---
id: wakepy
version: "1.0.0"
license: MIT License Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Niko Föhr Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to… (full text in the JSON record)
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# wakepy — wakelock / keep-awake / stay-awake

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 168.1K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Wakepy is a cross-platform Python library and CLI tool that prevents your system from automatically sleeping, suspending, or locking the screen during long-running tasks. It works on Windows (via SetThreadExecutionState), macOS (via caffeinate), and Linux/Unix systems with GNOME, KDE Plasma, or Freedesktop.org desktop environments. The package offers two main modes: keep.running inhibits sleep and suspend but allows screen lock and screensaver, while keep.presenting also keeps the display active and prevents screen lock.

You use it either as a decorator or context manager around your code, or invoke it from the command line. It's designed to be non-disruptive—it uses only the system APIs provided for this purpose, never simulates keyboard or mouse input—and safe to crash; killing the process leaves no lingering state. The package has minimal dependencies: on Linux it requires jeepney for D-Bus communication, and on Python 3.9 and earlier it needs typing-extensions; otherwise it has no Python dependencies.

Use it for:

- Training machine learning models or running long data-processing pipelines that must not be interrupted by system sleep
- Video encoding, transcoding, or upscaling tasks that require the system to stay awake for hours
- Displaying dashboards, monitoring applications, or videos that require the screen to remain on and unlocked
- Web scraping or data archival operations that run unattended overnight or over many hours
- Automated hardware control or instrumentation tasks (e.g., knitting machines, scientific instruments) that must complete without interruption

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Wakepy prevents a system from sleeping or locking the screen during long-running tasks, with separate modes for keeping the CPU awake or keeping the display active.

Yes. Wakepy is actively maintained, has zero known vulnerabilities, minimal dependencies, and a permissive MIT license. It solves a real cross-platform problem using proper system APIs rather than hacks. Install it if you need to prevent sleep or lock during long tasks.

## Install

pip install wakepy
uv add wakepy
poetry add wakepy

## Installing wakepy

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with only two runtime dependencies (jeepney and typing-extensions), both lightweight. Active maintenance with recent releases; last commit 2026-04-01.

License in practice: MIT License (permissive) — you can use, modify, and distribute wakepy freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install wakepy

from wakepy import keep

@keep.running
def long_task():
    # Your long-running code here
    pass

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package works reliably across all listed Unix desktop environments without additional system configuration
- Performance overhead when running keep.running or keep.presenting modes over extended periods

## Package facts

- License: MIT License Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Niko Föhr Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to… (full text in the JSON record) (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 168.1K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

prevent system sleep, keep screen awake, wakelock python, inhibit suspend, stay-awake cross-platform, system sleep prevention, keep cpu running, system-control, cross-platform, task-automation

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/wakepy) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/wakepy/)