Amphetamine Mac App: Keep Your Mac Awake and Focused
Your Mac keeps drifting into sleep mode right when a download, render, or presentation needs to finish. Amphetamine is a free macOS menu bar app that keeps your Mac awake on your terms, letting you flip a simple switch or set a custom duration so sleep never interrupts your work. You can trigger sessions with a click, a keystroke, or automatic rules tied to specific apps, drives, or network activity, and optionally allow the display to sleep while the system stays running. The result is total control over your Mac’s wake state, whether you’re running a long backup overnight or keeping a video call alive on a slow connection.
What the Amphetamine Utility Brings to macOS
The Amphetamine Mac app brings a deceptively simple but powerful utility to macOS: it keeps your Mac awake on your terms. Instead of digging through Energy Saver settings, you flip a switch or set a timed session, and the screen or system stays awake while downloads finish, renders complete, or a presentation runs. It adds session triggers, app-based activation, and a menu bar interface that makes control instant. The detail that changes daily use is the ability to keep the display awake while allowing the system to sleep, so you save power without interrupting work. For anyone tired of their Mac dozing mid-task, this Amphetamine Mac app turns a nagging frustration into a single click.
Core Purpose of the Keep-Awake Tool
The core purpose of the keep-awake tool is simple: it stops your Mac from dozing off when you need it to stay active. Instead of digging through System Settings and manually toggling sleep timers, the app gives you a one-click way to prevent display and system sleep for as long as you need. You can keep downloads running, watch a video without the screen dimming, or stay connected during a long call. It’s not about permanently disabling sleep, but about taking temporary control when your workflow demands it. That focused, on-demand approach is what makes it genuinely handy day to day.
How It Differs from Built-In Energy Saver Settings
Unlike macOS Energy Saver, which applies broad system-wide schedules and only prevents sleep under limited conditions, the Amphetamine app gives you granular, session-based control over exactly which sleep behaviors are suppressed. Built-in Energy Saver settings rely on fixed timers and checkboxes that affect the whole machine, while Amphetamine lets you toggle display sleep, system sleep, and disk sleep independently, per session or trigger. It also supports conditional activation through triggers, app-based automation, and duration-based sessions that Energy Saver cannot express. The result is on-demand precision rather than a persistent global policy.
- Session-based activation versus permanent system-wide schedules.
- Independent control of display, system, and disk sleep.
- Trigger and automation support absent from Energy Saver.
- Per-task duration limits instead of fixed idle timers.
Installing and Setting Up on Your Mac
Getting Amphetamine up and running on your Mac is refreshingly simple. Open the App Store, search for «Amphetamine,» and click Get to download the free app, then launch it from your Applications folder. When prompted, grant the necessary permissions so the app can keep your Mac awake reliably. For quick access, pin Amphetamine to your menu bar and enable «Launch at Login» in Preferences. You can also customize sessions under Settings, such as default durations and triggers like app or drive activity. Within minutes, installing and setting up on your Mac is complete, and Amphetamine is ready to keep your screen awake exactly when you need it.
Downloading from the Mac App Store
To install Amphetamine through the Mac App Store, open the App Store application from your Dock or Applications folder and sign in with your Apple ID. Use the search field to find Amphetamine, then click the download button beside its listing. Downloading from the Mac App Store ensures you receive a verified version that updates automatically through the App Store. Wait for the progress indicator to finish and the button to change to Open or Install. Once download completes, launch the app from Launchpad or your Applications folder to begin setup.
- Search for Amphetamine directly in the App Store search bar.
- Confirm you are signed in with your Apple ID before downloading.
- Click Get or the cloud download icon to start the download.
- Wait for the button to change to Open, confirming installation finished.
Granting Required System Permissions
When you first launch Amphetamine, macOS will prompt you to approve a few permissions before the app can keep your Mac awake reliably. Head to System Settings > Privacy & Security and look for Amphetamine under Accessibility and Screen Recording, toggling each switch on. If a permission request doesn’t pop up automatically, click the «+» button and add Amphetamine manually from your Applications folder. After granting access, quit and relaunch the app so the changes take effect, and double-check that Amphetamine appears with a blue toggle in each relevant section. Granting required system permissions this way ensures sleep-prevention sessions start without hitches.
Granting required system permissions in Amphetamine means enabling Accessibility and Screen Recording under Privacy & Security, adding the app manually if needed, then relaunching so everything works smoothly.
