wake

Keep your MacBook running with the lid closed — on battery, with nothing plugged in.

No external display, no keyboard, no charger, no dongle. Close the lid, put it in your bag, and your download, build, or SSH session keeps going.

macOS can already do this — it's just switched off by default behind a power-management flag. wake flips that flag safely and flips it back when you're done.

Install

One command, no admin password needed:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Vasiniks/wake/main/install.sh | bash

This installs the wake command into ~/.local/bin (which belongs to you), so the install itself never needs sudo. If that folder isn't on your PATH yet, the installer adds it — just restart Terminal afterward.

Usage

wake on 90     # stay awake lid-closed, then auto-revert after 90 minutes
wake on        # stay awake until you turn it off
wake status    # show current state
wake off       # back to normal — closing the lid sleeps the Mac
wake uninstall # revert, then remove wake and its state
wake help      # show all commands

Typical flow:

wake on 120    # arm it for 2 hours
# start your task, close the lid, walk away
wake off       # done early? turn it off. Otherwise it reverts on its own.

The first time you run wake on, macOS asks for your admin password. That's the only time a password is needed — it's required to change the lid-sleep setting. The auto-revert timer (wake on 90) is recommended so you can't accidentally leave your Mac unable to sleep in a bag.

How it works

wake wraps three pieces:

Piece	What it does
pmset -b disablesleep 1	Tells macOS to ignore the lid switch while on battery. This is what keeps the Mac awake with the lid shut.
caffeinate -im	Stops idle sleep, so a quiet task doesn't drop off after the display-off timeout.
auto-revert timer	Optional watchdog that turns everything back to normal after N minutes, even if you forget.

Caveats

• Heat. Lid closed + no external display + a busy CPU traps heat between the screen and keyboard. Fine for light or idle work; risky for sustained heavy jobs sealed in a padded bag. Give it airflow.
• It really won't sleep. While it's on, closing the lid does nothing — that's the point. Use the timer so you don't forget it's on.
• Battery still drains at whatever your workload needs. This changes the sleep policy, not the power draw.

Uninstall

wake uninstall

This reverts closed-lid mode first (so it can't leave your Mac unable to sleep), then removes the wake command and its ~/.wake state directory. To do it by hand instead:

rm ~/.local/bin/wake
rm -rf ~/.wake

License

MIT. No warranty. You're changing power-management behavior — read the heat caveat above.