pawse.
A cat-proof keyboard lock for Windows.
One click - or a hotkey - freezes the keyboard so a cat walking across it can't close your work, fire off shortcuts, or leave a modifier stuck. The days of your cat force-pushing to main are over. Unlock it deliberately: a chord, a passphrase, a hold-to-unlock button, or an auto-timer.
What Pawse does
One-click lock
Click the tray paw or hit your hotkey. The global hook swallows every physical key while locked.
Unlock your way
A keyboard chord, a typed passphrase, a hold-to-unlock button, or an automatic timer - each toggleable.
Lives in the tray
No window in your way - a paw in the system tray (green unlocked, red locked) and a small floating popup while locked.
Even Win+L & media keys
Optionally block the lock-screen shortcut and the browser / calculator / media keys while locked - some of these ask for admin.
Fully local
No network connections - no telemetry, no update checks, no phone-home. Your keystrokes never leave the machine.
Tiny, no install
A single self-contained exe - runtime baked in, no dependencies to chase. (Or a ~0.2 MB launcher that reuses a once-installed .NET 8 runtime.) Unzip and run as a normal user.