What is Autothrottle?

• Prevents Macbooks becoming too hot while enabling full performance when cool.
• Designed for all Macs using Apple Silicon.
• Autothrottle toggles Low Power Mode without brightness change to maintain user-defined clockspeed limit.
• Customize clockspeed limit, cooldown duration, CPU usage threshold, and more.

Current Release:

https://github.com/shadowed1/Autothrottle/releases/

How to use it?

• When opening the Autothrottle app, it will appear as a CPU icon in MacOS' Menu Bar.
• Click the CPU icon in the Menu Bar and click Autothrottle's Stopped/Running button to start/stop.
• Open Autothrottle's settings to customize thermal limits.
• Inside settings remove Autothrottle clicking Uninstall; click About to check for updates!

How does it work?

• Autothrottle uses Apple's powermetric tool to monitor CPU clockspeed and CPU usage.
• Heuristical algorithm used to detect when MacOS micro-throttles CPU when hot.
• Low Power Mode is toggled on when exceeding user-defined limits (in Settings),
• Autothrottle restores full performance when cooldown duration ends.
• Brightness is read by using DisplayServicesGetBrightness and preserved.
• Autothrottle locks and unlocks saved display brightness value right before and after Low Power Mode toggling.
• Uses pmset to control Low Power Mode.

Changelog:

• Apr 28th, 2026 - 0.1: Initial Release.
  
• May 1st, 2026 - 0.11: Relaxed default CPU limits slightly. Fixed rare brightness flicker issue.
  
• May 2nd, 2026 - 0.12: Added dropdown menu to advanced section. Improved dropdown menus.
  
• May 2nd, 2026 - 0.13: Fixed mismatched menu bar slider size.
  
• May 7th, 2026 - 0.14: Added default, dark, clear, and tinted icon styling.
  
• May 10th, 2026 - 0.15: Fixed peak clockspeed error. Improved uninstaller to remove leftover files.
  
• May 15th, 2026 - 0.16: Fixed clockspeed error when CPU is already really hot prior to fresh install.
  
• May 18th, 2026 - 0.17: Updated to be compatible with Tahoe 26.5's security changes. Added dynamic clockspeed update support.
  
• June 11th, 2026 - 0.18: No longer requires user to engage Autothrottle once opening app.
  
• June 11th, 2026 - 0.19: Added quick settings to menu bar. Added tiny delay prior to toggling Low Power Mode.
  
• June 15th, 2026 - 0.20: Added login item toggle in settings.
  
• June 19th, 2026 - 0.21: Increased default speed.
  
• July 16th, 2026 - 0.22: Relaxed default throttle count
  

Acknowledgments:

Seoclaid - Thanks for helping with icon and UI.
Skylar - Thanks for valuable advice on helping me with UI.