UPDATE 2: Glad to see that Apple is no longer threatening to pull Amphetamine from the App Store on the absurd ground that it somehow encourages substance abuse. (Given that this has been one of the most popular utilities on the App Store for years, I suspect some junior Apple employee or intern got stuck working over the holidays without adequate supervision.) The developer, who has created this stellar utility and provides regular updates as an ongoing free gift to the Mac-using community (and to Apple), didn't deserve to be treated like this. UPDATE: I still love Amphetamine! I do have a very minor feature request—would it be possible to add a 90 minutes or 1.5 hours preset to the dropdown menu? It's not that big a deal to set it manually, but a preset would be handy. Don't let the "price" fool you—this is a polished, indispensible utility that gets updated far more frequently than a lot of paid apps. The developer must have plenty of outside income, because he could easily charge a dollar or two for this and make pretty good money. But as long as he doesn't, we all owe big thanks to Mr. Gustafson for this wonderful gift, especially those of us who are students—we need productivity enhancements and don't have a lot of spare funds to spend on apps.
I honestly love this application. I’ve been using it since Caffeine was discontinued. At first, I thought it was a bad replacement but it turns out to be more fun and customizable. I love that I could change the icon and sounds. My only peeve is that the notification sounds aren’t working for me but I’m not sure why. I highly recommend it to people. I set it at work so I can work remotely without having to manually change my Mac’s system settings. Edit: Per comment below by the developer, I spoke to him about the notification situation and I’m kind of disappointed that the sounds are completely removed. I undertsand that the menu bar icon indicates whether a timer is active or not, but assume you’re not sitting at your computer and you don’t see the icon, then the sounds would indicate when your computer would go to sleep. This applies to people like me who manually activates timers. Although it says on the changelog that it will be removed and no longer implemented, I really want to make it a suggestion to bring back the sound effects. I took off 1 star for it because it misled me, considering the options for notifications and sounds are still in the app, but no longer functions the way it used to. Again, this is a free app that is made very well so it’s probably a minor complaint to most people.
Great, but not sure how "While File is Downloading..." works
First off, I want to say that it's really stupid that Apple took away the separate display sleep and system sleep controls in the Energy Saver preferences. I'm thankful something like this exists. As for the issue mentioned in the title: that option requires the user to select a file. When I use Firefox, downloads appear as two files: one file has the correct filename, but is 0 KB in size, while the other contains data, but has .part appended to the end of it. I'm not sure which one to open, or if either one will do. Also, about 3 versions ago, when using Amphetamine on High Sierra, I set it to stay awake indefinitely (but allow the display to sleep), and it still went to sleep (my download was interrupted). I've taken to going in to Energy Saver and preventing the display from sleeping, then turning the display's brightness all the way down, while downloading large files. I haven't tested whether or not I still need to do that. I'm wondering if launching Energy Saver after starting an Amphetamine session overrides some of Amphetamine's session settings? Or if I need to turn off the password requirement when the display sleeps?
Fantastic app -- absolutely the best in its category
This app is amazing, and indispensable for me. I always keep my Mac auto-lock time to minimum (1 min) to avoid access while I'm not working. On the other hand, I can't stand the screen going black in the midst of my work if I stop for a few minutes to read and think of the task that I'm doing. Amphetamine solves this issue! Simply start a work session, overriding the quick auto-lock functionality. A few minutes before a session expires, I get a warning sound and can extend it in a single key stroke. If I'm not around to extend it, the Mac is back to safe mode of quick auto-lock. The app is extremely professional, allowing a much more sophisticated methods to automatically detect work sessions -- while keeping it simple for getting the basic functionality. Every time I think that the app could not be further improved, William Gustafson (the developer) surprises me with additional useful features in a new release! It is unbelievable that an app of that high quality is written by a single person and provided for free. Please, William, keep up the great work!
I can't believe this incredibly useful app is free (if you dig a bit, you can find a link to make a donation, which I gladly did). I installed this for one specific reason, to keep my MacBook Pro awake with the lid closed (while not connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse). I need this because my computer runs backups overnight, and although I could just leave the lid partially open, this makes the computer awkward to handle when I'm putting it down at the end of a work session. My only real concern with this was if I happened to unplug the computer to take it somewhere, and the battery would drain faster than it would if in sleep mode. But this app is very thoughtfully configurable, and includes an option to discontinue the "keep awake" session when on battery power (either immediately upon disconnection of the charger, or after the battery has dropped to a specified level). There are a lot of other options in there as well, but I haven't explored those very much because my needs are pretty simple.
