A native menu-bar toggle that forces Game Mode and turns off AirDrop for emulators, streaming, and AirPlay.
Two minutes, one password prompt.
curl -fsSL https://kytixo.github.io/gamemode-bar/install.sh | sh
Beta builds are ad-hoc signed, not notarized. On first launch, right-click the app and choose Open.
Click the controller in your menu bar, then Settings… → Check Permissions…. It checks for full Xcode (the only place Apple ships gamepolicyctl) and installs one sudoers rule that only allows ifconfig awdl0 up and down. No Xcode? No AirDrop still works; only the Game Mode row needs it.
Choose Enable Game Mode+. Choose it again to put everything back.
macOS only turns on Game Mode for apps tagged as games. This turns it on for anything.
AirDrop's radio (AWDL) hops Wi‑Fi channels in the background. Keeping it off smooths out the stream.
shadPS4, Moonlight, GeForce NOW, and other full-screen play that macOS doesn't treat as games.
If you're playing it, it gets Game Mode, whether or not macOS thinks it's a game.
Why not just sudo ifconfig awdl0 down? macOS turns it back on within minutes. Game Mode Bar keeps it down while you play and restores it when you're done. Results vary by Mac, network, and workload. It's a policy toggle, not an FPS patch.
Nothing to babysit, nothing left behind.
A standard menu-bar app. No Electron, no background services. Optional run at startup.
One sudoers rule for awdl0 up and down, validated by visudo. Nothing else runs as root.
Every change has an off switch, and a failed transition rolls back to where you were.