Steven TrotterSteven Trotter
WORKSHOP - DOC 09

Idle Warden.

A tiny menu bar app that keeps your Mac from going idle, so your status stays green while you are still at your desk, but working on analog tasks like cleaning up your notes, planning your week, working on hand drawn artwork, proofing reports, etc. One click on, one click off.

Idle Warden app icon: a green presence dot on a dark rounded square.
APP 01 - IDLE WARDEN

Idle Warden

macOS 11 or later · Apple Silicon + Intel · free

Idle Warden lives in your menu bar and does exactly one thing: it keeps your Mac from being marked idle. Click the dot to engage and it starts working; click again to pause. That is the whole app.

Most jiggler apps warp the cursor around the screen, which looks busy but does not actually count as input, so apps like Slack keep marking you away. Caffeine-style apps only stop your Mac from sleeping, which is a different problem. Idle Warden posts a real mouse-move event every thirty seconds - a single pixel out and back - so to your Mac it is indistinguishable from you nudging the mouse. The idle timer resets, and your status stays green.

It also holds a keep-awake assertion while engaged, so your Mac will not doze off and drop you offline entirely. The one-pixel nudge is small enough that it will not disturb whatever you are actually doing.

  • Left click the menu bar dot to toggle on and off; right click for the menu
  • A solid green dot when engaged, a hollow dot when paused - the same language as Slack presence
  • Start Engaged on Launch, so it begins the moment it opens
  • Open at Login, so you never have to think about it
  • Posts genuine input events, not cursor warps, so the idle timer actually resets
  • Holds system sleep off while engaged so you never drop offline
Download Idle Warden (.dmg)

Free to use and share.

FIRST RUN

On first launch macOS will ask for Accessibility permission - posting mouse events requires it. Grant it under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, then quit and relaunch once and click to engage.

RELEASE NOTES

v1.0.0

First public release

  • Menu bar toggle with a Slack-style presence dot
  • Real input-event nudge every 30 seconds, plus a keep-awake assertion
  • Start Engaged on Launch and Open at Login options
  • About panel with a link back to steventrotter.com for updates and other apps
  • Signed, notarized, and universal (Apple Silicon + Intel)