This is the BEST app to keep your MacBook awake in 2020 without fail. It’s stable, predictable and consistent - just like a proud chemist’s favorite creation. Emphasis on CONSISTENT! Wish I would have found it sooner! I tried many other apps over the years to stay awake, but they were unstable or inconsistent. They left me grinding my teeth and feeling a bit paranoid. Is my MacBook running? Did it crash? Is it asleep? Is it overheating? What’s going on? I felt like Huey Lewis in 1984. And then one night… I stumbled upon Amphetamine and Amphetamine Enhancer. For free. YES!! It’s stable! It’s customizable! Did I mention it’s consistent? And the sound effects are the icing on the cake. Loving it! No crashes! No jitters! No wondering if it’s going to work this time! You’ve tried the rest NOW TRY THE BEST! GET AMPHETAMINE by William Gustafson NOW! I must go now. Got to clean my house why my files download and music plays with my top down. Wait… what? PSA: Just say no. Stay in school. Be smart - don’t start. Make healthy choices.
I’ve been using the Caffeine app for a few years now to keep my computer awake, but I’ve noticed for quite some time now that it gets a little buggy displaying in the menu bar. I went to go check when it was last updated only to realize that the developer pulled it from the App Store. I was disappointed because Caffeine treated me so well for so long. I came across Amphetamine and, skeptic that it would be as good as Caffeine, decided to try it out. To my surprise, it does exacty what I want and even more. Admittedly, I was extremely disappointed with the default menu bar icon, but there is an option to change it to one of several other icons, including one that looks similar to Caffeine’s coffee cup icon (empty when inactive and full when active). Another nice touch is that you can have the icon dimmed to gray when Amphetamine is inactive. If you are a Caffeine user looking for a much-needed update, definitely give Amphetamine a try.
... but this app is awesome. I don't know the actual date it came out, but I think I've been using it for about 10 years now. It started out being just the basic function of toggling between keeping your mac awake or not and the developer has constantly updated it and added brilliant features over time. This review was sparked by my recent exploration the latest major update (not even sure when it happened), which really took everything to another level. It's extremely customizable, while maintaining its original simplistic functionality. If you just want to bop back and forth between awake/sleep mode, you can do that, but if you want to create a thousand triggers and run apple scripts or apply the app to your hard drive or display, you can also get real "techie" with it. 6 out of 5 stars for this one.
Amphetamine has earned a permanent place on my MacOS systems.
I used the Cafine prior to Amphetamine. It has been a fantastic utility to prevent the computer from sleeping. I often use multiple coputers with tasks running on my Mac which I don't want interrupted by the OS thinking I'm not around. The settings are very detailed and allow you to be very specific on when the computer is prevented from sleeping. In my use case, it is almost an "always on" application. Amphetamine has worked nearly perfect in this. ...The few times I found it to not be functioning at I intend it to, it's always been a setting I have adjusted incorrctly and a quick review of my settings solves any problem I have found. This utility returns detailed control of the sleep capabilities to the user and makes the MacOS experience better. Fantastic work Mr. Gustafson.
I absolutely love this app and have used it for years. As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD and saw a significant improvement in quality of life when I started taking real Amphetamine (as prescribed by my doctor,) I seem to have made an emotional linkage between this life changing drug and the indespensible app named after it. To my dismay, upon updating my mac to Ventura OS, I discovered that the app no longer opens. I reached out to the developer for help a couple weeks ago, but after not hearing anything, I'm going to assume he no longer has the time to maintain this wonderful service (which I would gladly pay for.) I am grateful for the years of utility it did give me, but will continue wince and morn its loss everytime my computer goes to sleep when I don't want it to.
This program is awesome! The triggers feature is incredibly powerful and has all sorts of use cases. I am totally blind and Apple's VoiceOver screen reader compatibility with the app is excellent! Nearly all the elements are clearly labeled and easy to understand. The only problem I've discovered is an unlabeled button at the bottom of each preference screen. It is right next to the help button. VoiceOver simply says the word "button" with no description of its function. I think it's the close button since it seems to dismiss the window when I activate it. If this could be labeled with a useful description like close, it would be even better. Having said that, this is a very minor issue that doesn't impact the usability of the app and would take a minute or two to fix. Keep up the great work.
