There is a special kind of ingenuity that only appears when someone does not want their green dot to go yellow.
People will happily spend twenty minutes engineering a contraption out of a wristwatch, an elastic band and a small desk fan to solve a problem an app solves in about four seconds. And honestly? Respect. The creativity is magnificent. It is just aimed slightly sideways.
All of these tricks are chasing the same thing. Your computer, and apps like Slack and Teams, decide you are away when they stop seeing activity: mouse movement, clicks, keystrokes. So the entire game is convincing the machine that something is still happening. Here is how people do it, from the genuinely clever to the frankly unhinged.
The physical hall of fame
The analog watch under the mouse
Craziness 8/10 · Usefulness 6/10
Verdict: actually works. This is the classic, and it is a small work of art. An optical mouse reads the surface underneath it, so if you rest it on the face of a ticking analogue watch, the second hand sweeping past the sensor registers as a tiny movement roughly once a minute. People have genuinely 3D-printed little cradles to hold the watch and mouse at the perfect angle. It works, it is quiet, and it stops the instant the watch is out of position. A beautiful, ridiculous solution.
The mouse tied to a fan
Craziness 10/10 · Usefulness 3/10
Verdict: works, chaotically. Attach a string to your mouse, attach the other end to an oscillating desk fan, and let physics keep your cursor wandering. It does create movement. It also sends your pointer on a slow tour of the entire screen, occasionally clicking on things you did not want clicked, like a haunted Ouija board made of office supplies.
The mouse on a glass
Craziness 6/10 · Usefulness 4/10
Verdict: works by accident. Glass is famously the one surface optical mice cannot track properly, which is exactly why this "works": the confused sensor throws out phantom movement and the computer counts it as activity. You are essentially keeping your machine awake by giving your mouse a mild existential crisis.
The phone playing a looping video
Craziness 7/10 · Usefulness 5/10
Verdict: works. Put your phone flat, play a looping video, and set your optical mouse on top of the screen. The moving pixels under the sensor read as movement. Bonus points for the person whose activity log is technically being generated by a nine-hour video of a crackling fireplace.
The vibrating phone under the mouse
Craziness 6/10 · Usefulness 4/10
Verdict: works, briefly. Same idea, different power source. A phone set to vibrate, tucked under the mouse, jiggles it just enough to register. Then your battery dies, or someone calls you, and the illusion collapses.
The spoon on the trackpad
Craziness 9/10 · Usefulness 3/10
Verdict: sometimes, on some laptops. A capacitive trackpad senses your finger electrically, and a metal spoon can occasionally fool it into reading a touch. It is wildly inconsistent and depends on the trackpad, the spoon and possibly your star sign. We gave this one its own full write-up, because it deserves it: the Teams spoon trick, explained.
The weight on a keyboard key
Craziness 7/10 · Usefulness 4/10
Verdict: works, messily. Open a blank document, rest a coin, a rubber or the TV remote on a key, and let the keypress repeat forever. It keeps things active. It also means you return to a document containing the word "fffffffffff" forty thousand times, and the quiet horror of wondering what else that key was doing.
The gadgets and the software
The USB "mouse mover" dongle
Craziness 2/10 · Usefulness 6/10
Verdict: works, costs money. A small USB stick that pretends to be a mouse and reports tiny movements, no software needed. Tidy, until you remember that on a managed work laptop a mystery USB device is exactly the sort of thing IT likes to ask questions about. And you have to buy it and carry it around.
The mouse jiggler or keep-awake app
Craziness 1/10 · Usefulness 7/10
Verdict: works, no cutlery required. Software that nudges the cursor a pixel, or presses an invisible key, every minute or so. This is the grown-up version of the watch trick: same result, no contraption, nothing to rebuild each morning. The catch with the most basic ones is that a faint nudge is a weak signal, and a jiggler that yanks your real cursor around is annoying mid-task. More on that in software mouse jiggler that also clicks.
The Slack "lone huddle"
Craziness 4/10 · Usefulness 2/10
Verdict: used to work. Start a Slack huddle on your own, in a DM with yourself, and stay in it. This kept people green for a while, until Slack tightened things up, and now an idle huddle can still show you as away. A fun bit of folklore that the platform has mostly patched out.
