macOS menu bar app · free

Keep your Mac awake,
for as long as you say.

Caf is a cup in your menu bar. Switch it on and your Mac stays awake — indefinitely, for an hour, or until 5:00 PM — then goes back to sleeping the way it always did. It is a small, native front end for Apple's own caffeinate.

Download for macOS How it works

Free · macOS 14+ · signed and notarized by Apple

Caf Off

Keep Awake

A drawing of the panel, not a screenshot. Try the switch, then pick a timer.

Three ways to say how long.

The panel is a switch and a timer, and that is all of it. Pick how long before you switch on, or change your mind while it is running; the time remaining counts down in the panel either way.

Indefinitely

Until you switch it off

For the afternoon you do not want to think about it. The cup stays filled, so you can see at a glance that it is still on.

For 1 hour

For a length of time

Presets from 5 minutes to 12 hours, or a length of your own, from 1 minute to 24 hours. Then it stops by itself.

Until 5:00 PM

Until a time of day

Set the time the day ends rather than doing the arithmetic. A time that has already passed means that time tomorrow.

One cup. Outlined when off, filled when on.

Caf has no window and no Dock icon to manage. It is one icon in the menu bar that tells you its state without being opened, and a compact panel styled like the system's own Wi-Fi and Focus panels.

Option-click to switch

Hold Option and click the cup to switch Caf on or off without opening the panel at all. Handy once the timer is set the way you like it.

The countdown, if you want it

Show the time remaining beside the cup — 42m, 1h 05m — or leave the menu bar to the icon alone. The panel always shows it to the second.

Decide what stays awake.

Keeping the screen lit for a presentation and keeping the Mac running through an overnight job are different things. Caf lets you say which you mean.

The display and the Mac, or the Mac only

Keep both awake, or let the display sleep while the Mac carries on working behind it.

Optionally keep disks awake as well
Optionally prevent sleep while on the power adapter

It stops when the battery gets low

Have Caf switch itself off at a battery level you choose, from 10% to 50%, so a forgotten session does not run a laptop flat.

It never leaves your Mac awake by accident.

The session is tied to the app. If Caf goes away, for any reason, so does the thing keeping your Mac awake. There is nothing left behind to track down.

Picks up where it stopped

With “Reopen if it stops unexpectedly” on, the system reopens Caf after a crash and it carries on with the same session, including the time remaining.

There when you log in

Open Caf at login, and have it start keeping your Mac awake as soon as it opens, if that is how you use it.

Keeps itself current

Updates arrive automatically. It follows the system in light and dark mode, like the rest of the menu bar.

Apple's caffeinate, with a switch.

Every Mac already ships with a command that keeps it awake. Caf does not replace it with something cleverer. It runs it for you, and stops it when the timer says to.

One honest limit: closing a laptop's lid still puts it to sleep. That is how the Mac works, and Caf does not pretend otherwise.

Keep it awake. Then let it sleep.

A switch, a timer and a cup in the menu bar. No account, nothing to set up.

Download Caf Get help

Free · macOS 14+ · Apple silicon and Intel · signed and notarized

The things worth asking first.

Will it keep my laptop awake with the lid closed?

No. Closing the lid still puts a Mac to sleep, with Caf on or off. Caf keeps an open Mac from going to sleep by itself.

What is it actually doing?

Running caffeinate, the command Apple ships with macOS, with the options you chose in Settings. Settings shows you the exact command.

What happens if Caf quits or crashes?

Your Mac goes back to sleeping normally, because the session cannot outlive the app. If you have “Reopen if it stops unexpectedly” switched on, the system reopens Caf and it resumes the session with the time that was left.

Will it drain my battery?

A Mac that is awake uses more power than one that is asleep; that is the trade you are asking for. Use a timer rather than Indefinitely, let the display sleep if you only need the Mac, and set the low-battery stop.

Is it on the App Store? Is it really free?

It is a direct download rather than an App Store app, signed and notarized by Apple, and it updates itself. It is free, and there is no account.

Keep your Mac awake,for as long as you say.