CursorPet is a menu bar application for macOS that adds a persistent animated character to your screen. By default, it features a small duck that follows your cursor movements, enhancing your desktop experience without interfering with your workflow.
The duck reacts to your behavior-scrolling, taking screenshots, or switching applications - providing subtle visual feedback as you work.
- 🦆 Cursor Tracking: Smoothly follows your mouse pointer across all monitors.
- 👨💻 Developer Integration: Shows distinct animations when Xcode is active versus running in the background.
- 🎨 Customization: Replace the default duck with any GIF & set unique animations for different states via Drag & Drop.
 Hello, user! |
 Idle |
 User is scrolling |
 Xcode Active (Dev mode) |
 Xcode Inactive (Dev mode) |
 Making screenshot with hotkeys |
To install the app using the pre-compiled .dmg release:
- Go to the Releases page and download the latest CursorPet.dmg file.
- Once the download is complete, double-click the .dmg file to mount it.
- A new Finder window will appear showing the CursorPet application.
- Drag and drop the CursorPet app into the Applications folder shortcut.
- Eject the .dmg file (right-click the disk icon on your desktop and select "Eject").
- Launch CursorPet from your Applications folder.
(Note: On the first launch, macOS may prompt you with a security warning because the app was downloaded from the internet. To bypass this, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to the CursorPet message. To enable Screenshot reactions, grant Accessibility permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security. Don't worry, the app's code is safe).
- macOS 14.6 or later
- Accessibility permissions (for hotkey monitoring)
This project is licensed under the MIT License.