What's a mouse jiggler?
A mouse jiggler moves your cursor at regular intervals to prevent your Mac from sleeping. Unlike system-level tools that tell macOS not to sleep, mouse jigglers generate actual input events. This means they work in corporate environments with locked settings, keep remote desktop sessions alive, and register as real activity in messaging apps.
How they compare
| App | Price | Conditions | Movement type | Active development |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shake It On | $9.99 | 12+ 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.
Shake It On moves your cursor with smooth, sine-wave motion at configurable intervals (5 seconds to 1 hour) and distances (5 to 200 pixels). The movement looks natural enough that you'd think someone bumped the desk.
What sets it apart from other mouse jigglers:
- 12+ smart conditions (pause when camera is on, when Focus is active, when on battery, when a specific app is in the foreground)
- Schedule by hour and day of week
- Snooze with presets or custom duration
- Shake stats tracking
- macOS Shortcuts integration
- Allow display to sleep while keeping the system awake
Requires macOS 14+. Menu bar only, no dock icon.
2. Mouse Jiggler (App Store)
Free with $4.99 Pro upgrade — A solid option with good multi-input detection. It watches for mouse, keyboard, trackpad, and scroll activity and only jiggles when you're truly idle.
The free version covers basic jiggling with a keyboard shortcut (⌘⌃J). Pro adds menu bar icon customization. It supports 11 languages and has an accessibility focus with a visual cursor anchor for low-vision users.
Where it falls short: no scheduling, no camera detection, no Focus/DND awareness, no conditions beyond battery level and a timer. If you just need simple jiggling without thinking about when it should run, it works fine.
3. Jiggler (Stick Software)
Free, open source — Jiggler is one of the original Mac mouse jigglers. It's been around for over a decade and does exactly one thing: wiggle your mouse when you've been idle for a configurable amount of time.
That's about it. No conditions, no scheduling, no menu bar presence. The codebase isn't actively maintained, and the developer has noted it's legacy software. It still works on recent macOS versions, but don't expect updates or new features.
Good if you want free and minimal. Not great if you need any kind of intelligence about when to jiggle.
4. Amphetamine
Free — Amphetamine isn't really a mouse jiggler. It prevents sleep at the system level using the macOS power management API. But it does have an optional "periodic mouse cursor movement" feature buried in its settings.
Amphetamine's real strength is its trigger system: activate based on USB/Bluetooth devices, VPN connections, Wi-Fi networks, IP addresses, running apps, and more. If you need that level of trigger granularity and don't specifically need mouse movement, Amphetamine is excellent.
But its mouse movement is basic (just a periodic nudge) and it's not the primary focus of the app. If mouse movement is what you're after, a dedicated jiggler will do a better job.