If you want your Mac to run well, drink coffee first and then take medicine: anti-sleep tool Caffeine & Amphetamine

Mac will enter sleep mode after a period of inactivity. If you encounter a black screen when presenting Keynote, or your Mac suddenly stops working when playing a movie, it means that your Mac is sleepy. Just like people, drinking coffee or taking stimulants can make your Mac wake up and work.

Today I’m going to introduce two well-known anti-sleep tools on Mac: Caffeine and Amphetamine.

Caffeine, a cup of coffee to relieve fatigue

Caffeine is the most famous anti-sleep tool on OS X. Caffeine is the caffeine we are familiar with. After installing Caffeine, your Mac will be as energetic as a person who has just drunk a cup of hot coffee.

The initial settings for Caffeine are very simple. Just check the first two items to ensure that Caffeine starts automatically and works when the computer is turned on.

After starting, Caffeine will display an icon on the status bar. You can quickly open and close it by left-clicking it. The icon of Caffeine is very commendable. When it is turned on, the cup is full of coffee and steam is overflowing. When it is turned off, the cup is empty and the bottom is visible. It is a model of icon design. You can set the time to prevent sleep in the right-click menu, but you need to click twice each time, and the built-in time option cannot be customized.

It is worth mentioning that Caffeine stopped updating in 2010. OS X has undergone several changes. Although its functions are still there, its functional shortcomings have not been made up. Even the icons in the taskbar do not support Retina display. The times are calling for latecomers.

Amphetamine, a good medicine that's even more powerful

Amphetamine, also known as Anfeitaming in Chinese, is one of the most well-known stimulants in the sports world and even in the entire human race. It can increase a person's alertness. Just as artificial drugs are often more effective than natural drugs, Amphetamine is also designed to be better than Caffeine, earning it the title of "Better than Caffeine".

At first glance, you can feel that Amphetamine and Caffeine are in direct opposition to each other. The mouse operation of Amphetamine is completely opposite to that of its predecessor. The right button activates the function, and the left button opens the menu.

Amphetamine gives users the maximum degree of time setting capabilities. The duration can be quickly set in minutes or hours. If refined operations are required, Amphetamine can accurately set the anti-sleep time in seconds, and can also specify a certain time period each day to take effect.

Amphetamine provides a wealth of advanced options and extremely diverse trigger conditions. Users can choose to enable anti-sleep after plugging in the power adapter, or stop sleeping after connecting to a certain Wifi, which is very useful for corporate users.

Shortcut keys are loved by efficiency users. Amphetamine can call multiple functions through a series of shortcut keys, which is a blessing for keyboard users.

If you are a Virgo or have obsessive-compulsive disorder, Amphetamine's status bar icon finally supports full HD, and there are even five sets of icons to choose from. As for the last coffee cup, it should be regarded as the highest recognition and tribute to Caffeine, the old predecessor.

NoSleep, closing the lid to sleep is also invalid

In many cases, we want our Mac to continue working with the screen closed, in order to protect the screen and to avoid light pollution. NoSleep is designed specifically for sleeping with the lid closed.

NoSleep is not available on the Mac Store. You need to download the installation package online. Click here to download.

The settings of NoSleep are relatively simple. Apart from specifying whether to enable it under a power adapter or battery, the rest of the options are just additional options about the icon and automatic startup. After a simple adjustment, NoSleep will serve you silently in the background.

Usage suggestions

As mentioned above, Amphetamine, the latecomer that strives to replace Caffeine, has successfully completed its task and has become the first choice for Mac anti-sleep. It is recommended that every Mac user install one, so that the Mac can work normally when the lid is open and sleep when the lid is closed.

For users who want to download with the lid closed, adding NoSleep can keep your Mac in an active state all day long.

All three software introduced in this article are free, and you can download the latest versions of the first two on the Mac App Store.