PowerToys Awake Alternatives: 6 Ways to Keep Windows Awake

The best PowerToys Awake alternatives are Caffeine from Zhorn Software and Don't Sleep from SoftwareOK. Both are free, portable, run without an installer and weigh a few hundred kilobytes, against a full PowerToys install. Windows also has three alternatives built in: presentationsettings /start on laptops, the screen and sleep timeouts in Settings or powercfg, and a short PowerShell script that does what Awake does. Pick by what you need. Awake, Don't Sleep and the built-ins only block sleep. Caffeine and Mouse Jiggler send input, so they also keep Microsoft Teams green.

None of them keeps Slack green, because Slack counts only input inside its own window. Slack Green keeps your Slack status active from a server during the hours you set, so Windows can sleep as usual.

PowerToys Awake alternatives compared

"Sends input" is the column that decides Teams. Teams goes Away after about 5 minutes with no keyboard or mouse input, whether or not the PC is awake. That is why Awake, which only asks Windows to stay on, still lets Teams go yellow; the details are in does PowerToys Awake keep Slack or Teams active.

Caffeine: the closest drop-in

Caffeine is a coffee pot in the system tray. It presses F15, a key your keyboard does not have, every 59 seconds, so Windows and Teams see activity and nothing on screen changes. Download caffeine.zip from zhornsoftware.co.uk, unzip it and run caffeine64.exe. Click the pot to pause it. Command-line switches such as -exitafter:90 stop it after 90 minutes. Setup and its options are in Caffeine app for Windows.

PowerToys Awake vs Caffeine. Awake blocks sleep through a Windows power request and sends nothing. Caffeine sends a keypress. So Awake is the cleaner choice when you only need the PC awake, for a download or a render, and Caffeine is the one that keeps Teams and screen savers from kicking in. On a work PC, a keypress every 59 seconds is also easier for monitoring tools to notice.

Don't Sleep: timers and shutdown blocking

Don't Sleep is a small portable app from SoftwareOK. Besides sleep and hibernate, it can block shutdown, restart, log off and the screen saver, and it has a timer that ends the block after a set time or at a set hour. It sends no input, so like Awake it keeps the PC on without keeping Teams Available. Use it when Windows Update or another app keeps restarting the PC during a long job.

Mouse Jiggler: movement you can see

Mouse Jiggler from Arkane Systems moves the pointer on an interval, or fakes movement in its Zen mode. It keeps Teams green and stops the idle lock. Install it with winget install ArkaneSystems.MouseJiggler or from GitHub; Mouse Jiggler for Windows covers its modes.

Three alternatives already in Windows

Presentation settings. On most laptops, Windows Mobility Center has a presentation mode that blocks sleep and turns off the screen saver until you stop it:

:: block sleep and the screen saver until you stop it
presentationsettings /start
presentationsettings /stop

Power timeouts. Change when the screen and the PC sleep, from Settings > System > Power & battery, or from a Command Prompt:

:: never sleep while plugged in (0 = never), screen off after 30 minutes
powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 30

A PowerShell script. This does what Awake does, with the same Windows call, SetThreadExecutionState, and needs no admin rights:

$sig = '[DllImport("kernel32.dll")] public static extern uint SetThreadExecutionState(uint esFlags);'
$api = Add-Type -MemberDefinition $sig -Name Power -Namespace Win32 -PassThru
# ES_CONTINUOUS | ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED | ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED
$api::SetThreadExecutionState([uint32]2147483651) | Out-Null
Read-Host "Keeping this PC and its screen awake. Press Enter to stop"
$api::SetThreadExecutionState([uint32]2147483648) | Out-Null

Run powercfg /requests in an admin Command Prompt while it runs, and PowerShell appears under SYSTEM and DISPLAY. The script ends the request when you press Enter or close the window. A version that also presses F15 is in keep computer awake with PowerShell.

Which alternative to pick

• • You only need the PC awake (a download, a backup, a render): the PowerShell script or Don't Sleep. Nothing sends input.
• • You want Teams to stay Available while you read: Caffeine.
• • You present from a laptop: presentationsettings /start.
• • You cannot install anything on a work PC: the built-ins, as shown in keep a work computer awake without admin rights.
• • You are on a Mac: caffeinate -d in Terminal, or Amphetamine and KeepingYouAwake; see the best app to keep a Mac awake.
• • You want a green Slack dot: none of the above, because Slack watches only its own window.

FAQ

Is there a PowerToys Awake without the rest of PowerToys? Not as a separate download from Microsoft. The PowerShell script above uses the same Windows call and needs nothing installed.

Is Caffeine better than PowerToys Awake? For keeping Teams green, yes, because it sends a keypress. For only blocking sleep, Awake is cleaner because it sends no input.

Does any keep-awake app work when the laptop lid is closed? Only if Windows is set not to sleep when the lid closes, in Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what closing the lid does.