nosleep

Keep a MacBook running with the lid closed, from the terminal, and put it back to normal (or straight to sleep) with one command.

nosleep -on       keep running through every lid close until you run -off
nosleep -off      back to normal: closing the lid sleeps the Mac
nosleep -sleep    back to normal, then put the Mac to sleep right now
nosleep           show whether nosleep is on or off

Why

Closing a MacBook's lid puts it to sleep, and there is no checkbox in System Settings to stop that on battery. Sometimes you want the machine to keep going with the lid shut: a long download, a build, a backup, a server you are connected to over SSH, a terminal session you want to come back to. macOS does have a switch for this (pmset disablesleep), but it needs sudo, it is easy to forget to turn back off, and once it is on, closing the lid leaves the screen lit and unlocked inside the closed lid. nosleep wraps the switch in a short command, keeps track of whether it is on, and adds a small helper so the screen still turns off and locks when you close the lid.

How it works, in plain words

1. The switch. nosleep -on runs pmset -a disablesleep 1, the one macOS setting that keeps a MacBook awake with the lid shut. While it is set the Mac does not sleep at all: not when idle, not from the Apple menu, not on battery. nosleep -off runs pmset -a disablesleep 0, which restores stock behavior.
2. No password every time. Those pmset calls need root. The installer adds one file, /etc/sudoers.d/nosleep, that lets your account run exactly three commands without a password: pmset -a disablesleep 1, pmset -a disablesleep 0, and pmset sleepnow. Nothing else gets elevated.
3. The lid-close lock. With sleep disabled, closing the lid no longer turns off the display, so the normal "require password after the display turns off" lock never engages. lidlock-watch is a tiny background loop (a LaunchAgent) that checks the lid every 2 seconds and turns the display off the moment it closes. The Mac keeps running; the screen goes dark and locks as usual. When nosleep is off, the helper is harmless, because the display was about to turn off anyway.
4. Status. nosleep -on leaves a marker file at ~/.local/state/nosleep.on, so plain nosleep can tell you whether it turned sleep off. The real source of truth is always pmset -g | grep SleepDisabled (1 = will not sleep, 0 = normal).

Requirements

• A Mac laptop. Used daily since August 2026 on an Apple Silicon MacBook Air, currently on macOS 27; it only uses pmset, ioreg, launchctl, and sudo, all of which ship with macOS.
• An administrator account. You will type your password once, during install.
• Basic comfort with Terminal.

Install

1. Get the files. Download https://github.com/mrkoga/nosleep/archive/refs/heads/main.zip and unzip it (the folder is called nosleep-main), or run git clone https://github.com/mrkoga/nosleep.git in Terminal. On the GitHub page, the green "Code" button also has a "Download ZIP" option. If someone sent you the zip directly, just unzip that.
2. Open Terminal.
3. Move into the folder: cd followed by a space, then drag the folder onto the Terminal window and press Return.
4. Optional: see what the installer would do without changing anything: ./install.sh --dry-run
5. Run the installer: ./install.sh
6. Type y when it asks to continue, then your Mac password when sudo asks.
7. Open a new Terminal window, so the PATH change is picked up.
8. Type nosleep to see the status line. You are done.

./install.sh --no-lidlock installs the command without the lid-close screen-lock helper. Not recommended: with nosleep on, a closed lid would then leave the screen lit and unlocked.

Use

nosleep -on        # about to close the lid; keep working
nosleep            # status: on (SleepDisabled=1)
nosleep -off       # done; back to normal
nosleep -sleep     # back to normal and go to sleep right now

Over SSH, nosleep -sleep is a one-way door: waking the Mac again needs a physical lid-open or key press.

Things to know

• While nosleep is on, the Mac never sleeps. The battery drains, and it gets warm. Do not put it, closed and on, into a bag or under a pillow. Turn it off when you are done.
• The setting survives a restart. pmset settings persist. If you restart with nosleep on, it is still on afterwards. Plain nosleep tells you.
• The lid-close lock depends on your lock-screen setting. In System Settings, go to Lock Screen and set "Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off" to "Immediately" (or a short delay). The helper only turns the display off; macOS does the locking.
• External monitor in clamshell mode. The helper also blanks an external display when the lid closes. To use the Mac closed with a monitor, pause the helper with the first command below and resume it with the second:

launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/local.nosleep.lidlock
launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.nosleep.lidlock.plist

Optional: a menu bar indicator

If you want to see at a glance whether nosleep is on, the menubar folder inside this one adds a small "nosleep ON" / "nosleep OFF" box at the top of the screen, with a dropdown to turn it on or off. It is built on the free SwiftBar app and has its own README and installer. Install nosleep first, then that.

Troubleshooting

• command not found: nosleep: open a new Terminal window. If it still fails, add export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" to your ~/.zshrc.
• operation not permitted when running ./install.sh: macOS quarantines downloaded files. In the folder, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine . and try again.
• status: SleepDisabled=1 but nosleep did not set it: something else disabled sleep (or the marker file was deleted). nosleep -off clears it either way.
• Is the lid helper running? pgrep -fl lidlock-watch should print one line.

Uninstall

Run ./uninstall.sh from the folder. It restores normal sleep if nosleep is on, stops and removes the LaunchAgent, deletes the two commands, and removes the sudo rule. By hand, the same thing is:

nosleep -off
launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/local.nosleep.lidlock
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.nosleep.lidlock.plist ~/.local/bin/lidlock-watch ~/.local/bin/nosleep ~/.local/state/nosleep.on
sudo rm /etc/sudoers.d/nosleep

What gets installed where

File	Purpose
~/.local/bin/nosleep	the command
~/.local/bin/lidlock-watch	the lid-close screen-lock helper
~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.nosleep.lidlock.plist	starts the helper at login and keeps it running
/etc/sudoers.d/nosleep	lets your account run the three pmset commands without a password
~/.local/state/nosleep.on	marker file, present only while nosleep is on

License

MIT. See LICENSE.