Wipe down your Mac without it fighting back.
One click locks the keyboard, trackpad and system shortcuts; a two-handed combo unlocks them.
Cleaning a MacBook means typing gibberish into whatever is open, launching Mission Control with your cloth, and changing the volume with your thumb. Web-based "lock the keyboard" pages can't stop any of the system keys. CleanMode is a small native-backed app that absorbs everything — keys, function keys, trackpad gestures, hot corners — until you deliberately let go.
- Catches what the browser can't — a native macOS event tap absorbs OS-level shortcuts (brightness, Mission Control, Spotlight, media keys, Siri's double-⌘) that web apps simply cannot block.
- Trackpad-proof — swipes, pinches, scrolling and force touch are absorbed, and the pointer stays on the locked screen, so wiping can't hit a hot corner or another display.
- Deliberate unlock — press both ⌘ keys together three times. A two-handed combo means you'll never exit by accident mid-wipe. An emergency unlock button hides in the bottom-right corner.
- Smudge finder — click during cleaning to switch to a solid black screen (dust shows up) or white screen (streaks show up).
- Cleaning guides — Apple's own instructions for every current Mac, display and peripheral, offline and in 7 languages.
- Themes — light (Linen) and dark (Cherry). Liquid Glass icon on macOS 26.
- Updates — Sparkle: signed updates install themselves, or CleanMode → Check for Updates… whenever you like.
- Languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese.
Download the DMG for your Mac from the latest release — CleanMode-<version>-arm64.dmg for Apple Silicon (M1 and later), CleanMode-<version>-x64.dmg for Intel — and drag CleanMode to Applications. It is Developer ID signed and notarized, so it opens without the Privacy & Security detour.
Not sure which one? Click → About This Mac. "Apple M-series" means Apple Silicon.
On first use macOS asks for Accessibility and Input Monitoring. Both are required: they let CleanMode see and absorb input while cleaning mode is on. Nothing is captured outside of it.
Requires macOS 13 Ventura or later.
- Click Start Cleaning Mode.
- Wipe away — every keypress, click, gesture and system shortcut is absorbed.
- Press both ⌘ keys at the same time, three times, to unlock.
No accounts, no API keys, no telemetry. Everything runs on your Mac; the only network request is the optional update check against this repository's releases.
CleanMode is a Vite + React + TypeScript app packaged with Electron, plus a small Objective-C++ native module (electron/native/eventtap) for the event tap and Sparkle bridge.
npm install
npm run native:build-current # build the native event-tap module for your arch
npm run electron:dev # run the appdata/cleaning-catalog.json is a hand-authored catalog of Apple device cleaning instructions in 7 languages — edit the JSON directly and rebuild to change it.
For signed, notarized release builds and publishing updates, see BUILD.md.
MIT © 2026 David Barkan