Caffeine is a small menu-bar utility that prevents your Mac from going to sleep, dimming the display, or starting the screensaver. This fork of domzilla/Caffeine adds an "Allow Mac to run with lid closed" option (Amphetamine-parity on AC power) and a "Launch at Login" toggle, plus Traditional Chinese localization.
- Download the latest
Caffeine.appfrom the Releases page. - Drag it into
~/Applications(or/Applications). - Double-click to launch. A coffee-cup icon appears at the right side of the menu bar.
- Click the cup to toggle sleep prevention. Right-click (or ⌃-click) for the menu.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Toggle | Click the menu-bar cup. A full cup = active. An empty cup = your Mac sleeps normally. |
| Timed activation | Right-click → Activate for → pick 5 min ‥ 5 hours, or Indefinitely. |
| Launch at Login (new) | Preferences → Launch at Login. Uses SMAppService, sandbox-safe, no helper. |
| Allow Mac to run with lid closed (new) | Preferences → Allow Mac to run with lid closed. Holds an additional PreventSystemSleep IOPMAssertion so a portable Mac stays running with the lid closed on AC power. On battery, macOS may still sleep — this is enforced by the system. |
| Keep apps active | Simulates HID activity so apps like Teams or Slack stop marking you as "Away". |
| Deactivate on manual sleep | Stops Caffeine when you put your Mac to sleep via the Apple menu. |
Open Preferences (right-click cup → Preferences…) and switch on Launch at Login. macOS registers Caffeine as a login item; you can also see it under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions. Toggling either side keeps the state in sync — Caffeine re-reads SMAppService.mainApp.status when its Preferences window opens.
Switch on Allow Mac to run with lid closed, then activate Caffeine (click the cup). On AC power, you can now close the lid and the Mac will keep running — useful for downloads, long renders, or streaming to an external display while the laptop is shut.
To verify it's working, in Terminal:
pmset -g assertions | grep -i caffeineYou should see all three assertion types while active with the toggle on:
pid 12345(Caffeine): … PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep …
pid 12345(Caffeine): … PreventUserIdleSystemSleep …
pid 12345(Caffeine): … PreventSystemSleep …
If you turn the lid-close toggle off, the third line disappears.
⚠️ macOS's closed-lid sleep policy is enforced by the kernel. On battery, the system may still sleep when the lid closes regardless of any assertion. Connect to power for reliable lid-closed operation.
Caffeine ships with 14 localizations:
English · 繁體中文 · 简体中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Deutsch · Español · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · Português (BR) · Português (PT) · Русский · Українська
The European and Slavic translations of the two new strings are best-effort and welcome native-speaker review — open an issue or PR if a phrasing reads oddly in your language.
- macOS 14.6 (Sonoma) or later
- Apple silicon or Intel
git clone [email protected]:bubbleee030/Caffeine.git
cd Caffeine
xcodebuild -project src/Caffeine.xcodeproj -scheme Caffeine \
-destination 'platform=macOS' build CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO
swift test # runs the unit tests for the manager classes
scripts/integration-test.sh # builds and verifies pmset assertion typesYes — it's a feature fork. Tomas Franzén shipped the original in 2006, Michael Jones (IntelliScape) revived it in 2018 under an open-source license, and Dominic Rodemer (domzilla/Caffeine) rewrote it in SwiftUI in 2025. This fork adds Launch at Login and lid-close support on top of that.
No, this version requires at least macOS 14.6 (Sonoma). The upstream domzilla/Caffeine builds against macOS 11+; older systems are unsupported.
The point of this fork is to bring Caffeine's signature simplicity plus Amphetamine's lid-close behaviour into one menu-bar app. If you already love Amphetamine's session/trigger system, stick with it. If you want a one-click cup with a tiny preferences pane that also keeps your laptop running with the lid shut, this is for you.
Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on GitHub:
- © 2006 Tomas Franzén — original Caffeine
- © 2018 Michael Jones (IntelliScape) — revived and open-sourced
- © 2022 Dominic Rodemer — SwiftUI rewrite, Sparkle updates, multi-language work
- 2026 @bubbleee030 — Launch at Login, lid-close support, Traditional Chinese
See CHANGELOG.md for the full version history.