your mac has a cat now. deal with it.
a pixel art pet that lives on your screen, chases your cursor like it owes him money, and judges your browser habits. pick your vibe — cat, dog, or bird.
- chases your cursor - hops between levels like a little platformer character. he will find you.
- animal themes - cat, dog, or bird. each with their own sprites, sounds, and personality. cat meows, dog barks, bird tweets. they all judge you equally.
- buddy system - a companion spawns based on whatever app you're using. open Claude? orange buddy. VS Code? blue buddy. Instagram? pink buddy. they hang out together.
- focus mode - turn this on and try opening Instagram. your pets will literally start fighting on screen and block you from doomscrolling. you asked for this.
- focus timer - set a 5-60 minute timer from the menu. your pet stays focused and so should you. tiny timer floats above them as a reminder.
- tamagotchi vibes - hunger, happiness, energy. they decay. he will meow/bark/tweet at you when he's hungry. you will feel guilty.
- sounds - real theme-specific audio. cats meow, dogs bark (actual bark samples with pitch variations), birds do crow calls. purrs, growls, hisses too. mute button exists if your coworkers are wondering why your laptop is barking.
- customizable - 8 colors (for cat theme). rename your pet whatever you want. they don't care.
- grab
macthecat.dmgfrom Releases - open the dmg — enjoy the fancy drag-to-install experience
- drag to Applications
- launch (right-click > Open if macOS gets suspicious)
git clone https://github.com/sameeeeeeep/maccat.git
cd maccat
xcodebuild -project MenuBarCat.xcodeproj -scheme MenuBarCat buildor just open the .xcodeproj in Xcode and hit Run.
brew install create-dmg
./scripts/create-dmg.shbuilds a branded dmg with custom background, drag arrow, the whole nine yards.
click the pawprint in your menu bar:
| action | shortcut | what happens |
|---|---|---|
| Feed | Cmd+F | fills hunger, grateful meow |
| Play | Cmd+P | boosts happiness, burns energy |
| Pet | Cmd+E | purring intensifies |
| Nap | Cmd+N | zzz, energy recharges |
| Wake Up | Cmd+W | interrupts his nap (rude) |
| Rename | Cmd+R | he won't respond to it anyway |
| Buddy | Cmd+B | toggle the companion pet |
| Focus Mode | Cmd+D | blocks distracting sites via cat violence |
| Mute Sound | Cmd+M | silence the meowing |
transparent fullscreen NSWindow. pet sprite walks around on it. screen is divided into horizontal platforms - pet does diagonal staircase hops to reach your cursor level, then walks horizontally.
themes — swap between cat, dog, and bird. each theme has its own sprite sheets, sounds, avatar art, and mood emojis. sprites are pixel art loaded from theme-specific directories.
buddy reads your frontmost app via NSWorkspace and browser tab URLs via AppleScript (Chrome, Safari, Arc, Brave, Edge, Firefox). each app/site maps to a colored companion that follows your main pet around.
focus mode checks the active tab URL against a blocklist (instagram, youtube, reddit, tiktok, twitter, facebook, netflix, twitch, linkedin, threads). match = screen darkens, pets fight, mouse blocked. navigate away = peace restored.
focus timer — set from the menu (5-60 min). pet stays seated with a countdown timer floating above. returns to normal behavior when time's up.
stats decay every 30s. state persists via UserDefaults.
first time you enable focus mode or use a browser, macOS asks to let macthecat control Chrome/Safari. say yes or the cat can't read your tabs and focus mode won't work.
MIT licensed. PRs welcome:
- more animal themes (panda, snake, etc.)
- custom focus mode blocklist
- pet interactions and toys
- launch at login
- homebrew formula
- whatever weird pet feature you can think of
built with Claude Code. sprite sheet from the pixel art community.
MIT