A lightweight macOS menu bar app built with Flutter that keeps your Mac awake — even with the lid closed — so your servers, downloads, and background tasks keep running while the display stays off to save battery.
| Main Window | Menu Bar |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Prevents the system from sleeping due to inactivity. The display still sleeps on its normal schedule to save battery — only the system is held awake. Perfect for running a local server, downloading large files, or any background task that needs the CPU and network alive.
Close the MacBook lid and the Mac keeps running instead of sleeping. The screen turns off automatically (it's a closed lid), so battery drain is minimal — just the work you're doing. Requires a one-time admin password prompt (macOS restriction, same as every app that does this).
Instantly blacks the display with a single click — useful when you want to leave the Mac at your desk with the lid open but don't want the screen on.
The icon in the menu bar shows live stats next to it. Open the "Show in Menu Bar" submenu and check any combination:
| Stat | Example |
|---|---|
| Battery % | 100% |
| CPU Usage | CPU 16.6% |
| RAM Used | RAM 7.4G |
| Battery Temp | 30.8°C |
| Cycle Count | 746cyc |
Your choices are saved and restored on next launch. Stats refresh every 15 seconds.
The full dropdown also shows detailed stats at a glance: battery state, cycle count, temperature, CPU and RAM.
The main window shows a live animation:
- Sleep allowed — floating z z z rising from a moon icon.
- Awake — steam rising from a glowing coffee cup ☕.
- Each toggle card has a mini animation showing exactly what it does: the display dims while a green server dot keeps blinking (system awake), and a laptop lid closes while the green dot keeps pulsing (lid closed, server running).
| Feature | macOS tool used |
|---|---|
| Keep Awake | caffeinate -is (no root needed) |
| Lid-closed Awake | pmset -a disablesleep 1 (admin via osascript) |
| Turn Screen Off | pmset displaysleepnow |
| Stats | pmset, ioreg, top, sysctl |
When you quit the app, both modes are turned off safely — your Mac goes back to its normal sleep behaviour. If lid-closed mode was active, the app will ask for your admin password once more to restore it.
git clone https://github.com/error404sushant/mac_never_sleep.git
cd mac_never_sleep
flutter pub get
flutter run -d macosflutter build macos --release
open build/macos/Build/Products/Release/mac_never_sleep.appYou can copy mac_never_sleep.app to /Applications to keep it permanently.
- macOS 10.14+
- Flutter 3.x
- With both switches on, close the lid — the Mac runs your server silently with the screen off. Check with
pmset -g | grep SleepDisabled(should be1). - Leaving the lid-closed switch on while the Mac is in a bag causes heat and battery drain. Always quit the app or turn the switch off before packing up.
- If the menu bar icon is hidden by the MacBook notch, quit one other menu bar app to make room.
- Flutter — cross-platform UI framework
- tray_manager — macOS menu bar integration
- window_manager — native window control
- shared_preferences — persisting user settings