Coffee Break is a lightweight, native macOS Menu Bar application designed to keep your display awake when you step away from your desk. Whether you are grabbing a cup of tea or coffee, reading a document, or presenting, Coffee Break prevents your screen from dimming or going to sleep.
Get the latest release for macOS:
- Download CoffeeBreak.dmg (Latest Installer)
- Download CoffeeBreak.zip (Zip Archive)
- View All GitHub Releases
- Quietly Lives in the Menu Bar: Runs without taking up space in your Dock (Menu Bar accessory).
- Instant One-Click Toggle: Left-click the menu bar icon to toggle sleep prevention ON or OFF immediately.
- Preset Timers: Automatically deactivate after 15 Mins, 30 Mins, 1 Hour, or 2 Hours, or keep your screen awake Indefinitely.
- Live Countdown Display: Easily see remaining active time at a glance.
- Visual Status Indicator: Solid cup when active, outlined cup when inactive.
- Zero Background Resource Waste: Pure native Apple
IOKitpower assertion with negligible CPU and memory usage.
- Left-Click on the icon in your macOS menu bar to instantly turn sleep prevention ON or OFF.
- Right-Click (or hold
Controlwhile left-clicking) the menu bar icon to open the menu. - Hover over Duration to select a countdown timer preset:
- Indefinitely (Default — stays active until you manually turn it off)
- 15 Mins
- 30 Mins
- 1 Hour
- 2 Hours
When downloading pre-built releases directly from GitHub, macOS Gatekeeper may show a warning stating that Apple could not verify the application.
Because Coffee Break is an open-source project built without a paid Apple Developer ID subscription, you can bypass this standard Gatekeeper prompt using either of these quick steps:
- Option A (Right-Click Open): Right-click (or
Control+ Left-Click)CoffeeBreak.appin Finder, click Open, and then click Open again in the prompt. - Option B (Terminal): Remove the internet download quarantine attribute by running:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CoffeeBreak.app
| Action | Control / Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Toggle Active/Inactive | Left-Click menu bar icon |
| Open Menu | Right-Click menu bar icon (or Ctrl + Left-Click) |
| Toggle Menu Option | Cmd + T (when menu is open) |
| Quit App | Cmd + Q (when menu is open) |
Coffee Break can be built locally using native macOS developer tools without installing third-party dependencies or package managers.
- macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later
- Xcode Command Line Tools (
xcode-select --install)
-
Build the Application Bundle (
CoffeeBreak.app): Open Terminal in the project folder and run:make app
-
Launch Coffee Break:
make run
Or open it directly from Finder / Terminal:
open build/CoffeeBreak.app
-
(Optional) Install to Applications: To install Coffee Break on your Mac, drag or copy
build/CoffeeBreak.appinto your/Applicationsfolder:cp -R build/CoffeeBreak.app /Applications/
-
Package Distributable DMG: If you want to package a standalone
.dmginstaller to share:make dmg
Coffee Break uses Apple's native IOKit power management framework. You can verify that display sleep is actively disabled by running this command in Terminal:
pmset -g assertionsWhen Coffee Break is active, an entry will appear under PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep:
pid <ID>(CoffeeBreak): [0x0000...] PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep named: "Coffee Break - Keeping display awake (...)"
coffee-break/
├── .gitignore
├── Makefile
├── Package.swift
├── README.md
├── Config/
│ └── Info.plist # App bundle metadata configuration
├── Resources/
│ ├── logo.png # Source icon graphic
│ ├── AppIcon.png
│ └── AppIcon.icns
├── Scripts/
│ └── optimize_icon.swift # Icon scaling script
└── Sources/
└── CoffeeBreak/ # Swift source code
├── App.swift
├── AppState.swift
├── MenuView.swift
└── PowerManager.swift
Released under the MIT License.