Launch at Login and Menu Bar Preferences
Keeping Amphetamine ready the moment your Mac wakes starts with the Launch at Login preference, which you can enable during first setup or later from the app’s preferences pane. Toggle it on and Amphetamine quietly joins your login items, so your session begins without digging through Applications. Menu bar preferences give you further control: choose whether the icon appears persistently or only during active sessions, and decide if the menu bar icon should reflect your current session state at a glance. Adjusting these two settings early means faster access to your keep-awake controls and a menu bar that matches how you actually work.
Mastering Session Controls
When I first opened Amphetamine on my Mac, I treated the session as a simple on/off switch, until a long render taught me otherwise. Mastering Session Controls starts with the menu bar icon, where you choose an indefinite session or a timed one and watch the countdown tick down. I now set a duration for focused work and let the app end the session automatically, so I never leave my Mac awake by accident. Trigger-based sessions are the real unlock: start one when a specific app launches or a drive mounts, and Amphetamine handles the rest. What surprised me most was how small tweaks, like allowing the display to sleep while keeping the system awake, changed my daily routine. End a session cleanly from the same menu, and confirm it stopped before you walk away.
Starting and Ending an Activation Quickly
To start an activation quickly in Amphetamine, open the menu bar icon and choose “Start New Session” or press your assigned keyboard shortcut; enable “Launch at Login” and “Start Session on Launch” so activation begins automatically after reboot. End it just as fast by clicking “End Session” in the same menu or using the stop shortcut, and configure “End Session on Display Sleep” for hands-free termination. Save your preferred duration as a default preset to skip setup dialogs entirely. These two controls keep activation and deactivation to a single click or keystroke.
Q: How do I stop an activation immediately? Click the Amphetamine menu bar icon and select “End Session,” or press your configured stop shortcut.
Using Duration Timers and Indefinite Sessions
Duration timers in Amphetamine let you cap a session at a precise interval, from 15 minutes to several hours, after which the Mac returns to its normal sleep behavior automatically. Choose a preset or define a custom duration, and the menu bar icon reflects the remaining time so you always know when the session will end. For tasks with no foreseeable finish, such as long renders or overnight downloads, indefinite sessions keep the Mac awake until you manually stop them. You can combine either mode with a trigger, like a specific app launching, so the timer starts only when it matters and ends without intervention.
Use duration timers for bounded tasks that should end on their own, and indefinite sessions for open-ended work you will stop manually.
Triggering Sessions with Keyboard Shortcuts
To trigger a session without opening the menu bar, assign a global hotkey under Amphetamine’s preferences: enable keyboard shortcut session triggering, then record a combination such as Control-Option-Command-A. The same panel lets you bind separate shortcuts for starting a session with a specific duration, starting an indefinite session, and ending the active one, so a single keypress can launch or stop your configured session type from any app. Keep your chosen combination distinct from system and app shortcuts to avoid conflicts, and verify the binding by pressing it while Amphetamine is running in the background. Global hotkeys work even when the menu bar icon is hidden.
Keyboard shortcuts let you start, start with a set duration, or end Amphetamine sessions instantly from any app, bypassing the menu bar entirely.
Advanced Configuration Options
Amphetamine’s Advanced Configuration Options live under Preferences and let you tune session behavior beyond the basic toggle. Enable “Allow session to end when display sleeps” only if you want lid-closed sessions to terminate rather than persist, and pair it with “Start session on wake” for predictable resumption. Use the per-session overrides in the menu bar to disable display sleep while keeping disk sleep active, which preserves uptime without unnecessary power draw. Trigger-based sessions are the most overlooked control: bind activation to app launches, network availability, or drive mounting so the Mac stays awake only under conditions you define. Setting a session end trigger alongside a start trigger prevents indefinite runtime when the initiating condition disappears. Finally, export your trigger set before macOS upgrades to avoid silent resets.
Keeping the Display Awake Versus the Whole System
Amphetamine’s advanced settings let you separate two behaviors that are easy to conflate: preventing the display from sleeping and preventing the system from sleeping. Keeping the display awake versus the whole system matters because display sleep is often the first power-saving step, while system sleep suspends background activity such as downloads, renders, or remote sessions. With “Allow display sleep” enabled, the Mac can dim or turn off the screen while the system stays awake and tasks continue running. With that option disabled, both the screen and the system remain active for the duration of the session, which is useful for presentations or monitoring, at the cost of higher energy use.