Amphetamine for the Mac is an essential utility done right. It has a clean, straightforward interface. It allows you to use your Mac for live performances, or encoding video, or a jukebox with iTunes, or any other task for which you don’t want the Mac to go to sleep. It offers a good selection of options (stay away indefinately or for a specific amount of time or while a particular application is running) and works flawlessly. I would have happily paid for it, and yet it’s a free utility. I appreciate how with this utility I can have my Mac ordinarily go to sleep quickly when I’m not doing a task that requires the Mac to stay awake, and when I need it to stay awake, I’ll launch Amphetamine. The user forum associated with the App is quite useful. I’m very pleased with Amphetamine.
I am glad I found this app! I used to use a similar app called NoSleep, but the developers have stopped updating it. So, of course I was on the hunt for a replacement. I came across Amphetamine and it does everything I want and more! There are so many different settings that make this app even better than the one I used before. I love the ability to be able to close the lid and still have my Macbook awake. I often do this when moving from room to room. Another feature I love is the closed-display warning tone, in case i forget I have this running. This app has saved me so many times from accidentally cancelling a download, etc. Absolutely awesome!
I’m one of those people who like to keep old apps running as long as they run properly. That was the case with Caffeine, an app I found years ago to do exactly what Amphetamine does, except without the preferences. Things have changed since; there’s an app store, and good UI doesn’t mean its lack thereof anymore Amphetamine does exactly what it promises to do. It lets you customize (but on temporary basis!) when your Mac will fall alseep. I was actually a bit worried when I had to right click it to manually activate it. Amazingly enough, the developers gave up an option to switch things around, even the icons. What else could I possibly ask from this app? All I can is this: stunning, a job well done.
I upgraded to Monterey on my Mac...along with a new Mac Studio Ultra, and all of my external hard drives would spin down while using them in Premiere Pro. It was SUPER FRUSTRATING. And going into the Apple Settings did nothing. Come to find out it's an Apple OS Monterey issue. Arrrrgh! Then a friend told me about Amphetamine. Thank you! Now my hard drives don't spin down right in the middle of working on a data-intensive project...like working with multiple streams of 6K footage in Premiere Pro. I installed Amphetamine and bingo! Hard drives stay spinning for as long as I want. My work is no longer interrupted every 2 minutes...waiting for hard drives to spin back up. YES!!!! Wonderful app! I'm so thankful.
I have one music app I use that requires no input and therefor allows the screen to go dark in the middle of my session. Both hands are on my flute so I can't touch a key to wake the display. While the music app should have taken care of this, it doesn't. So Amphetamine was exactly what I needed. I was able to easily set a trigge that autmatically keeps the display lit when my music app is running and allows the display timeout at other times. This app is very well written with lots of features and is well documented with lots of info question marks explaining the options for each of the settings. One comment for anyone using the app for the same purpose as me: It took me 3 minutes instead of 2 (I know, right?) to install and configure Amphetamine because I missed one comment in one of the help boxes. If you are trying to set a trigger on an application you use, the app only shows in the Amphetamine list of apps if that app is running. So start your application, then configure Amphetamine. Very simple! Thanks for your marvelous work William Gustafson.
For whatever reason Apple won't allow me to use my Macbook closed with my Apple monitor unless constantly dedicated to a battery source. I found this little gem on the App store and now have full use of my Mac while closed without keeping a constant charge! It works flawlessly for me! I use my Apple display because I operate my business (email, books, etc) from my Mac and handle all inventory and orders on a Win Server via the Remote Desktop app. Now I have both up on one display and free up my desk space without having my Mac sitting open on battery. Thank you to the developers for this! You're awesome!
Was trying to Home Share on my Apple TV, without having to keep my Mackbook opened. Did lots of research on the internet and all website kept telling the same thing "set energy saver to never...etc." Even after doing that, Home Sharing would not work with my Macbook closed. Finally that came across an article that talked about two good apps to use. This one and Caffeine. Both are on app store and both have good reviews. Seen a lot of people saying they Caffeine for this one. So, I downloaded this one. Amphetamine is great and just what I was looking for. I can close my Macbook and still Home Share. Will recommend Amphetamine to other people.
tl;dr: After starting amphetamine, I'm able to work. THANK YOU. Long story: I have Western Digital/WD 'my book" hard drives that must be "green" and therefore spin down if they aren't being accessed what seems like every 15 seconds. I know they aren't enterprise level drives and that video editing off them isn't their intended usage, but it's my situation. Adobe would crash, lag, and behave poorly which I now have to realize is because of the drives spinning down so frequently. I don't know what kind of a hit the drives are taking because of not spinning down so frequently, but that's another issue. again, THANK YOU amphetamine.
