If you are a blind Mac user who relies on VoiceOver, you have probably experienced this frustration: you are in the middle of something important — listening to audio, following along with a document, waiting for a download — and your Mac decides to go to sleep. VoiceOver goes silent. Everything stops. You have to wake the Mac up, find your place again, and carry on.
It is a small thing, but it happens often enough to be genuinely annoying.
That is exactly why I built StayAwake.
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WHAT IS STAYAWAKE?
StayAwake is a tiny, free Mac menubar app that does two things and two things only:
1. Keeps your Mac fully awake — no sleep, no display dimming, no disk sleeping — for as long as you need, without any further instruction from you.
2. Returns your Mac to normal sleep behaviour the instant you tell it to.
That is it. No complicated settings. No subscriptions. No App Store. Just two menu items and a VoiceOver announcement to confirm every action.
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DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP FOR VOICEOVER USERS
Most “keep awake” utilities are designed for sighted users — tiny icons, unlabelled buttons, no accessibility thought at all. StayAwake is different because it was built specifically with VoiceOver in mind.
Here is what that means in practice:
Every single control has a clear, explicit VoiceOver label. Nothing is left unlabelled or described only by its visual appearance.
VoiceOver speaks every state change automatically. When you activate Keep Mac Awake, VoiceOver announces: “Mac will now stay awake. Sleep is prevented.” When you allow sleep again, it announces: “Mac returned to normal. Sleep is now allowed.” You never have to navigate anywhere to find out what state the app is in.
The app will never freeze your Mac or cause VoiceOver to go silent. This was the most important design requirement. The underlying sleep-prevention process runs on a completely separate background thread, entirely isolated from the user interface. The UI thread — and therefore VoiceOver — stays free and responsive at all times.
No Dock icon, no window, no distraction. StayAwake lives only in the menubar, out of your way until you need it.
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HOW TO USE IT
Once installed, you reach StayAwake by pressing VO+M+M to go to the menubar extras area, then navigating right until you hear “StayAwake status: sleep allowed. Activate to open menu.”
Press VO+Space to open the menu. You will find:
– Keep Mac Awake (keyboard shortcut: K)
– Allow Sleep, return to normal (keyboard shortcut: S)
– Quit StayAwake (keyboard shortcut: Q)
Choose Keep Mac Awake and your Mac will stay awake indefinitely. Choose Allow Sleep when you are done and everything returns to normal immediately. No restart needed, ever.
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HOW IT WORKS UNDER THE HOOD
StayAwake uses Apple’s own built-in caffeinate command, which has been part of macOS since Mountain Lion. Caffeinate is a rock-solid, lightweight system tool specifically designed for this purpose. StayAwake simply manages it for you — launching it when you want your Mac awake, and terminating it cleanly when you are done.
No third-party libraries. No background services running when the app is not open. No impact on battery beyond what keeping your Mac awake naturally requires.
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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
– macOS 13 Ventura or later
– Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
– No Xcode required — the app is ready to run
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DOWNLOAD STAYAWAKE FREE
StayAwake is completely free. The download is a zip file containing the ready-to-run app and a full VoiceOver-friendly README guide covering installation, first launch security approval, daily use, login items setup, and troubleshooting.
Download StayAwake here:
The README inside walks you through every step with detailed VoiceOver instructions. The only thing you need to do after downloading is move the app to your Applications folder and approve it in System Settings the first time — a one-minute process described step by step in the guide.
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A NOTE ON SHARING
If you find StayAwake useful, please share it with your blind Mac community. The zip file is safe to forward directly via WhatsApp, email, or any file sharing service. Everything your friends need — the app and the full guide — is inside.
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StayAwake 1.0
Free to use and share.
Built by a blind Mac user, for blind Mac users.
CoolHappenings® 