SleepBar

SleepBar is a small macOS menu bar app that adds a countdown timer for turning off your screen or locking your Mac. The problem it solves is that macOS has a single fixed delay for when the screen turns off, and changing it requires opening System Settings each time. SleepBar puts a clickable icon in your menu bar so you can set a one-off timer of 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes, one hour, or any custom duration, without changing any system setting permanently.

When the countdown ends, you choose what happens: lock the screen only, lock and turn off the display to save power, or put the Mac to sleep entirely. You can also trigger any of those actions immediately with a single click, or flip it to "Never" to keep the screen awake indefinitely for presentations, long downloads, or running scripts.

There is also a separate mode called Timed Lock that works differently. Instead of a one-shot countdown, you give it two numbers: how many minutes of no input triggers a lock, and how long the whole thing runs before it stops watching. During that window, the Mac locks itself whenever you walk away for the idle period you chose, then re-arms after you return and unlock. This is useful in shared spaces where you want automatic locking for a couple of hours without permanently changing your system lock settings.

The app is built in Swift and described as extremely lightweight, using about zero percent CPU when idle. It wraps macOS command-line tools that are already on your system rather than installing background services or modifying energy settings. All changes are temporary and revert when the timer ends.

Installation options include a one-line curl command that compiles and installs the app for you, a manual build from source, or a pre-built disk image from the Releases page. The app is available in English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, and German. It runs on macOS 14 and later and is released under the MIT license.