What is lacking as far as I’m concerned is the ability to customize a start and stop time, even thought it says that it does. The application gives you sets amount of time to be active or it will let you set a custom hours and minutes to be active. What it won’t do is allow you to set a time to become active and a time to shut down. There is a link on the developer’s web site that lets you pull in a version that will all you to do just that, but if you load it and use it, the first time it updates from the app store the ability to set custom start and stop ends. Whenever the developer makes this a standard item in the application I will rerate this program and give it 5 stars.
I’ve been using Amphetamine for years and am totally addicted. Like many other reviewers, Caffeine left me wanting. William has developed, and continues to update and improve, this great little utility. Triggers are the best, once you get those setup right you don’t even have to think about it. Your Mac will stay awake when you want it to and sleep when it can. You can override your configured triggers and put it to sleep if the battery gets low enough so you don’t come back to a completetly dead computer. If you’ve ever been frustrated/upset/irate by your computer going to sleep when you didn’t want it to, this is your perscription.
I've used this app for years and loved it, but I just updated to "Amphetamine 4" on my 2015 iMac running Mojave, and it's been a mess. I put it on right before running a backup, and it jammed up for hours, leaving me with an inprogress file I had to trash. I finally finished the backup and ejected my external drive, and then tried to quit Amphetamine. It wouldn't respond to the "Quit" command, and it also wouldn't let me Force Quit through the Finder. It wouldn't let me quit through the Activity Monitor, either. Then I figured--ok, I'll just restart my computer. But Amphetamine prevented that, too. I finally had to shut down manually by holding down the power button. This was the only way I could kill it. Eesh. Maybe I'll try this app again sometime in the future, but for now I've deleted it and will stay away. I don't want to go through all that just to kill a process.
Amphetamine is one of those essential Mac utilities that I install on any Mac I touch. Like many others I used Caffeine for years before Amphetamine came along. Amphetamine is the perfect replacement. I don’t do anything particularly fancy with it, just click it on when I don’t want my Mac to sleep, and click it off when I’m walking away for a while. My standard config changes are to swap the left and right click behavior so that single finger click turns it on and off, and to swap the icon to the Sun and Moon choice. I find the other icon choices not particularly obvious as to whether they’re on or off, but the Sun and Moon are very distinctive.
There was no way to pull up the menu if app was only displaying in menu bar. Also menu bar items are difficult to kill because they don't show up in finder process list. I tried using `ps` but the app was not named amphetamine in unix process list. For upgrading - the 4.1.2 version fixes the menu issue. The problem is how to get the upgrade to work because without the menu it's difficult to kill the app to upgrade it. Anyone having trouble - here is what you do: You might have to logout and log back in again if app store was stuck on update. Open termninal (utilities terminal). Type this command: osascript -e 'tell application "Amphetamine" to quit' Then do the update from the app store. Menu should work now. Other issues unrelated to app - for people who want to clamshell notebook and view through monitor. The support issue referenced does not always work. I have hdmi to usb c. THe only thing I found that worked is mirroring the display. Bluetooth keyboard did not wake up display. Mirroring works. Hope this helps.
I downloaded this app as a replacement for the similar Caffeine app when I got a new computer. It does all the same things as Caffeine, with much more room for useful customization; and it preserves the simplicity of Caffeine for those who don’t care to mess around with settings. Apparently the app developer does it as a labor of love, without ads, and obviously with a ton of thought about how to improve users’ experiences. Which is just a surprisingly decent thing to do. The app manages simultaneously to have an elegant and clutter-free interface, to be intuitive to use, and to provide helpful information about its various features.
This little app is awesome. Been using caffeine for years (downloaded it long before the Mac App Store even existed. Just got a brand new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and I wanted to download a caffeine equivalent but was hoping to find something in the App Store, so that the process of keeping the app up to date could be easier. This app does everything caffeine did and then some. I rarely write reviews but for this free app, I felt like I needed to. Amazing app! So useful. Almost makes me wonder how this is not a MacOS built in feature. The good news is that the developer of Amphetamine did an amazing job with this app and I am so happy with it!
