Her side of it

She has allowed us to build her a window

In it you may choose which cat she is, watch the shape of her breathing, and look at the things she has decided you deserve. She will not be consulting you about any of this. She has read the settings and considers them optional.

The Cats panel: six cat portraits in a grid, each with its breath signature underneath — Six cats, and they differ in how they breathe rather than how they look. The kitten is quick and shallow. The old tomcat is slow, heavy, and has clearly seen things. Hover one for two seconds and your palm gets a preview before you commit to her.

The Purr panel: a live waveform of the purr, with strength and affection sliders — The trace is not an animation of the purr. It is the purr: the shape going to the trackpad, drawn as it leaves. When she wobbles the line wobbles, because it is the same numbers.

The menu bar popover: a purr switch, strength and affection sliders, and the current cat — The menu bar, for the two things you actually touch. Strength is how hard she purrs. Affection is how often she can be bothered.

The Shelf panel: four gifts the cat has brought, with two empty slots waiting — Every few weeks she brings you something. A bottle cap, a leaf, once a left AirPod. You cannot ask for one and you cannot hurry her, and there is an × on each because nobody should be obliged to keep a dead mouse on a shelf.

The honest problem

You cannot film a feeling

A video of this app would be a hand resting on a trackpad, proving nothing. So press and hold the drawing instead: what you hear is the purr's shadow, synthesized live from the same numbers the app sends to the Taptic Engine. Stroke it while you hold and it swells.

press and hold to hear it purr

Every column is one moment of the breath, and the taller it burns the harder the trackpad is working; the glow behind is the same breath, and none of it loops, because the wobble is regenerated every cycle. And a detail for the curious: your speakers cannot actually reproduce 25.75 Hz. You hear the harmonics and your ear rebuilds the missing fundamental, which is the same trick the trackpad plays on your palm.

Download and feel it

Scientifically accurate

It has moods.

Rest your hand and it usually purrs. Sometimes it looks at you and decides not to, then sulks for a minute. We modeled that too, because you own a cat and you know.

Pet only

Or make her earn it

Drag Affection all the way to the bottom and she stops starting anything at all. Resting your hand does nothing. Waiting does nothing. The only thing that gets a purr out of her is being stroked, and she takes about nine seconds of it before she gives in.

Three fingers, slowly, top to bottom. Slowly matters: a quick swipe is a gesture your Mac acts on, and she ignores it. One or two fingers is you moving the pointer or scrolling a page, which is why neither counts, and why going back to them makes her get up and leave.

“I am not starting this one. You are.”

Stroke slowly, three fingers, top to bottom.

She says what she thinks about it, in the menu bar, as you go. An ear turns. She is tolerating it. She is nearly there. Then the ring fills and she gives in, and keeps going for as long as you keep stroking her, up to a point, because she is a cat and she does get up.

This is a setting, not the app. Left where it is, she purrs when you rest your hand on the trackpad like she always has.

Six cats included

Pick your cat

Each one is a different breath, drawn below exactly as your palm will feel it.

Adopted cats change colour. Six coats each, set per cat, so the tomcat can be midnight while the kitten is snow.

House Cat, original brown tabby — As she came

House Cat in marmalade ginger — Marmalade

House Cat, in all six. Colour only: she breathes exactly the same in every one of them.

The headline feature

Record your cat

Hold the mic near your cat for ten seconds. PurrPad reads the pitch and the restlessness of the purr, on your Mac, nothing uploaded, and teaches your trackpad to purr like her. Your cat lives in your laptop now. She pays no rent there either.

The cat people have spoken

Made by a cat lover, for cat lovers.

One person, one measured purr, no committee. When PurrPad met the cat people of r/macapps, they understood it immediately:

“That's so unnecessary, I love it!”

u/tmrmn

“The ignoring part is what gives it its fully realistic cat-like behavior. Great work!”

u/zibdid

“I did not expect to like it this much.”

u/Organic_Idiot

“this is crazy lol”

u/mastertacticianwc4

Pricing

Less than a bag of treats

Stray

$0

free forever

House Cat, the measured one
Full moods: purrs, refuses, sulks

Download

Adopted

$4.99

once. no subscription, cats hate recurring revenue

All six cats, kneading included
Six coats for each of them, from midnight to calico
Record Your Cat
Every tinkering pad and dial
Adopt cats from friends via share codes

For the nerds at the back

The purr is real engineering

25.75 Hzfundamental measured from a real purr recording, harmonic stack and all

0.5%of one CPU core while purring. Lighter than a cat sleeping on your keyboard

0 loopsreal purrs are irregular, so ours never repeats exactly. We checked. Twice

9 numbersdefine a whole cat. Small enough to paste into a chat message

Read the full write-up: how the frequency was found, and what the hardware lied about.

