Get ShowMode

macOS menu-bar app · for live production

Your Mac. One job. Full performance.

A Mac does a thousand things — and that’s the danger. It sleeps, it throttles, it indexes, it interrupts. ShowMode locks it into one optimized state for the show. Fully awake. Full power. Nothing in the way.

Get ShowMode — $49

Read the manual

macOS 13+ · for anyone running a live show from a Mac · one-time license

THE PROBLEM

A laptop does everything. That’s the danger.

Your Mac is built to juggle — sleeping to save power, throttling background apps, indexing the disk, dimming the screen, popping up reminders. Brilliant on your desk. A liability mid-show. Any one of them can choke a playback engine or drop a notification across your output at the worst moment. The machine doesn’t know it’s running a show — so it keeps being helpful in all the wrong ways.

WHAT SHOWMODE DOES

One switch. Your Mac, optimized to perform.

Enter Show Mode and your Mac drops everything that isn’t the show. Full performance held — no sleep, no throttling, display and disk awake, power unthrottled. Interruptions shut out — notifications off, beeps silenced, indexing held. For the length of the show, your Mac has one job. Everything is tuned toward it.

WHAT IT HOLDS

Everything awake. Everything quiet.

No sleep

Holds a system lock so your Mac never sleeps — display, system, and disk stay up. Even on battery.

No throttling

Disables App Nap so the apps your show depends on run at full speed. Nothing winds down in the background.

Full power

Keeps the display, system, and disk awake for the whole show. Watches your power, too — and warns you the moment you’re on battery or in Low Power Mode.

No beeps

Saves your alert volume, sets it to zero, restores it on exit. No surprise sounds through the PA.

No notifications

Turns on Do Not Disturb so nothing pops up on your output. Verified on — never assumed.

App control

Launch your show apps from one checklist, quit the distractions in a move, and protect the critical ones so they can’t be closed by mistake.

Plus an optional Spotlight control you set yourself — so indexing never spins up the disk mid-show.

HONEST STATUS

Never says you’re safe when it isn’t sure.

ShowMode reads your Mac’s real state. It never claims a protection is on when it can’t confirm it. A pre-flight check shows green or red for every protection before you go live, and the same list stays up during the show. If something slips, the icon turns orange and tells you which one. An honest “couldn’t verify” beats a false green.

NO ACCIDENTS

One press to arm. A deliberate hold to stand down.

You enter a show with a single press. Ending it takes a deliberate 3-second hold and a confirmation — so does quitting the app while a show is live. A show can’t be dropped by a stray click or a reflex ⌘Q. And if the app ever quits uncleanly mid-show, it recovers on next launch — clearing every protection and restoring your sound.

WHO USES SHOWMODE

Built for whoever runs the show.

Whatever runs your show, ShowMode holds the machine steady underneath it.

Live Sound Engineers

One stray beep through the PA is one too many.

Video Operators

A notification across your program feed, live. Never.

AV Technicians

The screen can’t sleep between segments. It won’t.

Broadcast Engineers

You don’t get a second take. Neither does your machine.

WHY SHOWMODE

Built to be impossible to trip over.

Purpose-built for live show performance — not a tweak script or a hidden settings hack. ShowMode does one job: holding your Mac at its best while the show runs, and putting everything back when it’s done. Honest about what’s protected. Hard to break at the worst moment. One job, done under pressure.

PRICING

One Mac. One price. Yours to keep.

ShowMode

$49

one-time

A 14-day free trial, then a one-time perpetual license. Buy once, own it.

✓

All five show protections, held together

✓

Honest pre-flight + live status

✓

One-checklist app control