I've used several apps similar to this but Amphetamine has been the most useful by far. I maintain an app that picks up thumbnail images from all displays on a network. Working from home I regularly have to use 7 or 8 Macs in every room of the house and Amphetamine allows me to keep the displays from sleeping without having to run around the house keeping them awake. I also heavily utilize the session length setting so that if I do forget to stop the Amphetamine session when I'm done testing I don't have to worry about the displays staying on for hours or days at a time.
The app developer is highly responsive and worked to solve a small issue with a new version of the app quickly. He was knowledgeable, friendly, and takes pride in his work. I have been using this app for many years and I enjoy the recently updated refinements. I would recommend this app to anyone looking for an app to keep your computer from going to sleep based on session timers. I put my computer to sleep every hour by default but sometimes I need to keep it on indefinitely or just for a few hours and this tool works great for that use case. Keep up the good work here!
A “must-have” for MacBooks connected to an external monitor
I’ve been an exceedingly happy user of this app and its companion app, Amphetamine Enhancer, for over 4½ years. These products are easy to set up and customize, have excellent documentation, and work glitch-free. The developer has been very responsive to inquiries. The Amphetamine apps have enabled me to run different versions of the MacOS on various MacBook Pros over the years in Closed-Display-Mode while connected to a large desktop monitor and easily set my system to go in and out of sleep whenever I choose. Highly recommended.
I wrote a review pointing out one major flaw, but then thought about it and realized I may have abandon the app too soon. I just reinstalled it and looked through the preferences. Sure enough, the feature I thought it was lacking was right there the whole time! This app is now 5-star gold!!! Love the creative thought that went into this. I can't wait to share it with my co-workers. That said, one thing I wish was different is that the "Hide amphetamine in the dock" feature was enabled by default. I can't think of too many people that would want the icon floating around all the time.
I use a biometric screen lock for work and even if i didnt, i just find it annoying and a massive momentum breaker to have to log in everytime i take two seconds to form a thought, or while im thinking i have to dedicate a small portion of attention to shaking the mouse every so often, ands while that may seem like not much, just wait till you try it. I rebooted my mac and it was gone but i didnt realize it, and before lunch i had already gotten irked enough mto go back and download it before i did one more thing. LOVE IT!!!!!!
I have an M1 Air and an Intel MacBook Pro that I use for work. I've been using Amphetamine with the Enhancer on my Pro without issues for the last year and a half. My use case is that I have a dock plugged into a KVM and I switch back and forth between Windows and the Mac. With my Intel system, Amphetamine keeps the system from sleeping - including my VPN connection, which is critical for work. On the M1 Air, the system goes to sleep regardless of how I've set up the power savings or Amphetamine, the system goes to sleep and the VPN connection dies usually after about 5 minutes. This breaks my workflow. My rating for intel is 5 stars, but for apple silicon, 1 star.
There are plenty of times throughout the work day when I quickly run to throw clothes in the wash or take a short pause to think of a thought and my screen is constantly blanking the screen in auto locking. Ampethamine has allowed me to do all of those things and still have my computer actively running so that I can see messages coming through from chat or important emails popping up although I stepped away for one moment. Thank you Mr. Gustafson! Your time and energy are greatly appreciated
Totally free, love the customizable off/on icons, generally a ton of customizability in terms of when it is active, and I'm a big fan of the double click to activate feature, even though it saves me approximately 2 clicks and that's all. The feature that lets me keep the computer on when closed is great as well, as I can continue listening to music without having to switch devices when moving from place to place (I use VLC and haven't figured out a way to sync between devices).
Really got this only to try preventing my Orico disk enclosure from sleeping (seems to be set in enclosure's firmware and non-adjustable for users from what I can find). Seems to work and that alone deserves 5 stars. Will spend more time with the app to see what else it can do for me and will use the Buy Me A Coffee button in About Amphemtamine preferences menu to get this guy a cup of coffee. I looked to see if there was a Windows version: there is an app with the same name, but not by the same dev. Please consider doing a Win version. THANK YOU...!
