Leave a Local AI Job Running on Your Mac While You Step Away: Keyboard Locked, Progress Still on Screen

A batch of images rendering in ComfyUI, a two-hour podcast going through Whisper, Ollama working down a folder of documents, LM Studio serving a model to a script, a small fine-tune on your own data: jobs you start on a Mac and then have to leave alone. This guide covers what goes wrong when you walk away, the three ways people deal with it, and how VibeLock fits when you want the screen on and readable but the keyboard and trackpad dead.

Why these jobs run on Macs now

Apple silicon Macs share one pool of memory between the CPU and the GPU, so a laptop can hold a model that would otherwise need a dedicated graphics card, and nothing leaves the machine. The trade-off is time: a local job occupies the Mac for minutes or hours while it sits unlocked with a terminal or browser tab showing the run.

What goes wrong when you walk away

• Someone touches the keyboard. A colleague leaning in to check the progress presses a key, a ⌃C lands in the wrong window, or a cat walks across the keyboard and the ComfyUI tab is suddenly a different tab.
• Someone uses the Mac. A Slack window opened over your terminal means you no longer know whether the job is going.
• The Mac sleeps. Depending on your Energy settings, display or system sleep can pause or slow a long job; whether a given tool survives it depends on the tool, so assume it may not.
• You cannot see the progress. The free fix for the first two is the lock screen, and it blanks the display.

Three ways people handle it

1. caffeinate or Energy settings: awake, and wide open

caffeinate -i in a terminal, or sleep turned off in System Settings, keeps the Mac from going idle and solves nothing else: keyboard, trackpad and every app stay open to anyone who walks past. Fine at home alone.

2. The macOS lock screen: free, secure, dark

Press ⌃⌘Q. The job keeps running behind the login screen, nobody can type, and your data sits behind your password. It is the right choice whenever nobody needs to see the progress, and the only choice for hours away somewhere you do not trust. The cost is a dark display. The overnight MacBook checklist covers the sleep and power side of leaving a Mac all night.

3. VibeLock: screen on, apps visible, input blocked

While locked, VibeLock hides every app except the ones you allow, swallows every key press, click, scroll and drag system-wide before any app sees it, blocks Spotlight, Force Quit and ⌘Q, and holds the display awake. Your terminal or the ComfyUI window stays readable from across the room and nothing at the keyboard reaches it. You unlock with Touch ID or your Mac login password typed into VibeLock's own shield. It is a $10 one-time purchase for macOS 13 Ventura or later, makes no network calls and needs only the Accessibility permission. The honest comparison: if you only want the job protected, use the lock screen and keep the ten dollars. VibeLock is for when you want it protected and visible.

Step by step: lock with the job on screen

1. Get the progress on screen. For Ollama, Whisper or a fine-tune that is the terminal running it; for ComfyUI the browser window with the queue; for LM Studio the app itself. Close other windows of the same app, because VibeLock shows every window of an app you allow.
2. Check what is printed there. Anyone walking past can read a visible app, including an API key echoed in your terminal. Clear it before you lock.
3. Deal with sleep separately. VibeLock keeps the display awake while locked but does not stop the Mac sleeping on an empty battery or a closed lid. Plug in, leave the lid open, and for an overnight run check Energy settings or run caffeinate -i in a second tab too.
4. Set the allowlist. Click the lock icon in the menu bar and open Visible While Locked. Terminal, iTerm2, Warp, Ghostty, kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm and VS Code are pre-allowed. For ComfyUI tick your browser; for LM Studio tick that app. Untick anything a passer-by should not read. Leave Accessible While Locked empty.
5. Lock. Choose Lock. On the very first lock macOS asks for the Accessibility permission, which the setup guide covers. Everything not on your list disappears behind an opaque backdrop.
6. Come back and unlock. Touch the Touch ID sensor, or press any key and type your Mac login password into the shield. The hidden apps return and the terminal is where you left it.

A stray key or click while you are away raises the unlock shield over the job rather than reaching it; Esc drops it and nothing was typed, scrolled or quit. The leaving Claude Code running post covers the same lock for an agent session.

If the job will ask you something

Some runs stop for a yes/no or a path. VibeLock blocks input, so unlock, answer, lock again. The second tier, Accessible While Locked, lets typing and clicks reach one chosen app while everything else stays locked, meant for a colleague approving a prompt at your desk. Think twice before putting a terminal in it: an accessible terminal gives anyone at your keyboard a shell. ⌘Q stays blocked even for accessible apps.

Security: what it does and does not protect against

VibeLock is built for the "I walked away from my unlocked Mac for ten minutes" situation: it stops a colleague, a stranger in a café or a curious kid from typing, clicking, quitting things or opening other apps. It is a strong deterrent against casual misuse, not a replacement for the login screen against a determined attacker with time, tools or remote access. In particular:

• The screen is readable. That is the point and the risk. Only allow apps you are happy for a passer-by to see.
• Notification banners still appear. macOS draws them. Turn on a Focus if previews matter.
• Remote access is not blocked. Anyone who can SSH in can end the VibeLock process; that is also the documented emergency escape.
• The power button still works. A short press can sleep or lock the Mac; a long press forces a shutdown and ends the job. Both land at the real login screen.
• Nothing is sent anywhere. No networking code; it stores the bundle IDs of your allowed apps and keeps a local log of lock and unlock events.

The full list, written from the source code, is the security model page. For hours away, somewhere you do not trust, or with anything sensitive on screen, press ⌃⌘Q instead.

Questions people ask

Does the job keep running while locked?

VibeLock blocks input from people; it does not touch what a visible app does on its own. A terminal printing progress or a browser tab polling a queue carries on. Sleep is the separate question above.

Will the display stay on all night?

VibeLock holds a macOS "no display sleep" assertion while locked. It does not override lid-close sleep or an empty battery, so keep the lid open and the charger in.

Can I lock the keyboard but keep scrolling the log?

No. Scrolling is input, and input is what the lock swallows. Scroll to the part you want to watch, then lock.