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ExoMacFan

Apple Silicon & Intel Thermal & Fan Control

A native macOS app that provides real-time thermal monitoring and direct fan control via the System Management Controller (SMC). Reads hardware temperatures, detects thermal throttling, and lets you override macOS fan management when you need more cooling — or less noise.

SHA-256: 1b4fa62ae598d5379fb64b8048ed96af5c271ccb7a5c41aed227b0b007f0e918

Key Features

Thermal Monitoring

CPU P-cores, E-cores, GPU, ANE, SoC, heatsink, ambient, and battery temperatures. Thermal pressure detection with throttling alerts.

5 Fan Control Modes

macOS Default, Silent, Pro-Active, Max Fans, and Custom slider. Real RPM targeting mapped to hardware min/max.

Pro-Active Anti-Throttling

Monitors thermal pressure and component temperature headroom to ramp fans before throttling occurs, then reduces as temps recover.

History Charts

Temperature, pressure, and per-fan RPM history with 5min, 15min, 1hr, 6hr, and All time periods. Auto-scaling and downsampling.

Menu Bar & Dashboard

SwiftUI interface with sidebar navigation, searchable sensor list, live dashboard, and a quick-access menu bar popover.

Background Optimization

2-second polling when active, 15-second when minimized. Lifecycle-aware to reduce CPU and energy usage.

Requirements

  • Apple Silicon (M1–M5) or Intel Mac
  • macOS 14.0+ (Sonoma)
  • Admin privileges for fan control (monitoring works without)

Build from Source

# Clone and build

git clone https://github.com/thephfox/ExoMacFan.git

cd ExoMacFan

./compile-swift.sh

open build/ExoMacFan.app

# Builds universal binary (arm64 + x86_64)

Important Notice

This software interacts directly with your Mac's hardware (fans, SMC, thermal sensors). Use at your own risk. Fan control requires a one-time admin password for the privileged helper daemon. The app safely releases fan control on quit, sleep, or crash via multiple signal handlers.

Support This Project

ExoMacFan is free and open source. If you find it useful, consider supporting development.

Support PhFox