Midnight Oil lives in your menu bar as a small flame. Click it, pick how long, and your Mac stays awake: overnight while Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor works through a task, until a download finishes, or with the lid closed in your bag. When the session ends, your Mac goes back to its normal sleep settings on its own.
Install
Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
Homebrew
brew install --cask coreyhaines31/tap/midnightoil
Or download it
- Download
MidnightOil-x.y.z.dmg from the latest release.
- Open the DMG and drag Midnight Oil to Applications.
- Open Midnight Oil from Applications.
The app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without warnings, and it updates itself.
Or ask your AI agent
Paste this into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any agent with a terminal:
Install Midnight Oil, a free macOS menu bar app that keeps my Mac awake (https://github.com/coreyhaines31/midnightoil):
1. Check this Mac runs macOS 14 or later with `sw_vers -productVersion`. Stop and tell me if it doesn't.
2. If Homebrew is installed (`command -v brew`), run `brew install --cask coreyhaines31/tap/midnightoil`.
3. Otherwise, download the latest release and copy it to Applications:
url=$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/coreyhaines31/midnightoil/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*\.dmg' | head -1)
curl -fsSL -o /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg "$url"
mnt=$(hdiutil attach -nobrowse -readonly /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg | grep -o '/Volumes/.*' | tail -1)
cp -R "$mnt/Midnight Oil.app" /Applications/ && hdiutil detach -quiet "$mnt" && rm /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg
4. Run `open -a "Midnight Oil"`, then confirm it's running with `pgrep -x "Midnight Oil"`.
5. Tell me to look for the flame icon in my menu bar, that closed-lid mode needs a one-time approval in Settings › Closed Lid, and that from now on I can just ask you to keep my Mac awake. You'll do it with the `midnightoil` command (see `midnightoil --help`; if it isn't on the PATH, it's at "/Applications/Midnight Oil.app/Contents/MacOS/midnightoil").
Without Homebrew, from Terminal
url=$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/coreyhaines31/midnightoil/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*\.dmg' | head -1)
curl -fsSL -o /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg "$url"
mnt=$(hdiutil attach -nobrowse -readonly /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg | grep -o '/Volumes/.*' | tail -1)
cp -R "$mnt/Midnight Oil.app" /Applications/
hdiutil detach -quiet "$mnt" && rm /tmp/MidnightOil.dmg
open -a "Midnight Oil"
Your first session
Midnight Oil has no Dock icon and no window. After you open it, look for the flame in the menu bar, near the clock.
Don't see it? On a MacBook with a notch, a crowded menu bar can hide icons behind the notch. Quit an app you don't need in the menu bar, or hold ⌘ and drag other icons to make room.
- Click the flame.
- Pick how long: Keep Awake Indefinitely, Keep Awake For (5 minutes to 12 hours), Keep Awake Until a time, While App Is Running, or While File Is Downloading.
- Walk away. The flame lights up while a session runs. Click it to see the time left, extend the session, or end it.
Two options on the running session card are worth knowing:
- Allow display sleep lets the screen turn off while the Mac keeps working. This is what you want for overnight runs.
- Stay awake with lid closed keeps a MacBook running after you close it. It needs a one-time setup, described next.
Midnight Oil starts when you log in. To stop that, turn off Launch at login in Settings › General.
Permissions it may ask for
Midnight Oil asks for nothing up front. macOS asks for each permission only the first time you use the feature that needs it:
| Feature | What macOS asks | Where to change it later |
|---|
| Closed-lid mode | Approve the Midnight Oil helper | System Settings › General › Login Items (& Extensions) |
| Wi-Fi network triggers | Location access, because macOS treats the network name as location data | System Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services |
| Bluetooth device triggers | Bluetooth access | System Settings › Privacy & Security › Bluetooth |
| Notifications | Permission to show notifications | System Settings › Notifications |
Setting up closed-lid mode: open Settings › Closed Lid and click Install…, and macOS opens Login Items. Switch on Midnight Oil under Allow in the Background. That's the only time you'll need an admin password. You can remove the helper from the same settings pane.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
