Amphetamine alternative · Mac & Windows

An Amphetamine alternative that keeps your status green

Amphetamine stops your Mac sleeping. Green Dotter does that too, but with real mouse movement, so your status apps stay green as well.

Download for Mac, FreeDownload for Windows, Free
Official Green Dotter download

Green Dotter is available two official ways: install from the Microsoft Store, or download it directly from green-dotter.com. No account, email address or subscription is required.

~3.5 MB standalone appMac and WindowsFree. No account required.
Green Dotter’s compact bar on a desktop. It clicks at random points inside one safe area you chose, or wiggles the mouse. Touch the mouse and it pauses, waiting for you. Leave it and it carries on.

Set up in a minute.

Pick a mode and press Start. That's the whole job.

Click

Choose one exact spot, or draw a box and it clicks somewhere inside it. Clicks land at random intervals inside the range you set, so the rhythm isn't mechanical.

Wiggle

Nothing to pick. The mouse drifts a little, the way yours does while you read. Choose how long, press Start, and leave it.

Green Dotter's main screen set to Wiggle only. A row of options offers 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, Until stopped and Every, with 1 hour chosen, and a green Start button.

It steps aside when you take over.

Touch the mouse and it pauses, then carries on once you stop. While it runs it folds down to a small bar you can park in a corner.

Green Dotter's compact bar while clicking: 1 hour 17 minutes left, stops at 3:45 pm, 842 clicks so far, with pause and stop buttons. The same bar in amber after the mouse was touched: Paused, waiting for you to leave the mouse, with resume and stop buttons.
Beta · new in 2.10

Set the week once.

Pick your days and hours, add a lunch break. Start and stop times shift by a few minutes each day, so it isn't clocking in at 9:00 sharp.

Green Dotter's Scheduler tab. Status Waiting, next run today 8:53 am to 5:08 pm. A Timetable for Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm with random starts up to 10 minutes before and stops up to 10 minutes after, lunch 1 to 2. Below, a week strip with green bars on each weekday and a gap at lunch.

Green Dotter has to be open, the tray is fine, and your computer on and signed in. It can't wake a sleeping computer. It's new, so if something looks off, tell us.

Awake is not the same as active

Amphetamine is a genuinely good app. It's free, it lives in the menu bar, and if all you want is to stop your Mac going to sleep, you don't need anything else.

The catch is how it works. Amphetamine tells macOS not to sleep, and that's it. No input happens. Slack and Teams don't care whether your Mac is awake, they care whether you've touched the mouse or keyboard lately. So your screen stays on and your dot goes yellow anyway.

Green Dotter comes at it from the other side. It makes small, natural mouse movements, or clicks a spot or a screen area you've chosen. Your Mac sees real input, so it stays awake and your status stays green. Same on Windows.

Green Dotter vs Amphetamine

 Green DotterAmphetamine
Keeps your computer awake✓✓
Creates real mouse input✓✗
Helps keep Slack/Teams status active✓✗
Windows support✓✗ Mac only
Trigger-based automation✗✓
Free✓✓

Worth saying plainly: if what you want is deep macOS wake automation, keep Amphetamine, it's excellent at that. If the thing going idle is your chat status rather than your Mac, that's the job Green Dotter was built for. There's a wider rundown in keeping your Mac awake.

Why people switch to Green Dotter

Your status goes yellow anyway. A pure keep-awake tool can't touch your presence dot, because presence runs on input, not wakefulness. Green Dotter creates the input.

You're on Windows half the time. Amphetamine is Mac only. Green Dotter is one app, one setup, on both platforms.

You want clicks, not just wakefulness. Some apps only count you as active when something actually gets clicked. Green Dotter clicks one exact spot you pick, or inside a safe area you draw, so nothing important ever gets hit.

Also compared: Caffeine, Move Mouse and PowerToys Awake.

Official Green Dotter download

Official Green Dotter download

Green Dotter is available two official ways: install from the Microsoft Store, or download it directly from green-dotter.com. No account, email address or subscription is required.

Get Green DotterControlled clicks, simple setup. Green Dotter clicks where you tell it to, on a natural schedule, and gets out of your way when you're back. Free.
Download for Mac, FreeDownload for Windows, Free