. The old fix was caffeinate in a terminal, or an app that just holds the Mac awake forever. Neither is smart. Both are all or nothing.
And the moment I wanted more than that, the picture got messy. Most of the keep-awake tools I found were old and no longer maintained, closed source, or paid, and none of them did the whole job. To cover smart triggers, a headless virtual display, and the rest of the Mac optimizations, I would have needed four or five separate apps stitched together. I wanted one small, well-built system that handles it all.
What I really wanted was simple to say and surprisingly hard to find. I wanted to close my laptop in the middle of any work, keep it running even on battery with no cable attached, and have the screen stay off inside the closed lid so nothing sat there lit in my bag. And I wanted it to be smart about the other direction too, so that once the job actually finished, the Mac was allowed to sleep instead of burning power all night.
So I built the tool I wanted, one that keeps the Mac awake only when it actually should be, then lets it rest.
It began as a plain app with a manual on and off switch. Then I kept adding the thing I needed next, and the thing after that, until it quietly turned into the productivity app I think a lot of us Mac users always wanted: smart triggers, closed-display mode, gaming and streaming fixes, a headless-Mac toolkit, and sensible sleep behavior, all in one calm menu-bar app.
A few things I'm proud of:
- A real trigger engine. Stay awake while a download is running, a meeting is using the camera or mic, a build is pegging the CPU, an external drive is mounted, you are on a specific Wi-Fi or VPN, or your calendar says so. Combine conditions with any or all. It uses real macOS power assertions, no fake mouse jiggles, no faked keystrokes. - Stay-active mode, done honestly. Tell Teams and Slack presence, remote-desktop sessions, and corporate idle-logout that you are here, so they stop marking you away. It uses the documented macOS user-activity API system-wide, not fake mouse jiggles or keystrokes, and only steps in after you have been idle a few seconds, so it never moves the pointer while you are actually working. Off by default. - Closed-display mode that works on battery. No external monitor, no power cord required, unlike Apple's built-in clamshell. Shut the lid and Keepresso puts the display to sleep so nothing sits lit inside it, the Mac stays locked by your usual security settings, and downloads, builds, and agents keep running underneath. - A headless-Mac toolkit for anyone running a Mac mini or Studio as a build server, agent host, or home server, including an experimental HiDPI virtual display so Screen Sharing looks crisp instead of a fuzzy 1080p. - Gaming mode that pauses AWDL to stop the Wi-Fi stutter during cloud and streaming sessions. - Shortcuts, a URL scheme, a CLI, widgets, 15 languages, and it lives quietly in the menu bar with no Dock icon.
It is native Swift and SwiftUI, free, open source (GPL-3.0), signed and notarized, macOS 14+. No trackers, no cookies, no license fee, for individuals and businesses alike.
I would love your feedback, feature requests, and the situations where your Mac dozes off when it should not. I will be here all day answering everything ☕
Closed-display mode on battery is useful, but keeping a compiling Mac awake inside a bag sounds brutal for heat. Do you watch thermal pressure and drop the power assertion before macOS throttles? A finished build is not worth cooking the battery.
@gyorgysh Voted for this. Open source tools rarely invest in onboarding emails, which is actually an edge if you do, curious if that's on the roadmap.
the stay-active mode for Teams/Slack presence is the feature I'd actually worry about, not technically but organizationally. it's honest in that it uses the real activity API rather than jiggling the mouse, but from an employer's perspective it's still software whose whole purpose is to make you look present when you're not at the keyboard. any thought to how that lands with corporate IT policies, or is the assumption that this is squarely a personal-machine feature and not something people would run on a managed work laptop
Fellow Mac indie here, congrats! Menu bar apps that do one thing well are the best kind, and bonus points for open source. Caffeine has been my default forever, so happy to try a fresh take.
Nice to see this free and open source — a keep-awake tool is one of those small things you only miss the moment you don’t have it. Question: can it stay awake automatically only while a specific app is running (say a download or a call), instead of toggling it on and off manually?
honest question - what's the actual gap versus just running `caffeinate -s` in a launchd script or using Amphetamine, which already covers most of this (timed sessions, closed-display mode)? is the differentiator really the "agent-run" trigger detection, ie it can tell when a coding agent or long job is actually still working vs just idle, or is that more of a manual toggle too?
Using real macOS power assertions instead of fake mouse jiggles, and knowing when to let the Mac sleep again, is such a thoughtful touch that most keep-awake tools miss.
I'd been running Amphetamine for years, but it hasn't seen an update in 2+ years, so I started looking for something actively maintained. Keepresso looks like exactly what I needed — native menu-bar app, smart triggers instead of just a blanket "stay awake" toggle, timed sessions, and a closed-display mode for when I want to run things lid-closed. The headless-Mac toolkit is a nice bonus if you're using a Mac as a mini server/build box.
