How do I get the Caffeine app working on macOS Mojave?

Question

The Caffeine app for preventing sleep/screen lock is not working on macOS Mojave.

Did I miss a setting to FAQ on making it work with macOS 10.14?

Answer 1

TLDR: Access to the permissions in Mac OSX Mojave have changed. You have two options:

1. Download updated version of Caffeine that I fixed. See story below.
2. Update preferences to allow Caffeine access it needs. (via other answer to this question)

---

While this question wasn't entirely clear on whether the issue was with the caffeinate command built in to macOS or the Caffeine utility written by Tomas Franzén of Lighthead Software, the comments and other answers seem to imply the latter.

After encountering the issue myself, I reached out to Tomas and inquired about taking over the development of Caffeine. He graciously has provided the source code under an MIT license, and I've made a quick updated version available here that will prompt for the needed accessibility permissions when running on Mojave.

I will be bringing additional support for Mojave as well as some improvements in the near future, but wanted to put this here for others who come across this question like I did and would like to continue using Caffeine.

Answer 2

Caffeine is still working! However, Apple has upped its security and privacy model a bit and caffeine fell prey to that. What you have to do to get it working properly again is the following:

• Open System Preferences
• Click Security & Privacy
• Click the Privacy tab
• In the left column, select Accessibility
• If needed, click the lock icon in the lower left and enter your password to unlock your settings
• Click the + button and select your Caffeine app to allow it to control your Mac
• Restart Caffeine

Answer 3

Here are 2 alternative you can try that do the same as caffeine.

Amphetamine, a full-on Caffeine replacement

and

KeepingYouAwake, an up-to-date Caffeine clone

Answer 4

AFAIK, caffeinate remains in Mojave, and it is certainly in High Sierra and Mojave. caffeinate is a command line utility; i.e. you invoke it from the terminal. If this is what you mean by "manual entry" then I'll guess you're not keen on doing things from the command line.

However, caffeinate is quite easy to use. It also has the advantage of being supported by Apple, doesn't require cluttering your system with additional apps that will require your time to maintain/upgrade. I could go on, but...

So that's my answer. I mostly just wanted to make it clear that the caffeinate utility has not been deprecated by Apple.

EDIT:

Note that caffeinate will NOT prevent an automatic logout. Check to make sure you have not selected that option; caffeinate is powerless against a logout.

Answer 5

Hey there—I’m the creator of an alternative called Theine. Back in 2015 I’ve decided to create my own caffeine-like app because of the lack of support for retina displays.

▶ Download: https://itunes.apple.com/app/theine-2/id955848755

It’s available on the Mac App Store and doesn’t require Accessibility (== admin) privileges at all.

Answer 6

Below will start caffeinate -s supported by Apple as a macos launchctl daemon on computer startup.

; cat >~/ze.caffeinate.plist <<'EOF'
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>ze.caffeinate</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/caffeinate</string>
        <string>-s</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

; sudo mv ~/ze.caffeinate.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/

; sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/ze.caffeinate.plist
...

; sudo launchctl list |grep caffeinate                          
4921    0   ze.caffeinate