dirtymac

A native macOS menu bar utility that temporarily locks your keyboard so you can clean it without triggering keys. Mouse and trackpad stay fully responsive.

Why

Wiping crumbs out of a MacBook keyboard usually means dragging a Finder window full of garbage characters and accidentally launching apps. dirtymac suppresses every keystroke at the system event-tap level until you click stop. Your trackpad keeps working the entire time.

Features

• One-click keyboard lock from the menu bar
• Blocks every keyboard input: regular keys, modifiers, and brightness / volume / media / F-key controls
• Basic mode: mouse and trackpad stay live — click the menu bar icon to release
• Advanced mode: optionally freeze the mouse & trackpad too, choose which key classes to block, and set an auto-unlock timer
• Universal hold-Esc emergency exit (3 seconds) — works even in full lockdown
• Guided first-launch onboarding with live Accessibility-permission status
• Status item: single-click opens the popover, right-click shows an Open / Quit menu
• Live elapsed-time display and auto-unlock countdown while locked
• Auto re-enables the event tap if macOS times it out
• Settings with light / dark override and 12-language UI (runtime switching, no relaunch)
• No Dock icon (LSUIElement)
• No network access, no analytics, no background daemons

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install --cask erenmalkoc/tap/dirtymac

Manual download

Grab the latest signed & notarized DMG from Releases, then drag dirtymac.app to /Applications.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Xcode 15 or later (to build from source)

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/erenmalkoc/dirtymac.git
cd dirtymac
open dirtymac.xcodeproj

Build and run the dirtymac scheme (⌘R) targeting My Mac.

Permissions

dirtymac needs Accessibility access to intercept keyboard events. On first launch:

1. Click the menu bar icon, then Grant Access in the popover.
2. macOS will prompt you to enable dirtymac in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
3. Toggle dirtymac on and reopen the popover.

The accessibility tap only swallows events; nothing is recorded, logged, or forwarded.

How it works

dirtymac creates a CGEventTap at the session level (.cgSessionEventTap). The mask is built from the active lock configuration: keyDown and keyUp are always present; flagsChanged, kCGEventSystemDefined (subtype 8 — the aux-control channel that brightness, volume, and media keys use), and the mouse / trackpad / scroll types are added when the matching Advanced toggles are on. The callback returns nil for events that are meant to be blocked, removing them from the system input queue. By default (Basic mode) mouse and trackpad are not in the mask, so they keep working — including the click that opens the menu and disables the lock. Advanced full lockdown adds them; the universal hold-Esc (3 s) emergency exit and a mandatory auto-unlock timer guarantee the lock can always be released. The power button (systemDefined subtype 1) is deliberately allowed through so the user keeps a hardware emergency exit.

If macOS disables the tap (timeout or excessive callback latency), dirtymac re-enables it automatically.

Project layout

dirtymac/
├── dirtymacApp.swift          # @main + AppDelegate: NSStatusItem, popover, onboarding window
├── KeyboardBlocker.swift      # CGEventTap, hold-Esc, auto-unlock, AX permission
├── MenuBarPopoverView.swift   # popover root: navigation, preferences, appearance + locale
├── MainView.swift             # keyboard lock control + inline full-lockdown confirmation
├── SettingsView.swift         # preference models + settings UI (mode, appearance, language)
├── OnboardingView.swift       # 3-step first-launch guided setup
├── GlassComponents.swift      # PowerButton, StatusPill, AppIconView
└── Localizable.xcstrings      # 12-language string catalog

Releasing

Tag-driven. The release workflow builds, signs, notarizes, and publishes a stapled DMG on every v*.*.* tag push:

git tag v1.2.3 && git push origin v1.2.3

Required GitHub Secrets:

Secret	What it is
APPLE_TEAM_ID	Your Apple Developer Team ID
DEVELOPER_ID_P12_BASE64	base64 -i devid.p12 | pbcopy
DEVELOPER_ID_P12_PASSWORD	Password you set when exporting the .p12
NOTARY_KEY_BASE64	base64 -i AuthKey_XXXX.p8 | pbcopy
NOTARY_KEY_ID	Key ID from App Store Connect → Users and Access → Keys
NOTARY_ISSUER_ID	Issuer ID from the same page

For local releases, run scripts/release.sh with the same env vars (cert can stay in your login keychain).

Privacy

dirtymac runs entirely on your Mac:

• No network connections
• No telemetry, analytics, or crash reporting
• No background processes — quitting the app fully releases the keyboard

The hardened runtime is enabled. The app is unsandboxed because the system event tap requires it.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome. Please keep changes scoped — the goal is to stay a small, focused utility.

License

MIT © 2026 erenium.tech