Find the cup in your menu bar
Click to open the panel. Hold ⌥ while clicking to toggle guarding directly. You can swap these actions in Settings.
RUNLANTERN · HELP & SUPPORT
Quietly awake.
Always in your hands.
Keep your Mac awake while coding agents work.
A little clarity, from the first click to the last.
Out of your way.
Start with a coffee cup
Turn on Keep awake
Prevent idle system sleep. Enable Display awake as well when you want your screen to stay on.
Choose your duration
Pick a custom timer, an unlimited session, or With agent. Click an already selected custom duration to edit its hours and minutes.
UNDERSTANDING STATES
Off means
a deliberate pause.
Switching the main control off pauses automatic guarding, even across app restarts. Automation resumes when you explicitly ask it to.
An enabled Activate on launch setting is an explicit exception.
- IdleNo guarding session is active.
- ArmedWith agent is selected, waiting for an agent.
- ActiveGuarding is on, with safety protections in effect.
If a warning appears, follow the explanation in the panel.
COMMON QUESTIONS
A little more
peace of mind.
Answers about automation, system sleep, and staying in control.
Why doesn’t guarding restart after I switch it off?
Switching Keep awake off pauses automatic starts, even after an app restart. To resume, enable guarding or Display awake, select With agent again, use Extend 30 minutes in a notification, or turn agent detection off and on.
Why did guarding end while the agent was still running?
An existing process is not always doing work. With agent uses process-tree CPU activity, a quiet window, and a grace period to decide when to stop. Adjust these in Automation settings, or choose a custom or unlimited session.
Activity is an estimate. It cannot determine whether an AI task has truly completed.
Will closing the lid still put my Mac to sleep?
This App Store edition does not provide active closed-lid guarding. It prevents idle sleep; closing the lid or explicitly choosing Sleep follows macOS behavior. After a real sleep, the old session ends when your Mac wakes.
How do battery and thermal protections work?
When enabled, battery protection ends guarding at your threshold while on battery power. Thermal protection ends a session after three minutes of serious thermal pressure. Critical thermal pressure always stops the session. You can also set a maximum session length in Safety settings.
Why are notifications or login startup missing?
Check macOS notification permissions and Focus settings. A login item may need approval in System Settings; Runlantern reads back the system’s actual status. Notifications are optional for the core guarding controls.
What does “Stopping unconfirmed” mean?
Runlantern has not confirmed that its ordinary keep-awake requests were released. Your Mac may stay awake. Choose Try again in the panel, or quit the app normally. The warning remains visible until the release succeeds.
Need a hand?
Include your app and macOS versions,
and the steps leading up to the problem.
ac_block@outlook.com
Please leave out passwords, API keys, and full process environments.