- Enable display sleep to save power while background tasks keep running.
- Disable display sleep when the screen itself must stay visible.
- Use session duration to limit how long either mode stays active.
- Check the menu bar indicator to confirm which state is in effect.
Allow Screen Sleep While Preventing System Sleep
In Amphetamine’s Advanced Configuration Options, the Allow Screen Sleep While Preventing System Sleep setting decouples display behavior from system wakefulness, letting the monitor power down on its normal timer while the Mac itself stays fully awake. Enable it when you need background tasks—downloads, renders, or remote transfers—to continue after the display dims and turns off, saving monitor energy without interrupting work. With this option active, Amphetamine’s assertion keeps the system awake while the display follows macOS’s own sleep schedule, so screen sleep no longer signals the end of the session. Verify the setting in Amphetamine’s preferences before starting a long session; if the display must remain visible, leave it disabled so the screen stays on alongside the system.
Battery Thresholds and Auto-Stop Rules
Within Amphetamine’s Advanced Configuration Options, battery thresholds and auto-stop rules let you define the exact power level at which a session ends automatically. Set a minimum battery percentage, and Amphetamine terminates the active session once your Mac drops to that value, preventing unexpected shutdowns during long tasks. Auto-stop rules can also trigger when the battery falls below a chosen threshold while unplugged, or when power source changes occur. These rules apply globally or per-session trigger, and you can combine them with display-sleep prevention for finer control. Configure thresholds conservatively to preserve battery health while avoiding interrupted work.
Q: How do battery thresholds and auto-stop rules interact in Amphetamine?
A: The threshold defines the battery percentage; the auto-stop rule enforces session termination when that percentage is reached, ensuring predictable, hands-off behavior.
Automation and Triggers
Amphetamine’s Automation and Triggers let you bind session start/stop to system events and app states rather than manual toggling. Use the Triggers tab to add conditions such as a specific app launching or quitting, display connect/disconnect, user idle time, or a scheduled time window; each trigger can start, end, or toggle a session. Prefer app-launch triggers for focused work so the session ends automatically when the target app quits, avoiding forgotten sessions. Combine idle and display triggers carefully to prevent conflicts where one condition ends a session another just started. Trigger order matters when multiple conditions overlap, so test each combination in isolation before relying on it daily. Keep trigger sets small and purpose-specific for predictable behavior.
Activating Sessions When Specific Apps Launch
To keep a Mac awake only while a particular program is running, configure Amphetamine’s app-launch session triggers instead of relying on a manual toggle. Open Amphetamine’s preferences, choose Triggers, and create a new trigger with the condition “Application is running” or “Application launches,” then select the target app. Assign a session type and duration—often “Indefinitely” so the session ends automatically when the app quits. Because triggers evaluate the app’s running state rather than a fixed clock, the session stops when the process exits, preventing unnecessary wake time. To set this up:
- Open Preferences and select Triggers.
- Add a trigger and choose the app.
- Set session duration to “Indefinitely.”
- Enable the trigger and test by launching the app.
Drive Detection and External Monitor Triggers
Amphetamine can keep a Mac awake based on drive activity, so drive detection and external monitor triggers let sessions start or extend automatically when a connected disk is reading or writing. Enable drive detection in the app’s preferences and choose whether activity on internal or external volumes counts. For displays, Amphetamine can trigger or end a session when an external monitor is connected or disconnected, which suits desk setups where sleep should follow the display. Note that drive detection depends on actual I/O, so idle disks will not hold the session; monitor triggers rely on the display handshake, so use a direct cable connection for reliable detection.
Q: Can drive detection and external monitor triggers work at the same time? Yes—both can be enabled together, and Amphetamine keeps the Mac awake while either condition is satisfied.
Scheduling Recurring Sessions by Time or Day
Amphetamine’s automation options let you create scheduling recurring sessions by time or day so the Mac stays awake without manual input. You define a start and end time, then choose which weekdays the trigger repeats, such as every Monday through Friday during work hours. A session can amphetamine app also recur at a specific clock time each day, with the app activating and ending the session automatically. Combine this with end-of-session behaviors like allowing the display to sleep or returning to normal sleep settings. Verify each recurring trigger in the automation list to avoid overlapping sessions.
