Knock on your Mac.
It does the rest.
KnockSense turns knocks on your MacBook into actions. Double-knock to play music, triple-knock for Mission Control, knock on the lid to lock the screen. No keys, no clicks.
KnockSense turns knocks on your MacBook into actions. Double-knock to play music, triple-knock for Mission Control, knock on the lid to lock the screen. No keys, no clicks.
Small app, surprisingly clever. KnockSense lives in your menu bar and listens for one thing: you knocking on your Mac.
Once, twice, three or four times. Each pattern does something different.
Teach it your spots: palm rest, lid, side. Knock in different places for different actions.
Play/pause, keyboard shortcuts, screenshots, any app, website or Shortcut. Same knock, different app: skip a song in Spotify, mute in Zoom, new tab in Safari.
Knocks stand out even over a loud film or music, so you can pause without hunting for the keyboard.
Doors, claps and footsteps don't count. Teach it your knock, and press “That wasn't me” to make it smarter.
Leaving your Mac? Arm it. If someone touches it, you get a photo, a siren and an alert on your phone.
Press “Check for Updates” and KnockSense downloads, verifies and installs the newest version by itself.
On supported MacBooks, feel knocks through the built-in motion sensor, with the microphone switched off.
Stepping away in a café or library? Arm Laptop Guard from the menu bar and walk away.
No account, no setup wizard. Just three steps.
Download KnockSense, unzip it and drag KnockSense.app into your Applications folder.
Open it and click Allow when macOS asks for the microphone. A ✋ appears in your menu bar.
Knock twice next to the trackpad. Your music plays. Then make it yours in Settings.
Sound is analysed on your Mac, in real time, and thrown away. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent anywhere. Laptop Guard photos stay in your Pictures folder; phone alerts are optional and only go to the topic you choose. Read the privacy policy.
Any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) running macOS 13 Ventura or later. MacBooks work best, because knocks travel straight through the case to the built-in microphones.
Yes. KnockSense is free to download and use.
KnockSense looks for the short, sharp sound of a knuckle on the case and ignores sounds that keep going, like speech and music. Two different sounds in a row, like a door's click and slam, don't count as a pattern. For even fewer false alarms, use “Teach My Knock” and the “That wasn't me” button.
Barely. The knock detector is lightweight and runs on a tiny slice of one CPU core.
macOS always shows it while any app listens to the microphone. KnockSense only analyses sound for knocks and never records it. Pause it from the menu bar at any time.
macOS turns off the “Hey Siri” wake word while any app is listening to the microphone, the same as during a Zoom call. Pause KnockSense to use it, or start Siri with its keyboard shortcut.
Apps from outside the App Store show this warning unless the developer pays for Apple notarization. KnockSense is safe to open; see the steps above.