Is Stay Green safe to use at work?
People ask us two versions of this question. One is about security: is it safe to install, and what does it do with my data? The other is about work: can my employer see it, and will I get in trouble for keeping Teams green?
Full disclosure: this is our app, so we have every reason to want the answer to be "yes, completely". It is more nuanced than that, and we would rather you hear it from us.
What Stay Green does on your Mac
Stay Green is a small menu-bar app for macOS 13 or later, universal and notarized by Apple. It does one job:
- It watches the macOS idle timer, which counts the time since your last keypress or mouse movement.
- Once you have actually gone idle, it sends one harmless keypress (F20 by default, configurable) and a zero-distance mouse move. Your cursor never moves.
- That resets the idle timer, so Teams, Slack, Zoom and Discord, which all read the same timer, keep showing you as available.
- While you are typing or using the mouse, it does nothing at all.
It also pauses itself outside work hours by default (9 to 5 on weekdays, adjustable, on by default for new installs since version 0.5.2), can pause over lunch, and has an optional keep-screen-awake setting.
What it does not do
- It does not read or log your keystrokes.
- It does not look at your screen.
- It does not connect to Teams, Slack or any other chat service.
- It never touches or stores any Slack or Teams login or session, and there is no account to create.
What leaves your Mac
Nothing about your activity. Only two things go over the network: an update check and a license check. Your idle time, your schedule and your chat apps stay on your Mac.
That is a real difference from cloud services that keep you active by holding a copy of your chat session on their servers. We compare the two approaches in Stay Green vs Slack Green.
How Teams and Slack decide your status
Neither Teams nor Slack knows whether you are working. They only know whether the computer is getting input.
Microsoft says that on a computer, presence "becomes Away automatically if they're inactive for a few minutes or if the computer is locked; and it becomes Offline when the computer enters sleep mode" (Microsoft Learn: User presence in Teams). Its troubleshooting article puts the figure at more than five minutes of inactivity (Microsoft Learn). Slack sets you to away "after 10 minutes of desktop inactivity" (Slack Help Center).
What colleagues see is the result: a status such as Available, Busy, Away or Offline. That is why reading a long document or taking a call on your phone can turn your dot yellow even though you are working. We explain this in more detail in Why does Teams say I'm Away when I'm working?.
What your employer could see
We cannot tell you what your employer monitors, because that depends entirely on your company. What we can do is describe what is generally possible on a work computer.
Installed apps. Many companies manage their laptops with a device management (MDM) tool. Microsoft Intune, for example, keeps a "discovered apps" inventory and, on company-owned macOS devices, collects "all apps installed on the device", refreshed every seven days (Microsoft Learn: Discovered apps in Intune). Other management tools offer similar inventories. If Stay Green is installed on a managed Mac, assume IT can see it in a list like that.
Running processes. Stay Green is an ordinary app that runs as an ordinary process. Endpoint and monitoring software on the same machine can list running processes.
Synthetic input. Stay Green's keypress is generated by software, not typed on a keyboard. Some employee monitoring products look specifically for activity simulation. We go through the published detection methods in Are mouse jigglers detectable? An honest answer.
Your chat presence. In Teams and Slack, your colleagues see your status, such as Available or Away. Stay Green does not add any new sign-in to your chat account, because it does not connect to it.
What we do not claim
Stay Green is not designed or marketed to evade monitoring. We do not claim it is invisible to IT, harder to detect than other tools, or safe to use against your employer's rules. It avoids moving the cursor because a drifting pointer is annoying and gets in the way when you share your screen, not to get past anyone.
The honest way to use it
The problem Stay Green solves is the false Away: you are working, just not touching the machine that runs Teams or Slack. You are reading, thinking, on a call on your phone, or working on a second computer. Covering that time is the honest use.
Showing as Available when you are not working is a different thing, and some employers treat it as a serious matter. That is why the off-hours pause is on by default: the app is meant to stop when your workday does.
So before you install it on a work computer:
- Check your workplace policy. Look for rules about installing software, activity simulation or presence. If your employer prohibits tools like this, do not use one on a work machine.
- If in doubt, ask. IT or your manager can tell you what is allowed.
- Consider the built-in options first. Setting Busy or Do not disturb with a duration, or keeping Teams on the device you actually use, can fix the problem for free. See Why does Teams say I'm Away when I'm working?.
If you are self-employed, on your own Mac, or your employer is fine with it, there is a 14-day free trial with no card, and pricing starts at EUR 1.99 a month.
FAQ
Is it safe to keep Teams active with an app like this?
On the security side, Stay Green sends nothing about your activity off your Mac and never handles your Teams login. On the workplace side, it depends on your employer's policy, which only your employer can answer.
Can my employer see a keep-awake or mouse jiggler app?
Possibly. On a managed Mac, device management tools such as Intune can list installed apps on company-owned devices (Microsoft Learn), and monitoring software can see running processes. Assume it is visible.
Will I get caught keeping Teams green?
We cannot promise anything either way, and you should be wary of anyone who does. If your workplace allows it and you use it to cover genuine work time, there is nothing to catch.
Does Stay Green send my keystrokes or screen anywhere?
No. It does not read keystrokes or look at your screen. Only an update check and a license check go over the network.
Do my colleagues see anything different?
They see your normal status in Teams or Slack. Stay Green does not change what those apps display beyond keeping you from going Away while your Mac is idle.