tea

README

tea

Keep a Mac awake. Restore it when you're done.

brew install --cask soundadam/tap/tea
tea

That's the client. It stays open. Keep the Mac awake — including with the lid closed — then restore the exact sleep setting it owned.

Need a script instead?

tea on
tea shutdown after 2h
tea off

Why not caffeinate

caffeinate keeps a Mac awake only while its own process runs: close the terminal or lose the SSH session and the Mac can sleep, and closing a MacBook's lid still sleeps it. tea sets the system disablesleep value instead, so the Mac stays up with the lid closed, on battery or AC, with nothing left running. It records the previous value first, and tea off restores that value and nothing else. It can also schedule one delayed shutdown and cancel exactly that one.

The name: tea, as opposed to caffeinate's caffeine. It was called teaway up to 0.4.2. homebrew-core's tea is the unrelated Gitea CLI, so always install with the full name soundadam/tap/tea.

macOS 13+. Don't close a MacBook in a bag.

Install and update

• Homebrew: brew install --cask soundadam/tap/tea.
• Direct download: tea-<version>-macos-aarch64.tar.gz (Apple silicon) or -macos-x86_64.tar.gz (Intel) from Releases; put tea on your PATH.

The executable is ad-hoc signed and not notarized. The Homebrew install opens without a prompt. A downloaded copy is blocked the first time it runs: allow it under System Settings → Privacy & Security, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine <the unpacked tea>.

tea update installs the latest release (tea update --check only reports it): a Homebrew install upgrades through brew, a downloaded tea replaces itself. The client shows a line when a newer release exists and updates on u. tea update --auto off stops the daily check (on turns it back on). How the install is detected and which requests are made: appkit.

After an update, tea auth register refreshes the passwordless helper; until then, privileged actions go through sudo.

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