Restless

A small, fully native macOS menu bar app that keeps your Mac awake, even with the lid closed. Close the lid and SSH sessions, downloads, builds and AI agents keep running.

Website: restless.kainoa.me

Restless began as a fork of Amped by Gustaf Eriksson and has since been rewritten around a new panel, separate lid-closed screen settings, Sparkle updates and its own branding. Amped's MIT license and copyright notice are kept in LICENSE. The panel's design and some of its code are adapted from OpenUsage, also MIT; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Restless isn't affiliated with either project.

Install

Download Restless-<version>.zip from the latest release, unzip it, and move Restless.app to /Applications. Requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or newer.

Releases are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so the app opens normally. Restless updates itself with Sparkle: it checks for new releases in the background (you can turn this off in Settings), and Check for Updates checks right away.

The panel

Click the icon in the menu bar to open the panel.

• Status card: what Restless is doing right now, and the battery level.
• Groups by lid position: hover or click the ? next to a group for an explanation of its settings.
• Options (bottom corner): Settings (⌘,), Check for Updates, About and Quit (⌘Q).
• Settings: Launch at Login, Show in Menu Bar, the background helper's status, the version and updates.
• Esc closes the panel. Right-click the icon for Settings and Quit.

Sleep Display and Lock Screen can be changed while lid-closed mode is off, so you can set them up ahead of time. They only affect the laptop's own screen: while an external display is connected they do nothing, so closing the lid and working on the monitor behaves exactly as macOS normally does. With Sleep Display on and Lock Screen off, macOS can still lock the Mac if your Lock Screen settings require a password when the display turns off.

The menu bar icon shows the state at a glance:

On launch Restless starts with keep-awake off, so it never surprises you by blocking sleep or asking for a password. When it quits it always restores normal sleep.

Moving from Amped

Restless copies your Amped settings the first time it runs. Quit Amped and delete it, then remove Amped's entries under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions, including its background helper. Restless installs its own helper, and only Amped's own app could remove Amped's.

How lid-closed mode stays passwordless

Keeping a Mac awake with the lid shut means flipping the system disablesleep flag, which only root can do. Restless does this through a small privileged helper: a root LaunchDaemon embedded in the app bundle that the app talks to over XPC. The XPC channel only accepts code signed by the same Developer ID team, so nothing but Restless can reach the helper. The helper does exactly one thing, which is to turn pmset disablesleep on or off.

The first time you turn on Lid Closed → Keep Awake, Restless offers to set the helper up. Approve "Restless" once under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions, and from then on the switch never asks for a password. That also lets Auto-off at 20% turn off lid-closed mode while the lid is shut and you're away.

If you'd rather not install the helper, choose Just This Time. That keeps the Mac awake now with a single password prompt and installs nothing. You can remove the helper anytime from the same System Settings pane, and the setup offer comes back the next time you turn on lid-closed mode.

The helper only works in a signed build. An unsigned local build can't be approved, so lid-closed mode asks for your password on every toggle.

Build and run

You need Xcode and XcodeGen:

build.sh reads .env, which isn't committed (copy it from .env.example). With CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application" set, the build is signed for team VW9NDM428H, with Hardened Runtime and a secure timestamp, so the helper works and the build is ready for notarization. Leave the identity unset for an ad-hoc build.

To work in Xcode:

The .xcodeproj is generated from project.yml and isn't committed.

Releasing

./release.sh <version> runs every step from main:

1. Builds and signs the app.
2. Notarizes and staples it.
3. Signs the update for Sparkle and writes the appcast.
4. Publishes the GitHub release.

See docs/RELEASING.md for the one-time setup.

The icon

The app icon is an open eye with a moon for its iris: dark purple on white in light mode, light purple on dark purple in dark mode. It's an Icon Composer file, icon/AppIcon.icon, built from the layer SVGs in its Assets folder, so macOS switches it with the system appearance and can tint it. Open it in Icon Composer to edit it. icon/restless-light.svg and icon/restless-dark.svg are the flat versions, for anywhere else the icon is needed.

The App Store

Lid-closed mode relies on pmset disablesleep and a privileged helper, which a sandboxed App Store app can't use. Restless ships as a notarized Developer ID app instead.

Project layout