Installing Idle

macOS 13 (Ventura) or later, Apple Silicon required.

Recommended: Homebrew (no Gatekeeper warning)

If you have Homebrew, this is the fastest, friction-free path. One command:

brew install --cask ashlrai/idle/idle

That installs the latest Idle.app directly to /Applications. No warning dialog, no quarantine flag — Homebrew is trusted by macOS, so it skips Gatekeeper entirely. Then run:

open /Applications/Idle.app

Idle appears in your menu bar (top-right). The welcome wizard opens on first launch.

Don't have Homebrew? Direct DMG download

⬇︎ Download Idle.dmg (~750 KB)

About the "cannot be opened" warning

Idle is currently distributed without an Apple Developer ID notarization (it's $99/year — we'll add it once we have meaningful traction). When you first try to launch the DMG version, macOS shows a warning. Idle is fully open source — you can read every line at github.com/ashlrai/idle before running. Or use the Homebrew path above to skip this entirely.

1

Open the DMG and drag Idle into Applications

Double-click Idle.dmg, drag Idle.app onto the Applications shortcut, eject the DMG.

2

Bypass Gatekeeper — Terminal one-liner (fastest)

Open Terminal and paste:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Idle.app && open /Applications/Idle.app

This removes the "downloaded from internet" flag and launches Idle. macOS remembers the decision.

3

Or right-click → Open

Alternative for the Terminal-averse: in Finder, right-click (or Control-click) /Applications/Idle.app, choose Open, then click Open on the warning dialog. macOS remembers this choice.

4

Look for the leaf in your menu bar

Idle is a menu-bar app (no Dock icon). After launch you'll see Idle in the top-right. Click it for the popover. The welcome wizard auto-opens on first launch with pre-flight checks.

5

Toggle "Launch at login"

In the popover footer, flip Launch at login. macOS will request permission once; approve it. Idle now starts every time you log in.

Uninstalling

defaults delete ai.ashlr.idle
rm -rf /Applications/Idle.app
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.keepawake.plist 2>/dev/null
rm -f ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.keepawake.plist