Being free and open source is a big plus too — means it won't just quietly stop getting updates the way Amphetamine did.
Will report back after some real-world use, but first impressions are solid.
Been using this and honestly love it 🙌, and one small feature I'd request: I'd love a quick "stop in 15 min" option so the Mac sleeps on its own afterward and I don't have to remember to toggle it off.
the trigger engine using real power assertions instead of fake mouse jiggles is the detail that sold me. staying awake mid-agent-run is exactly the case the old caffeinate tools never saw coming
Would love to see a caffeine-level slider or "keep awake until X% battery" option so it can taper off gracefully instead of forcing a sudden sleep after a long render. Also helps avoid draining to zero on a forgotten session.
About Keepresso on Product Hunt
“Keep your Mac awake, on your terms. Free and open source”
Keepresso launched on Product Hunt on July 15th, 2026 and earned 123 upvotes and 25 comments, placing #14 on the daily leaderboard. Your Mac sleeps mid-download, mid-render, mid-agent-run. Keepresso keeps it awake exactly when it should, with smart triggers, timed sessions, closed-display mode, and a headless-Mac toolkit. Native menu-bar app. Free, open source, macOS 14+.
Keepresso was featured in Productivity (656.1k followers), Open Source (68.6k followers) and Menu Bar Apps (12.2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 162.3k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Keepresso?
Keepresso was hunted by Gyorgy. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Keepresso stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Gyorgy
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I'm Gyorgy, the maker of Keepresso.
This started with a small, recurring annoyance. My Mac kept dozing off at the worst possible moment, mid-download, mid-render, and increasingly mid-agent-run while I was away from the keyboard. The old fix was caffeinate in a terminal, or an app that just holds the Mac awake forever. Neither is smart. Both are all or nothing.
And the moment I wanted more than that, the picture got messy. Most of the keep-awake tools I found were old and no longer maintained, closed source, or paid, and none of them did the whole job. To cover smart triggers, a headless virtual display, and the rest of the Mac optimizations, I would have needed four or five separate apps stitched together. I wanted one small, well-built system that handles it all.
What I really wanted was simple to say and surprisingly hard to find. I wanted to close my laptop in the middle of any work, keep it running even on battery with no cable attached, and have the screen stay off inside the closed lid so nothing sat there lit in my bag. And I wanted it to be smart about the other direction too, so that once the job actually finished, the Mac was allowed to sleep instead of burning power all night.
So I built the tool I wanted, one that keeps the Mac awake only when it actually should be, then lets it rest.
It began as a plain app with a manual on and off switch. Then I kept adding the thing I needed next, and the thing after that, until it quietly turned into the productivity app I think a lot of us Mac users always wanted: smart triggers, closed-display mode, gaming and streaming fixes, a headless-Mac toolkit, and sensible sleep behavior, all in one calm menu-bar app.
A few things I'm proud of:
- A real trigger engine. Stay awake while a download is running, a meeting is using the camera or mic, a build is pegging the CPU, an external drive is mounted, you are on a specific Wi-Fi or VPN, or your calendar says so. Combine conditions with any or all. It uses real macOS power assertions, no fake mouse jiggles, no faked keystrokes.
- Stay-active mode, done honestly. Tell Teams and Slack presence, remote-desktop sessions, and corporate idle-logout that you are here, so they stop marking you away. It uses the documented macOS user-activity API system-wide, not fake mouse jiggles or keystrokes, and only steps in after you have been idle a few seconds, so it never moves the pointer while you are actually working. Off by default.
- Closed-display mode that works on battery. No external monitor, no power cord required, unlike Apple's built-in clamshell. Shut the lid and Keepresso puts the display to sleep so nothing sits lit inside it, the Mac stays locked by your usual security settings, and downloads, builds, and agents keep running underneath.
- A headless-Mac toolkit for anyone running a Mac mini or Studio as a build server, agent host, or home server, including an experimental HiDPI virtual display so Screen Sharing looks crisp instead of a fuzzy 1080p.
- Gaming mode that pauses AWDL to stop the Wi-Fi stutter during cloud and streaming sessions.
- Shortcuts, a URL scheme, a CLI, widgets, 15 languages, and it lives quietly in the menu bar with no Dock icon.
It is native Swift and SwiftUI, free, open source (GPL-3.0), signed and notarized, macOS 14+. No trackers, no cookies, no license fee, for individuals and businesses alike.
Install is one line:
(or grab the .DMG from Github Releases).
I would love your feedback, feature requests, and the situations where your Mac dozes off when it should not. I will be here all day answering everything ☕