Watch Me Sleep

Let your Mac fall asleep when you do.

I have a bad habit of falling asleep to TV shows on my laptop. The show keeps playing, and my wife ends up having to turn it off for me.

I couldn't find a Mac sleep timer that worked the way I wanted. Maybe I just missed the right one. So I built a small menu bar app that lets the laptop go to sleep on its own, with an automatic night watch and optional camera checks for closed eyes. There's a manual timer too.

I want to sleep better, without leaving my wife to take care of the laptop after I've fallen asleep.

Download the latest release · macOS 15+ · Apple silicon · Website

How it works

Let the night watch decide

Choose your bedtime, then watch as usual. The night watch runs from 9 PM to 8 AM by default. You can set any start and end time, including a daytime schedule, or click Watch Now for a Nap to use it outside those hours.

When media keeps your Mac awake and you haven't touched it for five minutes, the optional camera takes a short look. Closed eyes start a five-minute sleep timer. A full check without evidence of wakefulness also starts one, including darkness or a hidden face, even if no face was seen earlier. If your eyes are open, it checks again later, even after hours without input. A timer started by the camera checks once more in its final minute, and open eyes cancel it.

You can use the night watch without a camera. A quiet Mac gets a timer after 20 minutes without input. With media playing and no usable camera, it asks whether you're still watching after two hours.

For a podcast, audiobook or white noise, choose whether the sound should stop once you're asleep or keep playing with the screen off.

Turning off the night watch or ending a nap cancels its automatic timer. Choosing to keep sound playing cancels it when only sound is playing. Timers you set by hand keep running.

Or choose a time yourself

Set a timer for 15 minutes to 12 hours, or pick one of eight presets. The countdown appears in the menu bar. Open the panel to add 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or stop the timer.

Before the Mac goes to sleep

In the final minute, a small countdown appears on every display, including over full-screen video, while the volume fades out. A manual timer's warning offers +30m and Sleep Now. Volume returns when the Mac or its display wakes.

If you use the mouse or keyboard, a night watch timer cancels immediately. For a timer you set yourself, input during the final minute postpones sleep by 30 minutes instead.

If another process is keeping the Mac awake for work, the timer turns off only the display. The work keeps running, and the Mac can sleep normally once that process lets it.

The user guide covers the exact timing, unclear camera checks and other night watch decisions.

Install

Requires macOS 15 or later and Apple silicon. Intel Macs are not supported. The interface follows your system's appearance, with Liquid Glass on macOS 26 and later.

1. Download the latest release and unzip it.
2. Move Watch Me Sleep.app to Applications and open it.
3. Click the moon in the menu bar and open Settings…. Choose your bedtime and whether to use the camera. Turn on Launch at login if you want the app ready each night.

Release builds are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Updates use Sparkle: the app checks daily and installs a new version when you choose to. Automatic checks can be turned off in Settings.

Camera and privacy

Camera checks are optional. Turn on Use the camera in Settings to grant access, then use Camera preview > Show to check the view from where you usually watch. The night watch never asks for permission during the night.

Camera images stay on your Mac. Nothing is recorded or uploaded. Frames are analyzed locally with Apple's Vision and Core Image frameworks. Automatic camera checks run only during bedtime or an active nap. The Settings preview runs only while you show it.

An incomplete or stalled camera check cannot start a camera timer. A completed check without evidence of wakefulness can, including darkness, a hidden face, or inconclusive eye readings. Open eyes in the final minute or input cancel it. Detection can still be imperfect; the eye-detection notes explain the method, measurements and limitations.

There are no accounts, analytics or telemetry. The app's network traffic is its Sparkle update check.

Build from source

Use full Xcode 26 or later on macOS 26 or later. The app uses SwiftPM and Apple's frameworks, with Sparkle as its only external dependency.

git clone https://github.com/wiltodelta/watch-me-sleep.git
cd watch-me-sleep
./create-app.sh
open "Watch Me Sleep Dev.app"

Local builds are named Watch Me Sleep Dev, with a separate development bundle identifier and settings. The build script signs with the team's Developer ID when available and otherwise uses an ad hoc signature.

• bash maintain.sh runs SwiftLint with fixes, tests and a signed bundle build. Install SwiftLint with brew install swiftlint first.
• ./capture-screenshots.sh regenerates both screenshot themes with the camera off. It needs Accessibility and Screen Recording access and restores the development settings afterward. See the screenshot recipe.
• Build and release covers signing, notarization, tag-driven releases and Sparkle packaging.
• UI architecture describes the native menu bar panel, Settings and warning windows.

Help

See the user guide for Settings, updates, troubleshooting and uninstalling. If the menu bar icon is hidden, open the app again from Finder or Spotlight to reach Settings.

To investigate an unexpected night watch decision, enable the optional diagnostics journal. It records signals and decisions without camera images.

License

Apache License 2.0.

Made by Victor Kuznetsov.