Caffeine App for Mac: Download, Settings and Alternatives

Caffeine for Mac is a free, open-source menu bar app that keeps your Mac awake. Click the coffee cup and the Mac will not go to sleep, dim the screen or start the screen saver until you click it again or a timer ends. The current version is 1.6.4 from April 2026, a 4.7 MB download from caffeine-app.net or the project's GitHub page, and it needs macOS 14.6 Sonoma or newer. With Homebrew, the command is brew install --cask domzilla-caffeine, not brew install --cask caffeine, which installs an older app. It is not on the Mac App Store; the apps called Caffeine there are different apps by other developers.

Caffeine keeps the Mac awake. With default settings it does not keep Slack active: the Slack desktop app sets you away after 10 minutes without keyboard or mouse input on the Mac, awake or not (Slack desktop 4.52.178 code, checked 7 Oct 2026). The "Keep apps active" setting changes that, as below.

Where to download Caffeine for Mac

Caffeine has had three owners. Tomas Franzén of Lighthead Software wrote it in 2006, and it went years without updates. IntelliScape took over the code in 2018, and the version now on caffeine-app.net is maintained by Dominic Rodemer and released under the MIT license on GitHub. Both later apps are still downloadable, and Homebrew has a cask for each. We checked both downloads on 3 October 2026:

The Homebrew name trips people up. brew install --cask caffeine installs IntelliScape's 1.1.4, not the current app, and Homebrew's own analytics show it is the one most people get: 1,415 installs in the last 30 days, against 119 for domzilla-caffeine. The two casks conflict, so remove one before installing the other:

brew uninstall --cask caffeine
brew install --cask domzilla-caffeine

The Caffeine website says the current version needs macOS 11, but the Info.plist inside the 1.6.4 download sets the minimum to 14.6, and the Homebrew cask asks for macOS 14. The website's figure dates from the 1.5 builds. On macOS 13.5 to 14.5, download Caffeine 1.6.3 from the GitHub Releases page; it already has Keep apps active. On macOS 11.5 to 13.4, use IntelliScape's 1.1.4.

If you searched for "brew install caffeinate": there is nothing to install. caffeinate is Apple's built-in command at /usr/bin/caffeinate, and Homebrew has no formula by that name. How to use it is in caffeinate on Mac.

How to install and use Caffeine

• Download Caffeine_1.6.4.zip from caffeine-app.net, or use the Homebrew command above.
• Unzip it and drag Caffeine.app into Applications. It is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS asks once to confirm the first launch and then opens it.
• On first launch a "Welcome to Caffeine" window opens with the same settings as Preferences. The cup in the menu bar starts empty, which means normal sleep.
• Click the cup. Steam appears above it, and the Mac stays awake until you click it again.
• Right-click (or Control-click) the cup for the menu: Activate for with Indefinitely, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2 or 5 hours, then Preferences, About Caffeine, Check for Updates and Quit.

We ran 1.6.4 on macOS 26.5.2 and checked each state in Terminal. With the cup on, pmset lists Caffeine's power assertion. With it off, there is none:



Caffeine settings

Open Preferences from the right-click menu. Version 1.6.4 has five settings, and this is the real window from our test, with the defaults a new install starts with:



Setting	What it does	Default
Default duration	How long a click on the cup keeps the Mac awake: 5 minutes to 5 hours, or Indefinitely	Indefinitely
Activate when starting Caffeine	Turns the cup on as soon as the app opens	Off
Deactivate when device goes to sleep manually	Turns Caffeine off if you put the Mac to sleep yourself	Off
Show this message when starting Caffeine	The welcome window on launch	On
Keep apps active	After 90 seconds of idle time, posts a mouse-move event at the pointer's current position (checked every 30 seconds), so apps like Microsoft Teams do not show Away	Off

We turned on Activate when starting Caffeine, quit and reopened the app: the cup started full and the assertion showed up 5 seconds after launch. With the box off again, the next launch started with an empty cup and no assertion.

"Keep apps active" is the only setting that creates input. With it off, which is the default, Caffeine sends no keys and no mouse events at all. The setting arrived in version 1.6.2 (December 2025) and works only while the cup is on. It needs Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, because it posts input events. The pointer does not move on screen, but macOS resets its idle time. The Slack desktop app reads that same idle time every 10 seconds, so with Keep apps active on, it should stay active while the Mac is awake and unlocked. We have not timed that combination yet.

There is no "open at login" switch in 1.6.4. To start Caffeine with your Mac, add it in System Settings > General > Login Items (called Login Items & Extensions on macOS 15 and newer) under Open at Login, and turn on Activate when starting Caffeine.

Check that Caffeine is working

Caffeine asks macOS not to sleep through a power assertion, the same system Apple's caffeinate command uses. Open Terminal and run:

pmset -g assertions | grep -i caffeine

A line like pid 47163(Caffeine): PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep named: "Caffeine prevents sleep" means the cup is on. In our runs it appeared 5 seconds after launch. The source code renews this assertion every 10 seconds with an 8-second timeout, so if Caffeine quits or crashes the Mac goes back to normal sleep within seconds. No line means the cup is empty; click it.

What Caffeine does not do

Caffeine alternatives for Mac

Prices are from the US App Store on 2026-09-27. Caffeine and Amphetamine side by side, with both tested in pmset, are in Amphetamine vs Caffeine. The wider list is in best app to keep a Mac awake. On Windows, a different app with the same name sends an F15 key event every 59 seconds; see Caffeine app for Windows.

FAQ

Does Caffeine work on macOS Tahoe? Yes. Version 1.6.4 ran on macOS 26.5.2 in our test on 3 October 2026, and spctl reported "accepted, source=Notarized Developer ID".

How do I uninstall Caffeine? Right-click the cup, choose Quit, then drag Caffeine from Applications to the Trash. With Homebrew, run brew uninstall --cask domzilla-caffeine, or add --zap to also remove its settings folder in ~/Library/Containers/net.domzilla.caffeine.