AutoCloseApps Spoon

A Hammerspoon Spoon that automatically quits applications after periods of inactivity.

Repository: https://github.com/hugoh/AutoCloseApps.spoon

Features

• Automatically quits applications after configurable idle periods
• Configurable check intervals

Alternatives

If you're looking for other solutions in this space, consider:

• Quitter

Installation

Ensure you have Hammerspoon installed, then choose a method:

Release zip (recommended)

1. Download AutoCloseApps.spoon.zip from the latest release
2. Unzip — this produces an AutoCloseApps.spoon folder
3. Move it to ~/.hammerspoon/Spoons/
4. Reload Hammerspoon (menu bar icon → Reload Config, or run hs.reload() in the console)

SpoonInstall (if you already use it)

spoon.SpoonInstall:installSpoonFromZip(
  "https://github.com/hugoh/AutoCloseApps.spoon/releases/latest/download/AutoCloseApps.spoon.zip"
)

Clone from git (for development or latest changes)

cd ~/.hammerspoon/Spoons
git clone https://github.com/hugoh/AutoCloseApps.spoon.git

Configuration

Add this to your .hammerspoon/init.lua:

-- Load and configure the Spoon
local autoCloseApps = hs.loadSpoon("AutoCloseApps")

-- Optional configuration (defaults shown)
autoCloseApps.quitCheckInterval = 600  -- Check every 60 seconds

autoCloseApps:monitor({
    {name = "Safari", idleTime = 3600},  -- Quit after 1 hour inactivity
    {name = "Slack", idleTime = 1800},   -- Quit after 30 minutes
    {name = "Mail", idleTime = 7200},    -- Quit after 2 hours
    {name = "Backblaze", idleTime = 1800, excludeFromIdleClose = true}  -- Never auto-quit
}):start()

Safety limitations

An app is only quit when it has zero open windows, is not frontmost, and has been idle for longer than its configured idleTime. However, Hammerspoon/hs.application has no reliable way to detect whether a window-less app is doing background work (uploading, syncing, recording, etc.) or holds unsaved state, so it's possible for this Spoon to quit such an app while it's busy. If you rely on an app that performs background work without a visible window (backup/sync clients, recorders, etc.), set excludeFromIdleClose = true for it, or omit it from monitor() entirely.

API documentation

Full API reference is available at https://autocloseapps-spoon.larve.net/.