What's a mouse jiggler for Mac?
A mouse jiggler for Mac or MacBook moves your cursor at set intervals so macOS doesn't go to sleep. Unlike apps that just tell macOS "don't sleep," jigglers create actual input events. That distinction matters: they work on corporate Macs where IT has locked Energy Saver, they keep remote desktop sessions alive, and they fool Slack and Teams into showing you as active.
How they compare
| App | Price | Conditions | Movement type | Active development |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shake It On | $9.99 | 17 smart conditions | Organic sine-wave | ✓ |
| Mouse Jiggler (App Store) | Free / $4.99 Pro | Basic (battery, timer) | Configurable | ✓ |
| Jiggler (Stick Software) | Free | Idle detection only | Simple wiggle | ✗ (legacy) |
| Amphetamine | Free | Advanced triggers | Optional periodic move | ✓ |
1. Shake It On
$9.99 one-time. This is our app, so take this with a grain of salt. But we built it because nothing else did what we wanted.
Smooth sine-wave cursor movement, configurable from 5 seconds to 1 hour, 5 to 200 pixels. Looks natural. You'd think someone bumped the desk.
What you get that other jigglers don't have:
- 17 smart conditions (camera, Focus mode, battery, specific apps in foreground)
- Day-of-week scheduling
- Snooze presets and custom durations
- Shake stats
- macOS Shortcuts integration
- Option to let the display sleep while keeping the system awake
macOS 14+, Intel or Apple Silicon. Menu bar only, no dock icon.
2. Mouse Jiggler (App Store)
Free, $4.99 for Pro. Solid multi-input detection. Watches mouse, keyboard, trackpad, and scroll events. Only jiggles when you're actually idle.
Free version handles the basics with a ⌘⌃J keyboard shortcut. Pro adds icon customization. Supports 11 languages. Has a visual cursor anchor for low-vision users, which is a nice touch.
No scheduling though. No camera detection, no Focus awareness. If all you need is "jiggle when I'm idle," it does the job.
3. Jiggler (Stick Software)
Free and open source. One of the original Mac mouse jigglers. Been around over a decade. Does one thing: wiggles your mouse after a configurable idle period.
That's it. No conditions, no scheduling, no menu bar icon. The developer calls it legacy software. Still runs on recent macOS but don't expect updates.
Fine if you want free and minimal. Not much help if you need any kind of intelligence about when to jiggle.
4. Amphetamine
Free. Not really a mouse jiggler. Amphetamine prevents sleep at the system level through the macOS power management API. It does have an optional "periodic mouse cursor movement" option buried in settings, but that's not its focus.
Where Amphetamine shines: its trigger system. Activate based on USB devices, Bluetooth connections, VPN, Wi-Fi networks, IP addresses, running apps. If you need that kind of trigger depth and don't specifically need mouse movement, it's excellent.
The mouse movement it does offer is basic though. Just a periodic nudge. If that's what you're here for, a dedicated jiggler does it better.