SwitchyKeep your Mac awake from the menu bar
Switchy's Keep Awake tile stops your Mac from sleeping while you're idle, for 1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours, or indefinitely. One click turns it on, and it turns itself off when the time is up. It's one of the switches in Switchy, free for 7 days, then $4.99 once, on macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
Free for 7 days, then $4.99 once. macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
How Keep Awake works
Keep Awake is a tile on the Switchy panel, and it's there by default. It has two click targets:
- Click the cup icon to turn it on or off. Turning it on this way keeps your Mac awake indefinitely.
- Click the name to pick a duration: 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours or Indefinitely. Picking one turns Keep Awake on.
While a timed session runs, the tile shows the duration and when it ends, for example "3 hours · until 4:30 PM". When the time is up, Keep Awake turns itself off and your normal sleep settings take over again. You can also record a keyboard shortcut for it in Settings → Shortcuts and flip it from any app.
If you quit Switchy or restart your Mac with a session still running, Switchy remembers it. The next time it launches, it picks up where it left off, as long as the end time hasn't passed.
Display sleep, system sleep and the lid
Keep Awake uses a standard macOS power assertion that stops the display from sleeping when you're idle. With the screen kept on, your Mac also doesn't go to idle sleep, so downloads, builds, renders and remote sessions keep running. It needs no special permissions.
It only prevents idle sleep. Choosing Sleep from the Apple menu still works, and closing a MacBook's lid still puts it to sleep the way macOS normally does. If you need a laptop to keep running with the lid shut, Keep Awake won't do that.
You can check that it's working in Terminal: pmset -g assertions lists an assertion named "Switchy Keep Awake" while it's on.
Vibe coding away from your desk
When you vibe code, an AI agent like Claude Code or Codex does the typing on your Mac while you steer. A task can run for twenty minutes or two hours, and you don't have to sit and watch it. You start it at your desk, then check in from your phone, an iPad or another Mac.
That only works if the Mac you left behind stays online. When it drops into idle sleep, everything on it pauses: the agent stops mid-task, your dev server goes quiet and the network connection drops. From your phone, the Mac seems to have vanished. The SSH session hangs, Screen Sharing can't connect, and the remote session in your AI tool stops answering until someone walks over and wakes it up.
Turn on Keep Awake before you leave and your Mac stays reachable for as long as you pick: 3 or 6 hours for an afternoon out, or Indefinitely for an overnight run. A timed session switches itself off at the end, so your Mac goes back to sleeping normally.
Set up your Mac to be reached remotely
- Keep it awake. Keep Awake handles idle sleep. On a MacBook, leave the lid open, because closing it still puts the Mac to sleep.
- Keep it plugged in. A long agent run eats battery, and a Mac with a flat battery goes to sleep no matter what's keeping it awake.
- Give yourself a way in. In System Settings → General → Sharing, turn on Screen Sharing to see the desktop or Remote Login to use SSH. To reach your Mac from outside your home network, a private network such as Tailscale is the simplest route.
- Know what locking does. A locked screen doesn't stop SSH, agents or anything already running. With Screen Sharing you land on the lock screen and type your password first. To have it lock later, change the delay in System Settings → Lock Screen, keeping in mind that anyone at your desk can use an unlocked Mac.
Keep Awake vs. caffeinate in Terminal
macOS ships with caffeinate, a command that does the same job. Keep Awake creates the same kind of assertion as caffeinate -d. The difference is how you use it.
| What | Switchy Keep Awake | caffeinate |
|---|---|---|
| How you start it | One click in the menu bar, or a shortcut | Type a command in Terminal |
| Timed sessions | Pick from a menu, with the end time shown | Pass seconds with -t |
| How long it lasts | Until the timer ends or you turn it off, and it comes back after a relaunch | Until the command exits or you close Terminal |
| Keep awake while a command runs | No | Yes, with caffeinate your-command |
| Choose which kind of sleep to block | No, it always keeps the display on | Yes, with flags like -i, -d and -s |
| Cost | Part of Switchy, $4.99 once | Free, built into macOS |
If you live in Terminal and want your Mac awake only while a script runs, caffeinate is the better tool. If you want a switch you can see and flip without opening a window, Keep Awake is quicker.
When another app suits you better
If keeping your Mac awake is the only thing you need, Amphetamine is free on the Mac App Store and is built for exactly that, with far more settings than Switchy's single tile. Switchy makes more sense if you'd also use the other switches it puts in the same panel.
The other switches in the panel
Keep Awake sits next to switches for Dark Mode, Night Shift, True Tone, Mute Microphone, Do Not Disturb, Hide Desktop Icons, Empty Trash and a Pomodoro timer, each one click away. The panel also shows your deploys and dev servers, 2FA codes and your Claude and Codex usage limits. See every switch.
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