Amphetamine can keep your Mac, and optionally its display(s), awake through a super simple on/off switch, or automatically through easy-to-configure Triggers. Amphetamine is extremely powerful and includes advanced features for those who need them, yet remains intuitive and easy-to-use for those who don't need all of the bells and whistles.
By default, your Mac is set for maximum efficiency. That means it tries to preserve energy whenever and wherever it can, especially if you’re on battery power. So when it detects that you’re no longer using your computer, it automatically goes to sleep.
While that will save you some battery life, it’s not ideal in every situation. You might, for instance, be gone only for a few minutes and want to resume instantly when you return. Or worse, if you’re waiting for an active task like a large download to complete, your computer might interrupt it by going to sleep.
Thankfully, you can manually configure your Mac to keep it from falling asleep.
1. macOS’s Built-In Energy Saver Options
macOS has a built-in tool to customize how long your computer should wait before turning off the screen and going to sleep.
It’s present as Energy Saver in System Preferences. In there, you will find a bunch of settings for personalizing the sleep times for both when your Mac is on battery power and when it’s plugged in. You can set a minimum period of one minute and even push the slider up to Never if you want to disable the automatic behavior entirely.
Plus, Energy Saver has a couple of more handy options. You can switch on a utility called Power Nap where even in sleep mode, your Mac will periodically check for new emails, appointment alerts, and more. When it’s connected to a power adapter, your Mac can also just turn off the screen and not go to sleep.
Energy Saver even lets you schedule your Mac’s hours. By hitting the Schedule button located at the bottom of the window, you can specify the time when the computer should start up or wake and another parameter for when it should go to sleep, shut down, or restart.
Struggling to find these or other settings on your Mac? Take a look at these tips for locating preferences on macOS faster.
2. Amphetamine
Your Mac’s native methods will be sufficient for many users. But if you’re looking for more control, you’ll have to turn to third-party alternatives. And one of the best is titled Amphetamine.
Amphetamine bills itself as a powerful and flexible keep-awake utility, and this is accurate. The app features a multitude of options and settings for establishing a session. For starters, of course Amphetamine can prevent your computer from sleeping for a particular time period or indefinitely.
But where Amphetamine truly stands out is its ability to implement triggers. Instead of a time period, the app can keep your Mac awake based on an event. So for instance, you can ask it to stay active as long as an app is running or it’s connected to a Bluetooth device.
These triggers are highly customizable, and you can bind several of them together for a more precise environment. In addition, Amphetamine comes with a host of other tools including appearance options for its menu bar dropdown.
Download:Amphetamine (Free)
3. KeepingYouAwake
For people who only need a quick way to tweak their computer’s sleep times, Amphetamine can feel a bit overwhelming. A better-suited app for this set of users is an open-source tool called KeepingYouAwake.
KeepingYouAwake is a straightforward app that instantly allows you to change your Mac’s standby times from the menu bar. You can select from a bunch of duration presets, including an indefinite mode. And you can have the app launch at startup.
What’s more, the app can automatically deactivate if the battery level falls below a threshold. There’s nothing else to KeepingYouAwake, making it a suitable replacement for the now-defunct Caffeine.
Download:KeepingYouAwake (Free)
4. Anti Sleep
Anti Sleep is another handy app for blocking your Mac from falling asleep. While it is largely similar to the rest of the apps mentioned here, it does have a few unique traits. Its biggest highlight is the fact that it can keep your computer awake even when the lid is closed.
Moreover, the app houses a ton of other advanced features. For instance, it can automatically eject all your external drives before your computer goes to sleep. There are quick shortcuts for a bunch of other nifty actions, including one that fades the display.
Anti Sleep has support for triggers as well, although they’re not as flexible or sophisticated as Amphetamine. You can activate the app based on several parameters, such as Wi-Fi networks, external displays, AC power, and more.
However, Anti Sleep is not free, unlike the others. For the majority of its exclusive tools, you will have to pay. After a free one-month trial of the premium package, you’ll have to shell out a fee of one dollar per three months.
Download:Anti Sleep (Free, premium version available)
5. Owly
Owly doesn’t have a whole lot of factors to differentiate it from the above. But there’s one feature some people might appreciate: Owly shows a countdown timer in the menu bar whenever it’s live.
Thus, if you set these times for a work session or any other activity, you can easily know how much is left on the clock. Apart from that, Owly offers the same set of tools and lets you control it from the menu bar.
Download:Owly (Free)
Monitor and Improve Your Mac’s Battery Life
It’s important your Mac stays awake whenever you’re in the middle of a task. And these apps will certainly allow you to configure standby times precisely based on your preferences.
