NonSleep

Prevent macOS from sleeping when the lid is closed.

Tiny. Invisible. Native.

Install

brew install nonsleep

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/3289david/nonsleep.git
cd nonsleep
make install

Usage

CLI

nonsleep              # Enable — keeps system awake (Ctrl+C to stop)
nonsleep stop         # Disable
nonsleep status       # Show current state
nonsleep toggle       # Toggle ON/OFF
nonsleep for 2h       # Enable for 2 hours
nonsleep for 30m      # Enable for 30 minutes

Menu Bar

Click the moon icon in your menu bar to toggle. That's it.

● NonSleep
────────────
Disable Sleep: ON
Settings...
Quit NonSleep

Daemon

The background daemon (nonsleepd) runs via LaunchAgent and handles:

• IOKit power assertions
• Lid close/open detection
• Display sleep on lid close
• Display wake on lid open
• State file sync with CLI and menu bar app

Installed automatically with make install.

How It Works

Lid closes → Display OFF → System stays awake
Lid opens  → Display ON  → Resume normally

NonSleep uses three mechanisms:

1. IOKit Power Assertions — kIOPMAssertPreventUserIdleSystemSleep prevents the system from sleeping
2. Lid State Detection — Polls AppleClamshellState from IORegistry to detect lid open/close
3. Display Control — Sends IORequestIdle to IODisplayWrangler to sleep/wake the display

No kernel extensions. No SIP bypass. No root required.

Architecture

┌─────────────┐   ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐
│  Menu Bar   │   │   CLI    │   │  Daemon  │
│  (SwiftUI)  │   │  (Swift) │   │ (launchd)│
└──────┬──────┘   └────┬─────┘   └────┬─────┘
       │               │              │
       └───────────┬───┘──────────────┘
                   │
         ┌─────────▼─────────┐
         │   NonSleepCore    │
         │                   │
         │  StateManager     │
         │  PowerManager     │
         │  LidWatcher       │
         │  NonSleepController│
         └───────────────────┘
                   │
         ┌─────────▼─────────┐
         │    state.json     │
         │ ~/Library/App...  │
         │ Support/NonSleep/ │
         └───────────────────┘

All components share state through ~/Library/Application Support/NonSleep/state.json.

State File

{
  "enabled": true,
  "temporaryUntil": "2025-01-15T14:30:00Z"
}

The daemon watches this file for changes. The CLI and menu bar app read/write it directly.

Settings

Available in the menu bar app under Settings:

Setting	Description
Launch at Login	Start NonSleep when you log in
Enable on Startup	Activate sleep prevention on launch
Show Notifications	Notify on state changes

LaunchAgent

The daemon runs as a LaunchAgent at ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nonsleep.daemon.plist.

# Manual control
launchctl load   ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nonsleep.daemon.plist
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nonsleep.daemon.plist

Uninstall

make uninstall

Or manually:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nonsleep.daemon.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nonsleep.daemon.plist
rm /usr/local/bin/nonsleep /usr/local/bin/nonsleepd
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/NonSleep

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+
• Xcode 14.0+ (build only)
• Swift 5.9+ (build only)

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
GUI	SwiftUI + MenuBarExtra
Core	IOKit Framework
CLI	Swift ArgumentParser
IPC	Shared state file (JSON)
Daemon	launchd LaunchAgent
Build	Swift Package Manager

License

MIT