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p/apphaltPause unused Mac apps & reclaim speed in one click
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Gabriel Nion

Your Old Mac Just Got a Second Life — Big Sur Compatibility Added!

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Hey everyone 👋

I’m Gabriel, the creator of AppHalt, the macOS app that helps you pause resource-hungry apps and speed up your Mac with one click.


Since our Product Hunt launch, I’ve received incredibly helpful feedback (thank you again 🙏), and I’ve worked hard to make AppHalt even better — especially for people with older Macs!


💻 Big news: AppHalt is now compatible with older Macs — starting from macOS Big Sur (11)

It’s a great way to bring your aging Mac back to life ✨

Of course, it also works perfectly on the latest versions like macOS Sonoma (14).


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✅ What we’ve improved recently:

  • Extended compatibility: from macOS Big Sur (11) to Sonoma (14)

  • Improved app tracking interface for better visibility

  • Increased overall stability

  • AppHalt now runs extremely light in the background, using up to 0.4% CPU max during refresh cycles ⚙️

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🎁 Want AppHalt Pro for free?


I’m offering a free Pro license (worth €7.99) if you do one of the following:

  • ✅ Share https://apphalt.app on any social platform

  • ✅ Leave a comment here with your feedback, suggestions, or even just a kind word 🙂

Let me know in the comments or reach out to me at contact@apphalt.app — I’ll be happy to send you your license!


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Thanks again to the awesome Product Hunt community ❤️

I’m building AppHalt with care and your feedback really makes a difference 🙌

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Matt Carroll

This is really neat! I run a well spec'ed machine so don't really feel the pain you are solving, but making older machines feel performant in the era of "shipping a web browser per app" feels like a very noble (and likely high value) project.

Hope you keep getting traction!

Gabriel Nion

Thanks @catt_marroll ! 🙌

Totally agree: on well-spec’d machines the slowdown is less obvious, but I’ve found AppHalt can still be handy.

It helps when you’re juggling lots of apps and don’t want to quit and relaunch them all the time.

That’s the idea: pause what you don’t need right now, without breaking your flow.


If you’re curious to give it a spin anyway, I’d be happy to send you a free Pro license 🙂

Thanks again for the kind words Matt !

Matt Carroll

@gabriel_n I picked up a pro license from your site! some feedback:

nit:

I expected to be able to click this banner


nit:


after I paid there was no callback screen so i wasnt sure what to do next (im probably weird in that i bought pro before downloading the app)


somewhat annoying:


it seems like only sometimes can i paste the key into the box. im not really sure why? but most times i try to paste the key in it just beeps and doesn't paste.

I tried manually entering the key but it seems like the field accepts n-1 values where n was the length of the key?

I restarted the app and was able to paste a key, though its still flaky with the paste, and it said my key was invalid.

No stress, but I haven't been able to activate. Let me know if there is more diagnostic info i could give you!

maybe helpful:

>>> len(key)
28
>>> len(key.replace("-",""))
25
Gabriel Nion

Hi @catt_marroll ,


Thanks again for your super detailed feedback, it’s been incredibly helpful.


There were actually two separate issues preventing the Pro activation:


  1. The license key sent by email didn’t have the correct number of characters (some were missing during generation).

  2. The input field in the app was also misconfigured and couldn’t properly recognize a valid key.

    So yeah… both combined, there was no way it could work 😅


I’ve fixed everything in a new version of the app. You can download it here:

https://apphalt.app/download-apphalt/


You should now be able to paste your key and activate Pro without any issues. The license key is now complete and should work properly. I’m sending it to you by email right after this message, just to be sure you have the correct one. 😊

If anything still goes wrong, just let me know and I’ll take care of it right away.


I’ve also noted your feedback about the missing confirmation screen after purchase. That’s something I will definitely improve soon, thank you again for pointing it out.


Regarding the non-clickable blue banner, that’s a really good suggestion. I’ll take it into account, much appreciated!


Thanks again for purchasing the Pro version and for taking the time to test the app. Your feedback truly helps me improve AppHalt.

Matt Carroll

@gabriel_n 


Awesome, thanks!! I’m AFK right now, but I’ll take a look later tonight! Appreciate you.

Mike Kerzhner

@AppHalt looks amazing! Not sure if you want to throw shade, but any war stories about especially resource hungry, popular MacOS apps?

Gabriel Nion
Thanks @mikekerzhner 😊 Haha I’ll try not to name names too harshly but yeah, some Mac apps can be surprisingly resource-hungry. Here are a few frequent culprits I’ve seen : - Web browsers like Chrome or Firefox (especially with lots of tabs open). - Creative Cloud apps, useful but often active even when idle. - Electron-based apps like Teams, Discord, Notion… they tend to do a lot in the background. - The ChatGPT desktop app, surprisingly, can be quite heavy even when it’s just sitting idle! AppHalt helps rein in those background apps when your Mac starts feeling sluggish. I’m thinking of putting together a section on the site highlighting some of these common CPU offenders (maybe even with anonymized stats in the future if it makes sense.) Let me know if you've noticed any others should include! And if you'd like to try the Pro version, feel free to DM me be happy to send you a license. 😊