ControlPulse
Spotlight Your Cursor, Instantly
ControlPulse is a lightweight macOS utility that puts your cursor centre-stage — literally — with a single gesture.
Double-tap the Control key and a smooth spotlight effect animates around your pointer, dimming everything else on screen. Press the Control key once more to dismiss it. That's the entire workflow.
Whether you're recording a tutorial, presenting to a room full of people, or simply lost a tiny cursor on a 5K display, ControlPulse gives you an instant, distraction-free way to say "look here."
No clicking through menus. No reaching for a laser pointer. Just Control — Control.
Double-tap Control to summon a focused circle of light around your cursor; dismiss it just as fast.
The spotlight tracks your pointer at 60 fps so it never loses you mid-presentation.
Works correctly across any number of displays — Retina, Studio Display, Sidecar, and AirPlay — with no offset drift or clipping artefacts.
Appears above full-screen apps and across Mission Control spaces without interrupting your workflow.
Runs silently as a menu bar accessory; no Dock icon, no app-switcher entry.
Optionally launch automatically at login via a single menu toggle.
Press Control again to fade out cleanly, leaving nothing behind.
ControlPulse lives entirely in your menu bar. It consumes no resources when idle — there are no background timers, no polling loops. Screen configuration changes (plugging in or removing a display) are handled automatically via system notifications, so the app always adapts without any manual intervention.
ControlPulse does not collect, transmit, or store any personal data. It does not access your files, your network, or any user content. The only system permission it requests is the ability to monitor global keyboard modifier keys — used exclusively to detect the double-tap trigger.
