Every way to stay green — and which actually works

The cloud tools — the real alternatives

Only three approaches keep you green with your laptop genuinely off, because the work happens on a server instead of your machine: Stay Green On Slack, slack.green and Idle Pilot. They all connect the same way the official Slack client does, so to your workspace each looks like a normal session. For a wider roundup that also covers the status-text schedulers (Status Scheduler, Statuscal, Slack’s own built-in option) and what each one costs, see the best Slack status scheduler apps.

Where we differ: Stay Green On Slack also keeps your Microsoft Teams status green from the same account, costs $3.99/month (Idle Pilot is $9, and Slack-only), and was voted #1 Product of the Week on Tiny Startups. slack.green is priced at the same $3.99/month for its cloud tier but is Slack-only, and its self-hosted CLI is a separate $49; and slackgreen.com (a different product, confusingly) sells a one-time lifetime deal. Full head-to-heads:

• Idle Pilot vs Stay Green On Slack — price + Teams
• slack.green vs Stay Green On Slack — same price, Slack-only
• slackgreen.com vs Stay Green On Slack — lifetime deal vs subscription

Mouse jigglers

A jiggler — USB dongle or software — nudges your cursor so your machine never goes idle. It works, but only while your laptop stays on, awake and unlocked. Close the lid and your dot goes Away in about ten minutes. There's also no schedule, so if you leave it running you're suspiciously green at 3am. Full comparison: mouse jiggler vs a Slack always-active app →

Caffeine & keep-awake apps

This is the common trap. Caffeine, Amphetamine and PowerToys Awake stop your computer sleeping — but they don't create any activity, and Slack decides you're Away from a lack of input, not from sleep. So your laptop stays on all night burning battery and Slack still flips you to Away after ten idle minutes. They solve the wrong half of the problem.

Browser extensions

Presence-scheduler extensions live inside Chrome, so the moment your browser closes or your laptop sleeps, they stop — the exact situation you wanted covered. They're handy and often free, but they're tied to your device staying awake. Side by side: PresenceScheduler vs Stay Green On Slack →

Custom scripts & AutoHotkey

If you're technical you can script cursor movement or hit the Slack API yourself. It's free and infinitely tweakable — and also fragile, runs only while your machine is on, breaks on Slack updates, and is a project to maintain. Most people want their evening back, not a side quest.

The 2026 problem with every on-device option

Mouse jigglers, Caffeine, browser extensions and custom scripts all share one weakness that's getting worse, not better: they run on the machine your employer can monitor. A real person's input is erratic; a jiggler or script is metronomic — the same movement on the same interval — and employee-monitoring tools (increasingly marketed as "AI") are now trained to flag exactly that regularity. So the on-device hacks don't just fail when your laptop sleeps; they're the ones with a local footprint to catch in the first place.

This is the real case for running presence in the cloud. A scheduled cloud service sends activity from a server through Slack's own API, so there's nothing on your device — no extra process, no cursor pattern, no hardware on your desk — and nothing for monitoring software to analyse. Same reason it keeps working with the lid shut: your presence simply isn't tied to your machine anymore.