I've had amphetamine for a while now. I think it's been ever since I noticed that Caffeine vanished from my computer and the app store without warning. For me, Caffeine was perfect: comfortably 5 stars. The icon was a cup, and when you clicked it, the cup got steamy. That's how you knew your desktop wouldn't go to sleep. Perfect in its simplicity, and I thought the coffee theme was cute. I find amphetamine slightly offensive, however. Just sayin'. I don't like having to search for that word in spotlight to launch it. And then I don't like that when I click the icon, it doesn't toggle. It gives you options. That's it. Those are my only gripes.
There was a recent time I quite literally slept by my computer to keep it awake. Stupid me, thinking about it now. I googled for a solution. I tried Caffeine, but then read about Amphetamine. I had a difficult time turning off Cafeine and deleting it. This made me nervous. I have been using Amphetamine for a day now keeping the Mac awake on a massive backup project. Works like a charm. Very nice, simple options. I especially enjoyed changing the pill icon to an eye icon. Eye open: machine awake. Right click, eye closes, and machine goes to regular sleep schedule. Really a sweet little app.
This App is absolutely indespensible. There are times I don't want or need the default sleeping behaviors and this is a life-changing bit of software, especially for helping with external hard drive tasks. Occasionally this feels moderately buggy and I'd suspect a memory leak somewhere because it seems to slow down my machine after this app is open for a very long time. Also, I can't seem to get audio alerts working since the 4.0 upgrade. Despite this, the App is still a winner. Love it! A great solution for anybody who knows what they're doing.
As we many - many third party utilities in mac, that try to alter the system's behaviour, Amphetamine it sort of works, until it does not. I need this application for 2 scenarios. 1. Connect an external display, close the lid and work, even without the power cord connected. Amphetamine can do this, but it goes like this: 1. I connect the external display, 2. Activate aphetamine 3. Close the lid. 4. The external display will go blank 5. I press some keys on the external keyboard 6. The external display will open. - In linux I could do this better. The second scenario is when I have processes running in a terminal for hours. I need to keep my laptop running overnight even more some times, without going to sleep. - Here it is better and I don't have any major complaints besides that when disconnecting the external display Amphetamine should detect that and deactivate without mistake. - Mistakes do happen more frequently that you might think and the laptop gets SUPER hot in my backpack. As I said, it works ... until it does not. 2 stars.
I don't usually write app reviews. I downloaded this app because I sometimes have long-running process in R/RStudio that pause if my laptop sleeps. I previously used the terminal command "pmset noidle" to do this, but it is so easy to forget to do that (and waste a few hours of processing time) or forget to undo it (and drain a battery). This app has way more features, right to the point of customizing the menu icon. You can set a timer, and you can show it in the menu bar so that it's obvious no sleep mode is active. Great app!
When Caffeine had trouble with Mojave, I tried this app and absolutely loved it. The triggers are really slick and allow you to let the app manage itself. No more forgetting to turn off Caffeine before closing the Macbook lid and coming back to a dead battery :) But devs, PLEASE add an option for manual session notifications back in. Having an auditory cue that my keyboard shortcut worked is still valuable, all streamlining aside (particulary when the menubar icon is hidden by menus and the notification lets me know if I'm starting or ending a session.)
I recently downloaded Amphetamine for Mac to help keep my Mac awake while backing up some large files over the Internet, since it was so frustrating to have my Mac go to sleep automatically and keep kicking the uploads offline. Amphetamine for Mac has worked flawlessly to keep my Mac awake (while even allowing me to keep my screen turned off) when uploading these large files. It has truly been a life saver. I even donated a little money to the developer as a thank you for his hard efforts. This is one fantastic app!
This application has been a great help. I have imported a large number of images in Photos and have had difficulties in synching with iCloud. Despite setting changes and discussions with Apple support, Photos would quit or the machine would sleep after a few hours, long before the several day upload was completed. Anphetamine has allowed Photos to synch several Gigabytes of files with iCloud. It has removed much of the frustration in slow synchronizations of large quanities of data. Many Thanks!
Update: The issue has been fixed! After version 5.2, a session will end whenever I unplug my power as long as I have closed display mode enabled. If this wasn't enough, the setting to start a new session when plugging power back in simply doesn't work. Closed display mode, one of my favorite features, has become a useless to me because of this. Note: I'm running on Big Sur, so it's not just an issue with older MacOS versions...
