Restless Mouse

Restless Mouse moves the cursor a few pixels every few seconds, just enough to defeat the system's idle detector. The screen never blanks, the lockscreen never kicks in, and Teams / Slack / Discord don't flip your status to Away.

What it does

Every few seconds (configurable), the program nudges the mouse cursor by a single pixel. To Windows and every application running on it, that counts as user activity. The screen stays awake, the screensaver stays off, the workstation stays unlocked, your chat status stays Active.

When you need it

• Long-running downloads, builds, or renders that you don't want interrupted by sleep
• Presentations and demos where the screen mustn't blank
• Chat apps that flag you offline after a few minutes of mouse inactivity
• Reading a long document on screen without pressing keys
• Remote-desktop sessions that disconnect on idle

Features

• Configurable nudge interval
• Minimizes to system tray
• Embedded tool-tip help
• Tiny single executable
• No installer, no registry edits, no DLLs scattered around

System requirements

• Any Windows computer
• A mouse (or a touchpad — works with both)