Skip to content
Every app

No icon yet — a stand-in

macOS · Menu bar

Afterburn

Start a long build and everything else steps out of the way until it has finished

Source only
View sourceNotify me

About Afterburn

Afterburn reads CPU and GPU load through Mach kernel APIs and IOKit, and is built to act on it: past your threshold — 80% held for 30 seconds by default — it pauses Time Machine, throttles Spotlight, sends SIGSTOP to background apps and turns system animations down. When load falls back, all of that is designed to be put back: SIGCONT to the paused processes, Time Machine and Spotlight re-enabled, and a notification saying how long the session ran. If Afterburn itself dies, the paused PIDs are already on disk, and relaunching resumes them rather than leaving them frozen. Profiles cover Compiling, Rendering, and a lighter setting.

Who it's for

Developers and creatives who want the rest of the machine out of the way during a long build or render.

What it does

  • Load detection via Mach CPU and IOKit GPU APIs
  • Pauses Time Machine, Spotlight, and background apps
  • SIGSTOP/SIGCONT, with a blocklist for critical system processes
  • Paused PIDs persisted to disk, so a crash cannot strand them
  • Configurable profiles: Compiling, Rendering, Light
  • Manual Afterburn button for on-demand mode
  • Activity log with session duration and peak CPU

Behind the build

Safety was the top priority. A hardcoded blocklist prevents SIGSTOP on critical system processes (WindowServer, loginwindow, kernel_task).

Paused PIDs are written to a plist on disk immediately — if Afterburn crashes, relaunch reads the plist and sends SIGCONT to every orphaned process. The SIGTERM handler ensures cleanup even on force-quit.

Information

Runs on
macOS · Menu bar
Status
Source only
Requires
macOS 13+
Source
Public on GitHub
Telemetry
None
Built with
Swift & SwiftUI
Stack
SwiftUIMach APIsIOKitSQLiteProcess/Pipe

Works well with

  • Carbon

    Afterburn optimizes CPU usage, Carbon shows the energy impact

Afterburn is source only, for now.

The code is public, but there's no packaged release yet. Build it from the repository today, or leave an email and hear when there's one you can double-click.

Tell me when it shipsView source

More menu bar apps

See all 30

  • Ghostmark

    macOS · Menu bar

    Share your screen with your name and today's date tiled across it, so a leaked frame points home

    Available

  • Aware

    macOS · Menu bar

    Glance at the menu bar and see how long you have actually been at the screen today

    Source only

  • Canary

    macOS · Menu bar

    Hear that your email turned up in a breach from your own Mac, not from a stranger's login

    Source only

  • Carbon

    macOS · Menu bar

    See which app is drawing the most power right now, and what that costs in carbon

    Source only

  • Catch

    macOS · Menu bar

    The banner slid away before you read it — Catch keeps every notification so you can go back

    Source only

  • ChimeTime

    macOS · Menu bar

    Notice it is 6pm and not 9pm — every hour arrives as a chime and a panel from the notch

    Source only

  • ClipShelf

    macOS · Menu bar

    The thing you copied three copies ago, back at your cursor without leaving the app

    Source only

  • Deadbolt

    macOS · Menu bar

    Hand someone your Mac without handing over Messages — the apps you pick ask for Touch ID

    Source only

  • Drip

    macOS · Menu bar

    Know how much hotspot data is left while you can still do something about it

    Source only

  • EchoType

    macOS · Menu bar

    Find the paragraph you typed into a box that lost it, encrypted and searchable on your own Mac

    Source only

  • ExtensionManager

    macOS · Menu bar

    See every extension and plugin quietly running on your Mac, and switch off the ones you did not ask for

    Source only

  • GitPulse

    macOS · Menu bar

    See which repos have uncommitted work before standup, without cd-ing through all of them

    Source only