But constantly being active can also cause your Mac’s battery life to degrade more quickly over time. To counter that drawback, try out apps designed to monitor and improve your Mac’s battery 6 Apps to Monitor and Improve Your MacBook's Battery LifeWant to get more out of your MacBook's battery? These apps let you keep an eye on battery health and improve battery life. Read More .
This is the distribution channel for beta versions of the macOS app Amphetamine.
Amphetamine is a macOS app that is distributed through the Mac App Store. Apple does not provide a TestFlight service for macOS like they do for iOS, however, and thus I distribute beta versions of Amphetamine through this Github page.
Amphetamine 5 was released on the Mac App Store on 02/20/2020. Amphetamine 5 is a rebranding of version 4.3. Get the update here: https://apps.apple.com/app/amphetamine/id937984704?mt=12
Last Available Beta:
Amphetamine 4.3 b4 Expires on: March 11th, 2020
Beta 3 → Beta 4 changelog:
• Fixed an issue that caused Triggers preference pane/view to not load • Fixed an issue that caused Battery & Power Adapter Trigger criterion view to not load • Visual updates to reflect merging of Power & Sessions preference panes • Some small additional bug fixes that are hard to describe in a few words
Beta 2 → Beta 3 changelog:
• DNS Trigger criterion now allows adding/removing of individual DNS server addresses • Fixed an issue that caused Trigger started notifications to not include Trigger name • Preferences → Power has been merged into Preferences → Sessions → Non-Trigger sessions • Preferences → Sessions pane has been split into Non-Trigger and All Session categories to better illustrate how these preferences work/are applied
Beta 1 → Beta 2 changelog: • Fixed an issue that could cause IPv6 address range matching to evaluate true unexpectedly • Fixed an issue where only one IP address per interface being found • Added 'no power adapter' conditions to Power (power adapter/battery) Trigger • Added and/or operator to Power (power adapter/battery) Trigger • Replaced most instances of 'AC power adapter' with 'power adapter' (still have a few to update) • Updated some help + contextual messages/wording
Pre-Release Release Notes:
New Features & Improvements:
• Keep your MacBook awake while its lid is closed • Lock your Mac's screen after a period of inactivity (macOS 10.14+) • Support for Amphetamine Enhancer (get it at https://github.com/x74353) • Redesigned Quick Preferences • Redesigned Current Session Details menu section • Dock icon now hides and shows automatically when Amphetamine's windows open/close (macOS 10.14+) • Improvements to how Amphetamine determines when to the start screen saver • Search has been added to app pickers • Screen saver no longer runs if screen is already locked • Support for IPv6 addresses in Triggers • Added ability to manually control padding for menu bar image • Added new + updated some existing AppleScript commands • Added 'no power adapter' conditions to Power (power adapter/battery) Trigger • Added and/or operator to Power (power adapter/battery) Trigger Bug Fixes: • Fixed an issue where menu would not display when 2 or more displays were arranged vertically • Fixed an issue that caused the Other Time/Until clock to show an unexpected time • Fixed an issue that caused the CPU utilization to be monitored unexpectedly • Fixed an issue that caused Quick Preferences to continue to use color to represent status unexpectedly • Fixed an issue that could cause Screen Saver Exceptions to be removed unexpectedly • Fixed an issue that could cause the wrong Screen Saver Exceptions to be used during a session • Various other bug fixes that I forgot to write down Other changes: • Triggers are no longer allowed to have the same name • Quick Preferences no longer uses color to represent status due to redesign
Do betas of Amphetamine Expire? Why?
Yes, they do. Typically, the expiration occurs about a month after the beta version is created. I don't want this Github page to become an alternative to the Mac App Store where people are requesting that I provide new beta versions. Amphetamine's distribution channel is the Mac App Store and I do not want to change that at this time.
Is it safe to download a beta version of Amphetamine?
Beta versions of Amphetamine are code-signed and are notarized by Apple. If you feel uncomfortable with downloading software from outside of the App Store, that's ok. Nobody is forcing you to do it. Just wait for the official release in the App Store.
Are beta versions of Amphetamine stable?
Generally, yes, they should be. I have already done a lot of the beta testing myself. I can't find every bug, though. That's why I need your help.
How can I help test beta versions of Amphetamine?
A big help would be for you to just simply test all of the things you normally use Amphetamine for. If you want to go above and beyond, I could really use help testing older versions of macOS (10.11 → 10.14), and testing a variety of different Macs (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, MacBook(s) +/- Pros/Airs, etc.). You can use the pre-release release notes at the top of this page for general guidance on new features that could use testing. Making sure the 'old' features still work is important too, though.
How to I report issues/bugs I experience when using beta version of Amphetamine? I would prefer you submit a ticket/bug report on Amphetamine's support site. Comments are closed.
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