Freeze background apps, focus on what matters.
A lightweight macOS menu bar app that suspends background applications with SIGSTOP to free up CPU resources — perfect for gaming or deep coding sessions.
- Two modes
- 🎮 Game Mode — Freezes all non-essential apps (including IDEs and browsers)
- 🌙 Focus Mode — Freezes distractions while keeping dev tools, browsers, and terminals alive
- One-click or hotkey — Click the menu bar icon or press
⌘⇧Fto toggle - Smart exclusions — VPN/proxy apps (Clash, Surge, Tailscale, etc.) are never frozen to preserve network connectivity
- Auto-detect — Scans running apps in real-time, no manual configuration needed
- Crash recovery — Frozen PIDs are persisted to disk; if Frost crashes, processes are automatically resumed on next launch
- Lightweight — Pure Swift + SwiftUI, < 5MB binary, ~15MB RAM
Frost sends SIGSTOP to pause target processes (and all their child processes). The apps remain in memory with their state fully preserved — no data loss, no restart needed. When you exit focus mode, SIGCONT resumes them instantly.
git clone https://github.com/Yessi-cmd/Frost.git
cd Frost
make run # Build and launch
make install # Copy to /ApplicationsRequires Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
- Click the ❄️ snowflake icon in the menu bar
- Choose Game Mode or Focus Mode
- Toggle apps on/off as needed
- Click Enter to freeze — the popover closes automatically
- Press
⌘⇧For click the icon again to unfreeze
Frost/
├── FrostApp.swift # @main entry point
├── AppDelegate.swift # Menu bar + global hotkey (⌘⇧F)
├── Models/
│ ├── TargetApp.swift # App data model
│ └── FrostMode.swift # Game / Coding mode with exclusion lists
├── Services/
│ ├── ProcessManager.swift # SIGSTOP / SIGCONT + child process discovery
│ └── SafetyGuard.swift # Crash recovery (PID + process name validation)
├── ViewModels/
│ └── FrostViewModel.swift # State management
└── Views/
├── PopoverView.swift # Main popover UI
├── AppRowView.swift # Per-app row with toggle
└── SettingsView.swift # Preferences
MIT