Ever since I switched from PC to Mac a couple years ago, I have always tried to find a solution to keep the Macbook running when the screen is closed because I download a lot of large files, and I don’t want keep opening and closing the darn thing just to see that the connection dropped and it failed, now I can just click the pill and i’m good to go! Thank you devs for making this wonderful program!
It works. This is a surprising but necessary clarification. So many utilities are just vaporware. This one delivers (I needed an app to keep an old macbookair awake during back up). It also can be used out of the box. Love it. Some wrote that it appears complicated, but it is in fact extremely intuitive for non-power users. While this small app offers lots of functionalities under the hood, most of us (e.g. me) will just enjoy selecting the pre-set options of the menu bar. Well done!
I have nothing but good things to say about this app. It's easy to do the default (keep your computer awake), but it's also nice that it has so many triggers, where you can set the program to disable once you hit a certain battery percent, CPU usage, bluetooth connection, or literally anything else you can think of. And it's FREE! I can't believe anyone would pay for a similar app--I can't imagine this being better. Thanks William!
This is a must have for any MBP users, this keeps your system awake during rendering and other intensive tasks while not requiring you to change your power profiles. This gives you custom timers to keep the system awake so if you need to render all night, you can set it for the estimated render time (also has infinity option), then it simply goes to sleep so your computer is cooled and ready to put in your bag to go to work in the morning. I also love using this for any updates.
Amphetamine has been my Caffeine replacement for several years now, used on personal and live-events production computers. It keeps the Mac awake, period. There are many layers of customization to make the "awake" level exactly as needed. What prompted this review, however, was the triggers: defined conditions to cause Amphetamine to turn on or off automatically. This is like magic, and it makes me so happy to not even need to remember to turn Amphetamine on or off. Love it!
I have been using this app for years. In particular, I use it with a custom trigger that turns it on when I'm on a specific work VPN so that I don't lose my connection (and potentially sometimes stop scripts running remotely) if I walk away from the computer for a few minutes and it goes to sleep. Works great, no complaints, does what it needs to do and is somehow both simple and customizable
Welcome to Amphetamine, the most awesome keep-awake app ever created for macOS. 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. === Click to Keep Your Mac Awake === Quickly start a keep-awake session from Amphetamine's menu to keep your Mac awake. • Indefinitely, for a specified amount of time, or until a specified time • While a file is downloading • While a specific app is running During a keep-awake session, choose to allow or prevent: • Display sleep • Screen saver activation • System sleep when built-in display is closed • Automated mouse cursor movement • Locking of the screen === Advanced Automation === Create a Trigger to automatically keep your Mac awake. • While an external display is connected • While your Mac's display is being mirrored • While a USB or Bluetooth device is connected • While a specific app is running • While a specific app is running and is frontmost • While your Mac's battery is charging and/or when the battery is above a threshold • While your Mac's power adapter is connected or disconnected • While your Mac has a specific IP address • While your Mac is on a specific Wi-Fi network • While your Mac is connected to Cisco AnyConnect VPN service • While your Mac is using a specific DNS servers • While headphones or another audio output is in use • While a specific drive or volume is mounted • While your Mac's CPU is being utilized to a specific threshold • When your Mac has been idle for a specific threshold === What's the Catch? === No catch. Amphetamine is 100% free. It's a gift from me to you. Enjoy! • No advertisements • No in-app purchases • Nothing to unlock/no "pro" version • No annoying prompts asking you to review Amphetamine • No links for other paid apps • No tracking • No data-harvesting === What Else Does Amphetamine Do? === Amphetamine is the most powerful and customizable keep-awake utility ever created for macOS. Some other notable features are: • Lock your Mac's screen after a period of inactivity • Move the mouse cursor periodically • Keep your MacBook awake while its display/lid is closed • Keep your drive awake with Drive Alive • AppleScript support • Use your own menu bar icons • Use your own notification sounds • Allow your display to sleep while keeping your Mac awake • Allow screen saver to run after a customizable period of inactivity • Optional session time remaining display in the menu (with 12/24 hour support) • Auto-end session if your Mac's battery is low • Hot key support for starting/ending sessions, enabling disabling display sleep, and more === System Requirements + Other Details === • Amphetamine requires macOS 10.11 El Capitan or higher; some features require a higher version of macOS • Amphetamine supports Retina displays and macOS dark mode.