The wellness angle

Purring is suspiciously good for you

For real cats, that is. Researchers and veterinarians have associated purr exposure with a calmer nervous system, lower blood pressure and cortisol, and endorphin release, and the vibration band overlaps frequencies studied in human medicine for bone and tissue stimulation.

25 to 140 Hzthe range real purrs span. PurrPad hums at a measured 25.75, right in the bottom of it

18 to 35 Hzthe band studied for bone density and joint mobility. We sit inside it. Coincidence? Yes, we measured a cat

cortisol, downpurr exposure is associated with lower stress hormones and gentler blood pressure

100 Hzthe pain-relief band. Our fundamental never reaches it, but our harmonics visit regularly

Now the part our imaginary lawyer purrs loudest about: those findings are about real cats, who are warm, alive, and love you conditionally. PurrPad is a trackpad doing an impression of one. It is not a medical device, it treats nothing, and it has never healed a bone. It does feel lovely, and feeling lovely is not nothing.

Reading: Inspire the Mind · Inspira Health · a sound-therapy study (PMC)

What we do not do

No tracking. No accounts. No cloud.

PurrPad has no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no account, and no server that knows you exist. Your cats, your recordings and your shelf live in a file on your Mac and nowhere else.

0analytics events, ever. There is no SDK in here to send one

1network request the app can make: asking whether a newer version exists. Switch it off in the app and it makes none at all

on deviceRecord Your Cat analyses the audio locally and deletes it. The recording never leaves your Mac

You do not have to take our word for it: point Little Snitch (or any firewall) at PurrPad and watch it sit there saying nothing. That is the whole design. A cat on your trackpad is not a reason for anybody to build a profile of you.

Which does mean we learn nothing unless you tell us, so please do: tell us what your cat thinks. Complaints welcome, photos of the cat preferred.

Fair questions

FAQ

Will this hurt my Mac?

No. It taps the same haptic engine every click of your trackpad already uses, at the strength of a normal click, just rhythmically. Battery cost rounds to zero.

No, but really. Is it safe?

Yes. For scale: real cats have retired more laptops than this app ever will. The knocked-over water glass. The nap on the keyboard that runs it at ninety degrees for an afternoon. The unhurried push of a mug off the desk edge while maintaining eye contact. PurrPad taps the trackpad.

Could Apple break it someday?

Honestly: yes. The purr drives the trackpad through a private macOS interface, and a future update could close it. If that ever happens and we cannot fix it, ask for a refund and you will get one, no questions. We price it like something mortal, because it is.

Does it work with dogs?

Dogs do not purr. We looked into it. The trackpad can do a heartbeat, though, so never say never.

My real cat sat on the laptop and now they purr at each other.

Working as intended.

What do you do with my cat's recording?

Nothing leaves your Mac. The recording is analyzed on-device, turned into nine numbers, and deleted. We never hear your cat, which is our loss.

Does it phone home?

Only to ask whether a newer version exists, and only if you leave that switch on. No analytics, no accounts, no crash reporting. Your recordings are analysed on your Mac and deleted; nothing is uploaded.

Which Macs work?

Any Mac with a trackpad that has a Taptic Engine in it. That means any MacBook from 2015 onward, Apple Silicon or Intel, and now any desktop Mac with a Magic Trackpad 2 attached: mini, Studio, iMac, Mac Pro. A Magic Mouse will not work, because it has no haptic engine at all.

Attached to a MacBook, the Magic Trackpad wins: if you put a trackpad on the desk, that is the surface your hand is on. Closing the lid no longer stops the purr when an external trackpad is connected, which makes a clamshell Mac on a stand work properly for the first time.

The MacBook Neo is the exception, and it cannot be fixed. Its trackpad clicks mechanically rather than simulating the click, so there is no Taptic Engine in it. PurrPad works by driving that engine directly, and on a Neo there is simply nothing to drive. No update will change this. If you bought PurrPad and then discovered this, write to hello@purrpad.app and you will get your money back without any argument.

Occasional post

Hear when something lands

New cats, new features, and the occasional note about how any of this actually works. We write when there is something worth telling you about and not otherwise, which means rarely. Cats are not prolific correspondents.

One confirmation email, then only real news. Unsubscribe from any of them in one click. We never pass your address to anyone.