caffeinate2

caffeinate but it’s written in Rust and has more options. Keeps your Mac wide awake.

Current Status

Almost ready for 1.0.0.

Installation

GitHub Releases

Download the latest release binary from the releases page.

Homebrew

This won’t be available until version 1.0.0.

Cargo

CLI only (default):

cargo install caffeinate2

Menu bar + privileged helper:

cargo install caffeinate2 --features full

From a clone:

cargo build --release --features full

Menu bar

Run caffeinate2-tray after installing with --features full.

• Left click: toggle the selected sleep mode on/off.
• Right click: choose mode (Display, Disk, System, System on AC, User active, Entirely), set an optional Time limit (Off, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, and so on), optionally set Until app quits (pick a running app or Choose application… for any .app), toggle Start at login, or Quit.

When a time limit is set, left-clicking to start sleep prevention automatically turns it off again after that duration (similar to caffeinate2 -t). Changing the time limit while sleep prevention is active restarts the countdown from that moment (it is not measured from when the session started). Until app quits keeps prevention on until every instance of the chosen app has exited; if the app is not running when you turn on, caffeinate2 waits for it to launch first. The target is remembered by bundle ID (for example Codex.app stays matched across restarts). Time limit and until-app quit whichever comes first. The menu bar tooltip shows remaining time and/or app status while active.

Settings are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/caffeinate2/tray.toml.

Unsigned binaries may require running from Terminal once (right-click → Open) or allowing in Privacy & Security.

Entirely mode (no repeated sudo)

Entirely mode (-e / tray Entirely) disables system sleep even when the lid is closed. It uses a small privileged helper daemon.

One-time setup (either method):

1. Tray: select Entirely and approve the administrator dialog when prompted, or
2. CLI: sudo caffeinate2 --install-helper

After that, caffeinate2 -e and tray Entirely use the helper without further passwords.

Who can use it: root and administrator accounts, plus members of the caffeinate2 group (created by --install-helper). The helper denies everyone else, since disabling sleep entirely is otherwise a root-only setting. To allow a standard account:

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a USERNAME -t user caffeinate2

The grant takes effect on the user’s next attempt (no logout needed). Denied requests show the exact grant command; caffeinate2 --status works for every account.

Remove the helper: sudo caffeinate2 --uninstall-helper

Check helper state (is it running, how many holds, is sleep disabled): caffeinate2 --status

Helper install also adds /etc/newsyslog.d/com.randomblock1.caffeinate2.helper.conf so /var/log/caffeinate2-helper.log is rotated.

Usage

Usage: caffeinate2 [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]...

Arguments:
  [COMMAND]...  Wait for given command to complete (takes priority above timeout and pid)

Options:
  -v, --verbose             Verbose mode
      --dry-run             Dry run. Don't actually sleep. Useful for testing
      --drop-root           Drop root privileges in command. You need root to disable sleep entirely, but some programs don't want to run as root
      --shell               Run COMMAND through /bin/sh -c instead of executing it directly
  -d, --display             Disable display sleep
  -m, --disk                Disable disk idle sleep
  -i, --system              Disable idle system sleep. [DEFAULT]
  -s, --system-on-ac        Disable system sleep while not on battery
  -e, --entirely            Disable system sleep entirely (ignores lid closing)
  -u, --user-active         Declare the user is active. If the display is off, this option turns it on and prevents it from going into idle sleep
  -t, --timeout <DURATION>  Wait for X seconds. Also supports time units (like "1 day 2 hours 3mins 4s")
  -w, --waitfor <PID>       Wait for program with PID X to complete and pass its exit code
      --install-helper      Install the privileged helper for entirely mode (admin prompt or sudo)
      --uninstall-helper    Remove the privileged helper (requires root)
      --status              Show entirely-mode helper status (holders and sleep state)
  -h, --help                Print help
  -V, --version             Print version

Sleep Timers (in order of priority)

Command

Sleep disabled until the command completes. By default the command is executed directly, so arguments keep their boundaries (for example, a filename containing spaces stays one argument). Use --shell when you intentionally want shell features such as pipes, globbing, or &&. Timeout and PID will be ignored if a command is specified.

caffeinate2 sleep 5

caffeinate2 --shell 'sleep 5 && echo done'

Timeout and PID

Sleep is disabled for a certain amount of time or until the program with the specified PID completes. If both are specified, it waits until one of them completes.

Timeout can either be a number of seconds or a duration string. For example, you can pass -t 600 or -t 10m to wait for 10 minutes. You can create more descriptive durations, like -t "1 hour and 30 minutes". Supported units include seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, plus common short forms like s, m, h, and d. YOU MUST USE QUOTATION MARKS FOR MULTI-WORD DURATIONS TO WORK. Otherwise, it will try to parse anything that’s past the space as a command, and ignore the timeout.

For PIDs, it will wait until the specified program exits. If the program doesn’t exist, it will immediately exit with an error. Once the program completes, caffeinate2 will exit with the same exit code as the program.

caffeinate2 -t 600

caffeinate2 -t "1 hour and 30 minutes"

caffeinate2 -w 1234

caffeinate2 -t 600 -w 1234

None of the above

Sleep will be disabled indefinitely until you press Ctrl+C.

caffeinate2

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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