A small mate for your Mac, right in the menu bar.
MacPersonalMate shows how hard your Mac is working, locks the keyboard while you wipe it down, and flips scrolling the moment you plug in a mouse. One click on the little face in your menu bar opens it.
See how your Mac is doing without opening Activity Monitor.
Three rings sit at the top of the menu. They update every second and a half while the menu is open, and stop when it closes, so the app uses nothing in the background.
- CPU
- How busy the processor is across all cores.
- Memory
- Memory in use, counted the same way Activity Monitor counts it.
- Storage
- How full your startup disk is, and how much space is left.
Past 90%, a ring turns red so you notice before your Mac slows down.
Wipe your keyboard without typing gibberish into everything.
Click Clean Keyboard and every key stops working: letters, shortcuts, volume, brightness. Your mouse and trackpad keep working, and a single click on Unlock keyboard brings it all back.
If the app ever quits, the keyboard comes back on its own. You can't lock yourself out.
Try it here. Lock the keyboard, then press any keys.
Keyboard locked for cleaning
0 key presses blocked
This demo only blocks keys on this page. The app blocks them across your whole Mac.
Scrolling that switches when you plug in a mouse.
Trackpads feel right with natural scrolling. Mouse wheels usually don't. MacPersonalMate notices when a mouse connects (USB, Bluetooth or Magic Mouse) and flips the direction straight away. Unplug it and natural scrolling comes back.
Prefer to choose yourself? Turn off auto-switch and press ⌘T in the menu.
And the small things you'd expect.
- No Dock icon. It stays in the menu bar and out of your way.
- Launches at login. Turn it on once and it's there every morning.
- Light and dark. The menu follows your Mac's appearance.
- Shows its mode. The face turns blue when scrolling is reversed for a mouse.
- Tiny. About 2 MB, and idle unless you open it.
- Ignores trackpads. Built-in and Magic Trackpads never trigger a switch.
One permission, and nothing leaves your Mac.
MacPersonalMate asks for Accessibility access once. macOS requires it for two things the app does: changing scroll direction live, and holding back key presses while you clean. Key presses are dropped, never read or stored.
CPU, memory and storage numbers come straight from macOS on your machine. There's no account, no analytics and no network access at all.
Questions
What if I lock the keyboard and can't unlock it?
The Unlock keyboard button works with any mouse or trackpad, including the built-in one. And because the lock only lasts while the app is running, quitting or restarting the app always brings the keyboard back.
Does it slow my Mac down?
No. The rings only update while the menu is open. The rest of the time the app just waits for a mouse to connect.
Does the power button still work while the keyboard is locked?
Yes. macOS doesn't let any app block the power button or Touch ID, so avoid pressing them hard while you wipe.
Which Macs does it run on?
Any Mac with Apple silicon or Intel running macOS 13 Ventura or later.
I used Scrollmate before. Is this the same app?
Yes. Scrollmate grew new features and a new name. Your settings and permission carry over when you update.
Give your Mac a mate.
Drop it in your menu bar and click the little face whenever you need it.
Download MacPersonalMate 2.0Free. macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel, about 2 MB.
Installing
- Open MacPersonalMate.dmg and drag the app onto the Applications folder.
- Open it from Applications. The first time, macOS says it can't check the app for malware, because it isn't distributed through the App Store. Click Done.
- Go to System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to MacPersonalMate. You only do this once.
- When the app asks for Accessibility access, turn it on. The face then appears in your menu bar.