- Set fixed start and end times for each recurring session.
- Select specific weekdays or daily repetition.
- Choose what happens when the scheduled session ends.
- Review the trigger list to prevent schedule conflicts.
Practical Use Cases for Everyday Users
Everyday Mac users rely on Amphetamine for simple, high-impact tasks: keeping a laptop awake during a long file download, preventing sleep during a video call or presentation, and maintaining a stable connection while streaming music or syncing cloud backups. Students use it to keep their screen on while reading PDFs or following recipes, and remote workers enable it during large uploads or screen-sharing sessions. You can even trigger sessions from the menu bar or schedule them to start automatically. Q: Can it keep my Mac awake while rendering a video? A: Yes, start a session before you hit render. It also helps when transferring photos from a camera or running a long backup overnight.
Long Downloads, Renders, and File Transfers
When a large file transfer or video render stretches past the sleep timer, Amphetamine keeps the Mac awake so the job finishes without interruption. Long downloads and renders benefit most from a session set to run until the task completes or a specific app quits. You can start a session, walk away, and return to a finished export or completed download instead of a stalled progress bar. Because the app can tie sleep prevention to specific processes rather than a fixed timer, your Mac stays active only as long as the transfer or render actually needs. This avoids babysitting multi-hour downloads or overnight file transfers.
Presentations and Meetings Without Interruption
When you need your Mac to stay awake through a long slideshow or video call, Amphetamine’s session controls help prevent the display and system from sleeping. For presentations and meetings without interruption, start an indefinite session before joining, or use a triggered session that activates when a specific app launches. Enable “allow display sleep” off so the screen stays visible, and keep the session running while switching between slides, screen sharing, and notes. If you prefer extra safeguards, set a session to end automatically after a defined duration or when the meeting app quits, reducing the need to remember a manual stop.
Presentations and meetings without interruption are supported by keeping a deliberate Amphetamine session active, choosing display-wake settings, and optionally ending the session automatically when the presentation or meeting app closes.
Remote Access and Background Server Tasks
When you’re using Amphetamine to keep your Mac awake so you can remotely access it from another device, background server tasks keep running smoothly even while the screen is off or the lid is closed. This means you can SSH into your machine, manage a local web server, or run automated backups from afar without worrying about your Mac dozing off mid-task. Just set Amphetamine to prevent sleep while allowing the display to turn off, and your remote sessions stay stable and responsive. It’s a handy way to treat your Mac like a always-on server without dedicated hardware.
Keep your Mac reliably reachable for remote access and background server tasks by using Amphetamine to prevent sleep while letting the display rest.
Privacy, Security, and Permissions Explained
Privacy, Security, and Permissions Explained for Amphetamine means understanding exactly what the app can and cannot access on your Mac. Amphetamine requires Accessibility permission to detect user activity and prevent sleep, and it requests notification access to alert you when sessions start or end; it does not collect or transmit personal data, and all session logic runs locally on your machine. Grant only the permissions you actually use, and review them anytime in System Settings under Privacy & Security.
Revoke Accessibility access the moment you stop using the app—no background sleep-prevention should outlive your explicit consent.
Because Amphetamine operates without network dependencies for its core function, your activity patterns never leave your device, making permission hygiene your primary security control.
What Data the App Can and Cannot Access
Amphetamine can see the apps and processes running on your Mac so it can trigger sleep-prevention rules when specific programs launch. It reads system power settings and display state, but it cannot access your personal files, documents, or browsing history. The app does not capture keystrokes, screenshots, or clipboard contents. If you enable notification-based triggers, it observes alert activity from other apps without reading the underlying message content. Network access is limited to optional update checks and license verification.
- Can access: running apps, system power state, display status
- Cannot access: files, keystrokes, screenshots, clipboard, browsing data
- Optional permission: notifications for trigger-based sessions
Managing Accessibility and Automation Approvals
When you enable Amphetamine’s advanced features, macOS will prompt you to grant Accessibility and Automation approvals so the app can control system sleep and interact with other processes on your behalf. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility and toggle Amphetamine on; do the same under Automation, confirming each app the utility requests to control. Review these entries periodically and revoke access for any helper or script you no longer use, since stale approvals widen your exposure. If a feature stops working after an update, remove and re-add the approval rather than granting broad new permissions.
- Grant Accessibility only to Amphetamine itself, not unrelated helpers.
