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Mouse Jiggler Guide: Apps, Dongles and Macros to Keep Your PC Awake

How-To
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Keep your PC and chat apps awake when you step away.

Mouse Jigglers
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware, Amazon)
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There are several reasons why you might need an automatic mouse jiggler / mouse mover to keep your computer awake and your chat apps showing you as active. Perhaps you have a corporate computer that automatically locks itself after just a few minutes of inactivity, and you want it to stay unlocked while you step away for a few minutes. Maybe you have a very backward-thinking boss who, instead of looking at your work output, evaluates your productivity by how often they see you listed as “active” in Slack or Teams. Or maybe you’re running some automated process on a PC, and you just need to ensure that it doesn’t go to sleep.

There are many different ways to simulate activity on a PC, which range from using a piece of software to make the pointer move to using a physical mouse jiggler that literally shakes your pointing device around or triggers its optical sensor. Below, we’ll explore all the best ways to automatically move your mouse and keep Windows (and your chat apps) from seeing you as inactive. Keep in mind, though, that just jiggling the mouse won’t fool professional employee monitoring software that logs your keystrokes, takes screenshots and records much more than just how often you move your pointer.

Avram Piltch
Avram Piltch
Managing Editor: Special Projects

Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Flyfisherman
    I work for a private company in the defense industry and I have a company laptop that we are not allowed to do anything on (s/w installation cannot be done by regular user either) for security reasons, not even plug in an USB-stick/dongle nor a private phone other than company issued and approved items. Private surfing and sending private emails are prohibited for the same security reasons.

    The laptop locks itself after 10 min inactivity and that is fine, but we are not allowed to leave it logged in if we leave the room - then the ID card must be unplugged from the card reader so that the user will be logged out. Another security reason.

    But it doesn't matter since I don't feel comfortable cheating or whatever its called.
    I find it immoral and unethical, on top of that it violates codes of conduct with our company.

    I'm paid by my company to work 38 hours/week, 5 weeks paid vacation/year and I am very happy with that.
    Best regards from Sweden
    Reply
  • apiltch
    First of all, there are many reasons why a person might need to simulate mouse activity, including running benchmarks and test workloads.

    However, every time we post about this, we get comments from folks saying that we're enabling people to goof off at work. FWIW, speaking on behalf of myself and not our company, I don't think people should cheat their jobs and pretend to work. There are few things I despise more than laziness, both in others and in myself.

    I also don't think companies should use the status of your icon in Teams or Slack to judge productivity and decide if you're being lazy. First of all, managing employees by seeing how many hours their butt is in a seat and penalizing them for taking a too-long bathroom break is very lazy, poor management. I say this as someone with 20+ years experience managing people, many of whom are remote workers. You need to judge people based on what they do and treat them as adults. You need to create a culture of responsibility and lead by example.

    The fact that some companies would actually use the sleep or inactivity settings in Windows to try to judge or enforce productivity is more than unfair; it's incompetent management that won't help anyone meet business goals. Second of all, if a company really wants to spy on your PC use to see if you're working a full day, they have monitoring software they can install that will not be fooled by mouse jiggling.
    Reply
  • Flyfisherman
    Well that may be for some company's, it is however not common in Swedish company's and certainly not in my company.
    We can have as many toilet breaks we want and coffee breaks are paid for usually 15 min at 9 am and 15 min at 2 pm.
    There are no one monitor my work in that regard, other than the results I produce and it speaks for itself.

    Private if I run a benchmark or other simulations on my PC at home, no problem since my energy settings is set not go to sleep at all or it could just be temporarly turned of/changed to several hours etc.
    And no screen savers in Windows active, so I just don't have the need for this "Jiggle thing".

    Best regards from Sweden
    Reply
  • guraldunix
    If you need one of these apps, then something went wrong.

    This is a very hacky/clunky way to keep a computer awake or simulate activity.

    To be in a scenario where you need this, either you have the wrong policies, the wrong problem you're trying to solve (you created a script or software that can't properly run in the background), or you have the wrong job (somewhere so backwards they don't let you take breaks).

    So, I'd just say, look at solving whatever the fundamental issue is too, if you decide you need one of these weird workarounds. Get a new job, create some new workplace policies or design your software so you don't need fake mouse jiggles, and you'll be a lot happier.
    Reply
  • Who needs an app when you can write your own lol

    quite trivial with a scripting language
    Reply