Keep your Mac awake

macOS has power settings designed to save energy and protect your battery when the machine isn't in use. That's sensible most of the time. But idle timers can't tell the difference between "doing nothing" and "reading a long document" or "waiting for a render, download, or backup to finish".

When your Mac sees no keyboard or trackpad activity, it dims the display, locks, then sleeps. Common culprits:

• Display sleep (can be as short as 2 minutes on battery)
• System sleep settings
• The lock screen timer
• Low Power Mode shortening idle timers on laptops
• Organisation-managed policies that override your preferences

The fix depends on what you're doing and how much control you have over the machine.

macOS ships with a Terminal command called caffeinate. Running it keeps your Mac awake until you stop it, without changing your saved power settings, handy for a one-off long task. It works the same on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

If you'd rather not use Terminal, small menu-bar utilities can toggle a keep-awake lock on and off. These are good when you simply need the screen to stay on. The best known are Caffeine and Amphetamine; both pages explain where Green Dotter differs.

Limitation: these stop the Mac sleeping, but they don't create any activity. If you also need apps like Teams or Slack to keep seeing you as active, a wake-lock alone may not be enough. Those rely on input, not just an awake screen. More on that in keeping your computer awake without changing every setting.

Green Dotter keeps your Mac active by clicking a spot or an area you choose. You pick one exact spot, or a safe area of the screen, and Green Dotter clicks it on a randomised schedule. When you come back and move the trackpad or mouse, it pauses automatically and gets out of your way.

Because it generates real activity, it keeps the screen awake and keeps presence-based statuses from drifting to away. Green Dotter is useful when:

• You need clicks in a chosen spot, not just cursor movement
• You're running a long task and don't want the Mac to sleep
• You're on a Mac where power settings are locked down
• You want the tool to step aside the moment you return
• You prefer randomised timing over a mechanical fixed beat

It runs natively on Apple Silicon and Intel. It's a local app. No account. No cloud. Free.

Green Dotter's Scheduler (beta) starts and stops itself on the days and times you pick. Press Use this on the Weekdays, 9 to 5 card and it's set up in one click. Add a lunch break if you want one, and choose click or wiggle.

Make the times a little random, such as starting up to 10 minutes before 9:00 and stopping up to 10 minutes after 5:00. Your Mac has to be awake and signed in, and Green Dotter has to be running. In the tray is fine. It can't wake a sleeping Mac, and closing the lid still puts it to sleep.

While a session runs, Green Dotter folds down into a small bar on your desktop. It shows how long is left and the clock time it will stop, like Stops 3:45 pm. Pause and stop buttons sit right beside it.

Start it before you walk away and your Mac stays awake without a big window in the way. When you're back, one click on the expand button gives you the full window again.

On organisation-managed Macs, some power and activity settings may be locked. Check what's allowed before changing settings or installing tools. Green Dotter is a local desktop utility that performs clicks inside the area you configure. Use it for legitimate desktop automation and check your workplace policies if you're unsure.