- Approve Automation per target app and deny anything unexpected.
- Audit and revoke old approvals after updates or uninstalls.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Troubleshooting common issues with Amphetamine on macOS usually starts with checking whether the app still has the necessary permissions to keep your Mac awake. If sessions end unexpectedly, verify that Amphetamine is allowed under System Settings > Privacy & Security and that no conflicting energy-saving setting is overriding it. When the toggle refuses to activate, quit and relaunch the app, then confirm you are running a compatible macOS version.
If sessions still fail to start, resetting Amphetamine’s preferences or reinstalling the app often clears corrupted configuration files.
For displays that will not stay on, review the separate display-sleep option rather than the system-sleep toggle, since these are controlled independently.
Session Ending Unexpectedly or Failing to Start
When an Amphetamine session ends unexpectedly or refuses to start, first confirm the app has Accessibility permissions enabled in System Settings, since a revoked or missing permission is the most common cause of a session failing to start. Check whether another process—such as a scheduled sleep timer, low battery setting, or a conflicting menu bar utility—is overriding the session. If sessions end unexpectedly, review the session duration and trigger settings, and verify that “Allow session to end when…” conditions aren’t terminating it prematurely. Restarting the app or the Mac clears stuck session states. Also ensure Amphetamine is updated and that no security software is blocking its background activity, which can silently prevent sessions from starting or persisting.
Menu Bar Icon Missing or Unresponsive
If the Amphetamine menu bar icon vanishes or stops responding, first check whether the app is still running by opening Activity Monitor and searching for Amphetamine; if present, quit it and relaunch. A missing menu bar icon often results from macOS hiding extra menu bar items when space is tight, so try reducing other status icons or removing and re-adding Amphetamine from System Settings > Control Center. Sometimes the icon appears present but clicks do nothing, which usually points to a stalled background process rather than a display issue. Toggling «Launch at Login» off and on, or restarting your Mac, frequently restores responsiveness. If the problem persists, reinstall the latest version to replace corrupted preference files tied to the menu bar agent.
Conflicts with Other Power Management Tools
When Amphetamine fails to keep your Mac awake, another power management utility is often the culprit. Apps like Jettison, Caffeine, or third-party energy savers may issue conflicting sleep commands, overriding Amphetamine’s assertions. Conflicts with other power management tools typically manifest as sessions ending prematurely or the display sleeping despite an active session. Check your login items and menu bar for duplicate helpers, then disable or uninstall redundant utilities so only one tool controls sleep behavior. Also review Amphetamine’s own preferences for any coexistence settings, and quit background agents from other power apps before starting a session to confirm whether the conflict resolves.
Performance and Battery Impact
You’re on a deadline, lid open, coffee cold, and Amphetamine has been holding your Mac awake for three hours. The app itself is featherweight—a tiny menu-bar process that flips an IOKit power assertion—so idle CPU stays near zero and RAM use is negligible. The real battery drain comes from what you’re preventing: with sleep blocked, the display and radios stay live, and the system never drops into its low-power states. Performance and Battery Impact hinge on that tradeoff.
The app costs almost nothing; the wakefulness it enforces is what empties your battery.
Trigger it only for active tasks, set a duration or session end, and let macOS sleep normally afterward.
Resource Footprint of Running Sessions
Amphetamine’s running sessions are deliberately lightweight, and understanding their resource footprint helps you keep your Mac responsive during long uptime stretches. An active session mainly maintains a small background process and a timed assertion that prevents idle sleep, so CPU usage stays near zero and memory consumption remains minimal even over many hours. Battery impact is driven less by the app itself and more by the activities it allows to continue—screen wakefulness, background downloads, or rendering tasks. To keep the footprint predictable:
- Enable sessions only when you actually need the Mac awake.
- Use timed sessions instead of indefinite ones.
- Close the app when a session ends.
The key term here is idle sleep assertion, the mechanism that defines most of the app’s real resource cost.
Best Practices to Avoid Draining Your Laptop
To keep Amphetamine from becoming a battery hog, treat it as a targeted tool rather than an always-on switch. Set a session duration or trigger so the app releases its assertion when you no longer need the Mac awake, and enable “allow display sleep” while keeping only the system awake for background tasks. It’s also worth checking which triggers you’ve armed, since a stray external-display or app-based trigger can quietly keep things running long after you’ve walked away.
