Stop checking whether
it's finished yet.

WatchMe sits in the menu bar, watches the processes you tick, and notifies you the second one of them ends. Start the build, go and do something else.

The WatchMe window: a search box filtered to “make”, and one result — PID 74731, name make, command /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/make build — with a checkbox to start watching it.

Download for macOS

Free and open source. Pick the build that matches your Mac.

Apple Silicon M1, M2, M3, M4 Intel older Macs

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac. “Apple M…” means Apple Silicon. Requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or later.

All releases · Changelog

First launch: macOS will complain

WatchMe isn't signed with a paid Apple Developer certificate, so Gatekeeper blocks it the first time. This is the absence of a $99/year subscription, not a verdict on the app.

If macOS says the developer cannot be verified: right-click the app in Applications → Open → Open. Once only. If it says the app is damaged and can't be opened, clear the quarantine flag instead:

xattr -cr /Applications/WatchMe.app

You'll need to repeat this after installing a new version. Prefer neither? The source is on GitHub and the build is one command.

Tick it, forget it, get told

  1. 1. Find the process

    Click the menu bar icon and type in the search box. Every running process is there, with its PID and full command.

  2. 2. Tick the box

    WatchMe checks every 5s whether it's still alive. The count sits next to the menu bar icon so you know it's working.

  3. 3. Go and do something else

    A desktop notification and a sound the moment it exits. No terminal window left in the corner of your eye.

Is this the right tool?

Yes, if

  • You run long builds, test suites, migrations or big downloads.
  • You'd rather not append && osascript -e … to every command you run.
  • You want it out of the way — menu bar, no Dock icon.

No, if

  • You want CPU, memory or I/O metrics, or the ability to kill processes. Activity Monitor and htop are built for that.
  • You're on Windows or Linux. Only macOS binaries are published today.

Two ways to cut the list down

A busy Mac runs several hundred processes. Both filters match on the name and the full command.

FilterWhat it does
Search box Narrows the list as you type. For right now.
Prefilter regex A case-insensitive pattern in Preferences, applied every time the list loads. node|ffmpeg shows only those.
Auto Launch Optional. Starts WatchMe when you log in.

It can't phone home

  • No network access at all. The window runs under a default-src 'none' Content Security Policy. The icons and the notification sound are bundled. Nothing about your processes leaves the machine, because nothing can.
  • No account, no telemetry, no update check. It reads the process table and that is the whole of it.
  • Two runtime dependencies. ps-list to read the process table, and electron-store to remember your preferences.