Caffeinated

A native macOS replacement for the Caffeine applet — the small utility that keeps your Mac awake by preventing sleep and dimming. The original Caffeine was discontinued years ago, alternatives have come and gone, and I wanted something current.

What it is

A small menubar app, written in Swift. Click the icon to keep your Mac awake; click again to release. Timer options for "keep awake for the next 30 minutes" and similar. That's the whole product. Doing one thing well, with no upsells, no telemetry, and no monthly fee.

Why I built it

I couldn't find a version of Caffeine that was still supported or worked in a way I liked. When using my computer for recipes while cooking, or when AI code tasks ran long and I had to leave, my computer would sleep. A menubar utility is small enough that I could ship a working version in a weekend and use it the same day. Cathartic to build something where the entire surface area fits in your head.

I also built it with Claude Code — my first time using Claude for native macOS development. That part was a learning exercise of its own: figuring out how the workflow that works for web development translates (or doesn't) to Swift, Xcode, and Apple's specific opinions about how a menubar app should behave.

What's next

I'm planning to publish the repo and put up an installer shortly. There'll be a follow-up log entry when that happens.