The ones that just don't work
The "mouse mover" website
Craziness 3/10 · Usefulness 0/10
This is the one worth being clear about. A web page cannot move your system cursor or create desktop input, because browsers block that for very good security reasons. A mouse mover site can keep its own tab awake, but that is not the activity your computer is watching, so your status can still drift to away while the tab sits there looking busy.
Holding down Ctrl
Craziness 5/10 · Usefulness 1/10
The theory is that a held key counts as activity. In practice a single stuck key is unreliable, often does nothing for the idle timer, and occasionally fills whatever has focus with nonsense. Movement and clicks are far clearer signals.
The final scoreboard
Reviewed, judged and ranked by usefulness, because craziness points are tremendous fun but they do not keep your dot green.
- 🏆 1st Green Dotter. Usefulness 10/10, Craziness 1/10. Does the job every day, no watch, fan or spoon required. The boring, beautiful winner.
- 2nd Mouse jiggler or keep-awake app. Usefulness 7/10. Reliable, though a plain nudge is a weaker signal than a real click.
- 3rd Analogue watch under the mouse. Usefulness 6/10. Highest craziness-to-usefulness ratio on the board, and we salute it.
- Wooden spoon The "mouse mover" website. Usefulness 0/10. Cannot move your cursor, never could, and quietly lets you drift to away.
They're all fine. This is just better.
Here is the honest bit: most of these tricks are completely harmless, and some are genuinely clever. If a ticking watch and a rubber band get you through the day, more power to you.
But every working trick on this list is really doing one thing, badly or well: creating real input while you are away from the keyboard but still at your desk. That is a solved problem, and the solution does not need a fan.
Controlled desktop clicking does the same job, reliably, every day, without a build. You pick a safe area on your screen where a click does nothing, and your computer makes occasional clicks there on a schedule you set. Real activity, in a spot you chose, no cursor wandering off, no cutlery. It is the watch-under-the-mouse trick, minus the watch, the angle, and the prayer. If keeping the machine itself awake is the issue, there is a keep your computer awake guide too.
Where Green Dotter fits
Craziness 1/10 · Usefulness 10/10 🏆
Green Dotter is a free desktop app for Mac and Windows built for exactly this. You select a screen area, and it clicks there on a randomised schedule so it looks natural rather than robotic. It can gently wiggle the mouse instead, if that is more your style. You start it and stop it yourself, or set it to run for a fixed time.
It runs locally, no account, no cloud, no contraption. Just controlled activity where you put it, so your presence stays accurate while you are genuinely at your desk reading, thinking or working in another app. It is the reliable version of every trick above, and you can put the spoon back in the drawer. If you want the gentle-movement take first, see the mouse jiggler alternative rundown.
FAQ
Does the analog watch under the mouse trick work?
It can. An optical mouse tracks the surface below it, so the ticking second hand of an analogue watch passing under the sensor registers as small movement roughly once a minute. It is one of the more reliable physical hacks, though it needs the mouse held at the right angle and it stops the moment the watch does.
What is the most reliable way to keep my computer showing as active?
Real, repeatable desktop input while you are at your machine. The steadiest low-effort version is a small app that clicks or moves the mouse on a schedule you set, in a safe area, so you get genuine activity without balancing cutlery or rebuilding a contraption every morning.
Do mouse mover websites keep you active?
No. A web page cannot move your system cursor or create desktop input, for security reasons. A mouse mover site can keep its own browser tab awake, but that is not the activity your computer or your chat app is watching for, so your status can still go to away.
Is it against the rules to use these tricks?
It depends entirely on your employer and your role. These tools keep your presence accurate while you are genuinely at your desk and working, for example reading, thinking, or working in another app. Always check your workplace and IT policies before using automation on a work or managed device, and do not use it to misrepresent whether you are actually working.
A note on workplace policies: how you handle presence depends on your role, your tools, and your employer's policies. Before relying on any presence or automation tool, make sure you understand what is allowed on your work device.
Related reading: how long before Teams shows you as away, how long before Slack marks you away, and does Slack track mouse movement.