- Use timed sessions instead of indefinite activation.
- Allow the display to sleep while the system stays awake.
- Review and remove unused triggers regularly.
- Disable Amphetamine when running on battery for long stretches.
Alternatives and Comparisons
When evaluating alternatives to Amphetamine for Mac, compare feature depth rather than just price. Amphetamine’s strengths are its granular trigger conditions, session presets, and menu-bar quick controls; alternatives like KeepingYouAwake offer simpler always-on toggles, while Caffeine-style tools lack automation hooks. Ask yourself: do you need scheduled wake windows or just a one-click keep-awake? Amphetamine wins for scripted triggers and app-based activation, but lightweight utilities beat it when you want zero configuration. Compare hotkey support, display-sleep behavior, and whether closing the lid is handled—those practical differences matter more than icon design or menu layout. Test each against your actual workflow before committing.
Free Versus Paid Keep-Awake Solutions
When comparing free versus paid keep-awake solutions, Amphetamine itself is free on the Mac App Store, and its core function—preventing display or system sleep—costs nothing. Paid alternatives typically charge for extras like scheduled triggers, advanced hotkeys, or menu bar customization, features Amphetamine already bundles without a subscription. The real decision hinges on whether you need granular automation beyond Amphetamine’s built-in triggers or prefer supporting a developer directly. Free versus paid keep-awake tools differ mainly in convenience layers, not in the underlying sleep-prevention mechanism. A paid app rarely keeps your Mac awake more reliably than a free one; it simply wraps that function in more polished controls.
- Free: Amphetamine covers indefinite sessions, timed sessions, and display-sleep prevention at no cost.
- Paid: Often adds automation, scripting hooks, or visual themes you may never use.
- Check whether paid extras match your workflow before paying for overlap.
When the Built-In caffeinate Command Suffices
For one-off tasks where you only need to block idle sleep while a single command runs, the built-in caffeinate command suffices without Amphetamine. Wrapping a job as caffeinate -i make build or caffeinate -d -t 3600 keeps the Mac awake only for that process or fixed duration, then releases the assertion automatically, leaving no background agent or menu bar presence. This fits scripted builds, downloads, and SSH sessions where a GUI toggle would be redundant. Amphetamine adds value through triggers, schedules, and session tracking; when none of those are needed, caffeinate’s flags (-d, -i, -s, -u, -t) cover the same sleep-prevention core with zero configuration.
Tips for Power Users
For power users, the real magic of Amphetamine on Mac is in the Triggers and Sessions features, not just the menu bar toggle. I once set up a trigger so the app automatically activates whenever my external monitor connects, keeping my Mac awake during long exports without a single click. Dive into Preferences and experiment with custom triggers tied to Wi-Fi networks or app launches—it transforms Amphetamine from a simple switch into an automation tool. Also, master the session duration shortcuts: right-click the icon to instantly start a timed session, and use the app’s URL scheme to script activation from Terminal or Shortcuts for hands-free wake control.
Combining Triggers for Complex Workflows
You can stack multiple triggers in Amphetamine to build surprisingly powerful automation without touching a line of code. Start by opening Preferences and adding a new trigger group, then mix conditions like Wi-Fi network, connected display, or a specific app running so your Mac stays awake only when the right combo is active. The trick is layering an app-based trigger with a hardware condition—say, Xcode open AND an external monitor connected—so the session starts reliably but never lingers after you unplug. Combining triggers for complex workflows really shines when you use «any» versus «all» logic deliberately, and you can nest a timed session inside a conditional group to cap runaway sessions. Test each layer one at a time so you can spot conflicts before they bite.
Stack app, network, and hardware triggers with the right any/all logic to build precise, self-limiting awake sessions that match your actual workflow.
Syncing Preferences Across Multiple Macs
If you run Amphetamine on more than one Mac, exporting your settings from the Preferences window and importing them on each machine saves you from rebuilding every session and trigger by hand. For a smoother syncing preferences across multiple Macs workflow, keep your exported preference file in a synced folder like iCloud Drive or Dropbox, then import it whenever you tweak your setup on one machine. Just remember that launch-at-login and notification permissions are tied to each individual Mac, so you will still need to re-enable those locally after importing.
Q: Can I sync Amphetamine preferences automatically between Macs? Not automatically, but exporting and importing your preference file through a shared cloud folder gets you close with just a couple of clicks.