Native macOS fan control for Apple Silicon and Intel
Monitor every temperature sensor. Set precise fan speeds. Reduce noise during light work, maximize cooling under heavy loads.
Built with Swift and SwiftUI. No Electron, no web views, no bloat.
Download the latest version from Releases. Unzip, move MacFansControl.app to Applications, and launch.
The app includes a built-in update checker — go to Settings → About → Check Now to see if a newer version is available and download it directly.
Every release is scanned on VirusTotal before publishing. You can verify the download yourself:
| SHA-256 | 597e09ab642f08b9a136371dd8053b1b379c9b25facb6ad31e97a9b8e8d24563 |
| VirusTotal Report | View full scan results |
To verify the hash locally: shasum -a 256 MacFansControl.zip
Temperature Monitoring
- Full sensor suite: CPU cores, GPU, SSD, battery, power regulators, ambient
- Real-time readings in the menubar with customizable display format
- Pin favorite sensors or category averages to the menubar
Fan Control
- Set exact RPM for any fan via slider
- Link fans to temperature sensors with custom curves (min/max temp-to-RPM mapping)
- Visual multi-point fan curve editor
- One-click return to automatic (system-controlled) mode
Safety
- Watchdog process returns fans to safe speeds if the app crashes or is force-quit
- Sleep/wake restoration re-applies your settings automatically
- Fans always return to automatic on clean quit
Presets
- Save and switch between named fan configurations
- Set a default preset that auto-applies on launch
Preferences
- Tabbed settings window: General, Sensors, Fans, Presets, Menu Bar, About, Disclaimer
- Drag-reorder favorites, hide sensors, copy Markdown snapshots
- Favorite category averages (CPU avg, GPU avg) for cleaner monitoring
- Launch at login, dock icon toggle, temperature unit (C/F)
- Per-app language override
Localization
- 8 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Chinese (Simplified)
- Community translations welcome via pull requests
| Generation | Variants |
|---|---|
| M1 | M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra |
| M2 | M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra |
| M3 | M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M3 Ultra |
| M4 | M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max, M4 Ultra |
| M5 | M5, M5 Pro, M5 Max, M5 Ultra |
| Intel | Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, Ice Lake (Mac mini, iMac, and generic Intel Macs) |
| Requirement | |
|---|---|
| OS | macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later |
| Chip | Any Apple Silicon or supported Intel Mac |
Download and move MacFansControl.app to your Applications folder.
On first launch, open Preferences > General and click Install Helper.
The background helper allows MacFansControl to change fan speeds without asking for your password every time. Since the app is not yet signed with an Apple Developer certificate (coming soon), macOS will prompt for your administrator password during installation. This is a one-time setup — once installed, fan control works silently in the background.
Why is this needed? Changing fan speeds requires elevated (root) privileges. The helper runs as a small background service that handles these privileged operations securely via XPC, so the main app never needs root access itself.
MacFansControl lives in your menubar. Click the temperature readout to see sensors, fans, presets, and quick access to preferences.
This repository hosts the translation files for MacFansControl. You can help translate the app into your language or improve existing translations.
- Fork this repository
- Edit an existing file in the
languages/folder, or create a new one by copyingEnglish.xml - Translate the string values (the text between
<string>tags) — do not change theidattributes - Keep any
%1,%2,%@,%dplaceholders in place — the app needs them - Submit a pull request
| Language | File | Status |
|---|---|---|
| English | English.xml |
Complete |
| French | French.xml |
Complete |
| German | German.xml |
Complete |
| Spanish | Spanish.xml |
Complete |
| Japanese | Japanese.xml |
Complete |
| Korean | Korean.xml |
Complete |
| Portuguese (BR) | Portuguese_Brazilian.xml |
Complete |
| Chinese (Simplified) | Chinese_Simplified.xml |
Complete |
Want to add a new language? Copy English.xml, rename it to your language name, translate the values, and submit a PR.
Please use Issues to report bugs or request features.
If MacFansControl saves you from fan noise or thermal throttling, consider supporting development:
MacFansControl is not yet notarized with Apple (Apple Developer certificate coming soon). On first launch you may see this dialog:
To fix this:
- Click Done to dismiss the dialog
- Open System Settings > Privacy & Security
- Scroll down — you'll see a message that MacFansControl was blocked
- Click Open Anyway
This only needs to be done once. After that, the app will open normally.
You need to install the background helper. Go to Preferences > General and click Install Helper. The helper runs as a privileged background service so you won't be asked for your password on every fan speed change.
Since the app doesn't have an Apple Developer certificate yet, macOS will ask for your administrator password once during helper installation. This is expected and safe — the helper is a small daemon that only handles fan speed writes via the SMC interface.
If you launch the app directly from the downloaded zip without extracting it first, you may see this error:
To fix this:
- Close MacFansControl if it's running
- Extract the zip file first (double-click the
.zipin Finder) - Drag
MacFansControl.appfrom the extracted folder to your Applications folder manually - Launch from Applications
This happens because macOS mounts zip contents as a read-only volume — the app can't move itself from there.
When you click Install Now in Settings → About, macOS will show a password prompt before replacing the app in /Applications. This is expected — the app needs elevated permissions to overwrite itself.
If you see the error above ("couldn't be removed because you don't have permission") instead of a password prompt, you are on v1.1.2 or earlier. Download v1.1.3 or later from Releases and install it manually — the issue is fixed in that version.
Use a macOS account with Administrator rights. On most personal Macs this is the default. If you are on a managed or work Mac with a Standard account, either ask your IT admin to install the update or download the zip from Releases and replace the app manually.
MacFansControl is a menubar app — it doesn't open a window on launch. Look for the temperature readout in your menubar (top-right area of the screen). If you don't see it, it may be hidden behind the notch on newer MacBooks — try closing other menubar apps to make room.
This usually means the background helper isn't installed or isn't running. Go to Preferences > General — if the helper status shows "not installed", click Install Helper. If it shows installed but fans still read 0 RPM, try clicking Reinstall Helper.