Presenting the minimalistic Automatic-Mouse-Mover(AMM) app!
Ever felt the need to keep your machine awake without having to resort to the age-old methods of installing an app that hinders with your mac's sleep mechanism or playing a never-ending video? Well, not anymore!
Introducing the simplest app on the market that has the sole purpose of moving your mouse pointer at regular intervals so that your machine never sleeps! And best of all, it works ONLY when you are not working, so be rest assured that the mouse won't start moving on its own without the machine actually being idle.
How I use it
I always have this app working in the background for me whenever I work from home, so that I can take a break from work, strech my legs, go for a short walk, come back and still have my slack open! (not having to type in my password every time is awesome).
Also if I need to go out for longer, I just close the lid, and off goes my mac to sleep!
How it's different from other apps
Apps like Caffeine perform similar tasks, but the main difference is that this app will let your mac sleep normally in events of closing the lid or pressing the power button to make it sleep. Other apps hinder with these functionalities.
So if you want something that will keep your mac awake as long as you are working and will sleep when you close the lid, then this is for you!
Demo
You just click on Start, and AMM will take care of moving your mouse whenever it feels that the system has been left idle for a minute. It's as simple as this.
How to install
Make sure you have go installed. Once that is done, clone this repo and run Make, it should create the amm.app and open the folder where it was built for you. You just have to drag and drop it to the Applications folder on your mac.
Double click on the app, and the cute mouse should appear on your taskbar on top of your screen. Once you click on Start, you might encounter an initial Access request which I've discussed in the next section. If not, then you are all set!
Granting access for moving the mouse cursor
While starting the app, you might see a message like the one below or an error stating Mouse pointer cannot be moved.
Don't worry, it's nothing sinister, it's just that Mac doesn't allow apps to gain accessibility to the computer by default (even standard apps like Automator, Firefox etc. who might want to access some features need to go through the same process).
In order to resolve this error you need to:
Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility and allow the
ammapp to gain access.
If you still see the error, try to quit and start the app again (the age-old way of fixing everything).
How it works
Every 60 seconds, AMM uses Activity tracker to track the various changes that happened in your system during that time, like cursor movement, mouse clicks, screen changes etc. Whenever AMM detects a change in the system, it knows that the system is busy and will not do anything. If not, it moves the mouse cursor ever so slightly, enough to keep your Mac awake for eternity.
All code is public and open-sourced so no worrying if there's nefarious intention involved in recording your activity or not.