Jitter

A menu bar app for macOS

Your Mac stays awake. A bean keeps watch.

Jitter keeps your Mac and its display on for as long as you need: a big download, a presentation, a long build. Click the bean in the menu bar, pick how long, and an animated coffee bean pops up to say it's on duty.

Download for Mac Meet the 13 beans

Free · macOS 15 Sequoia or later · Version 1.0

Cartoon of Mr. Bean, a coffee bean with a cup, sipping beside an open laptop on a sunny desk.

How it works

Click the bean. Pick how long. That's it.

Jitter lives in your menu bar, with no Dock icon and no window to manage. It holds a standard macOS power assertion while it's on and lets go the moment you stop it, a timer runs out or you quit.

  1. Find the bean in your menu bar

    Its eyes tell you the state at a glance.

  2. Choose Forever, or a time

    Stay Awake Forever, or Stay Awake For 15 minutes up to 8 hours. Stop whenever you like.

  3. Your bean confirms it

    A short splash says exactly what happened. It never takes focus and clicks pass straight through it.

Eyes closedNapping. Your Mac sleeps as usual.
Eyes openAwake. Your Mac and display stay on.

New to Jitter? A short welcome tour opens on first launch. It shows where the bean lives, lets you pick an avatar and where it appears, and offers a 15-minute test run. It's always one click away in the menu.

Try the menu

  • Mr. Bean is napping
  • Avatar…

Pick something from the menu and your bean will answer.

Cartoon of Snooze, a coffee bean in a nightcap, yawning beside a laptop under a desk lamp at night.

Timed sessions

An hour for the upload. Or until you say stop.

  • 15 minutes
  • 30 minutes
  • 1 hour
  • 2 hours
  • 4 hours
  • 8 hours
  • Forever

The menu shows how long is left, like “Awake · 42 min left”. Need more time? Extend +30 min. Changed your mind? Switch a timer to Forever without your Mac dozing off in between. Timers follow the real clock, so they end on time.

When time's up, your bean stretches, yawns and goes back to sleep, and so can your Mac.

What your bean says

  • On it! Awake until you say stop.When you choose Forever
  • On it! Awake for 1 hour.When you start a timer
  • Change of plans: awake for 2 hours.When you switch while awake
  • Another 30 minutes, coming up!When you extend a timer
  • Back to sleep. ZzzWhen you stop
  • Time's up. Back to sleep.When a timer runs out

13 avatars

Pick who keeps watch.

Mr. Bean is on duty by default. Twelve more coffee beans come with the app, each with their own look. Pick one to preview its clips, just like the Choose Avatar window in the app. Your choice also shows up in the menu demo above.

Mr. Bean

Preview

    Bring your own bean

    Your mascot, your pet, your drawing.

    Choose Avatar… in the menu, then Import Sprite Sheet…. Jitter takes a transparent PNG with six poses, three across and two down: awake, sleepy, blink, then sip, wired, yawn. It also reads 6 × 4 sprite sheets.

    Jitter lines the poses up, sizes them like the bundled beans and animates them the same way, effects included. Imported avatars stay on your Mac, and you can remove one any time.

    Get a pose sheet from an AI image generator

    Upload a picture of your character to an image generator that can save transparent PNGs, paste this prompt, and import what comes back. Replace the last line with any props or clothes it must keep, or delete it. 

    Make a sprite sheet of the character in the attached image, for a desktop mascot app.

Output: ONE PNG image, 1536 x 1024 pixels (landscape), with a genuinely transparent background (a real alpha channel: no white, no gray checkerboard, no floor, no shadows).

Layout: an invisible grid of 3 columns x 2 rows, six equal 512 x 512 cells. Do not draw grid lines, borders, numbers, labels or any text. Put one full-body character in each cell, in this order:
- Top row, left to right: 1. awake, 2. sleepy, 3. blink
- Bottom row, left to right: 4. sip, 5. wired, 6. yawn

Poses (the same character, outfit and props in every cell):
1. awake: standing relaxed and facing the viewer, eyes open with a calm, friendly look, small smile, holding its drink in one hand (give it a small coffee cup if it has no drink).
2. sleepy: same as awake, but with heavy, droopy, half-closed eyelids and a flat, tired mouth.
3. blink: same as awake, but with the eyes fully closed and a small, relaxed smile.
4. sip: same as awake, but the hand holding the drink lifts it to the mouth, eyes closed contentedly.
5. wired: same as awake, but with the eyes wide open and a huge, happy, open-mouthed grin.
6. yawn: same as awake, but with a big yawn, the mouth wide open, the eyes squeezed shut.

Consistency matters most, because the app animates the character by swapping between these cells:
- Draw cell 1 first and treat it as the master. Every other cell is a copy of it with only the face changed (and, for sip, the arm holding the drink).
- The same size, position and stance in every cell: the character centered left to right, with its feet on the same line, about 30 px above the bottom of each cell.
- Leave at least 40 px of empty space around the character in every cell. Nothing may touch or cross a cell edge.
- Keep the look of the attached image as a clean cartoon with a bold outline. If it is a photo, turn the subject into a cartoon mascot first. No sparkles, motion lines, steam, speech bubbles or text.

The character must keep: [describe props or clothes, e.g. "its red scarf, and it holds a teapot instead of a cup"]

    The layout Jitter expects: one 1536 × 1024 PNG, six 512 × 512 cells, a transparent background. Only the face (and the cup for sip) should change between cells.

    Quiet by design

    It keeps your Mac awake. That's all it does.

    • Nothing leaves your Mac

      No accounts, no analytics, no crash reports. The only thing the app fetches is a list of updates from this site, every two weeks. Read the privacy policy.

    • Sandboxed

      Jitter runs in the macOS App Sandbox. It can only read the image you choose to import, and only when you choose it.

    • Out of your way

      Menu bar only, no Dock icon. Splashes are click-through, appear on every Space and over full-screen apps, and show on the screen your pointer is on.

    • Your spot on screen

      Put your bean in the center, along an edge or in a corner, nine spots in all, from Avatar Position in the menu.

    • Reduce Motion

      With Reduce Motion turned on in macOS, splashes show a still pose instead of animating.

    • VoiceOver

      VoiceOver reads every splash message, and the menu bar icon announces whether Jitter is awake or napping.

    Download

    Ready when you are.

    Free. Requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

    Download for Mac

    By downloading, you agree to the license agreement.