Small app, sharp edges considered
Hold to quit
A progress ring appears while you hold ⌘Q. Release early and nothing happens. The delay is yours to tune, 0.5–3 seconds.
Your apps, your rules
Protect every app, only the ones you list, or everything except a few. Quitting stays graceful — unsaved-changes dialogs still appear.
⌘W, if you want it
Opt selected apps into the same protection for ⌘W — for the windows you really don't want to lose.
Honest status
The menu bar doesn't guess. Protection is verified by a live self-test, and the app tells you when macOS password fields temporarily pause interception.
Featherweight
A menu bar item and nothing else. No Dock icon, no accounts, no background noise. Updates arrive in-app and are signature-verified before they install.
Private by design
No analytics, no tracking, nothing collected. The only network request it ever makes is checking for updates.
Up and running in a minute
Download and open the DMGDrag HoldToQuit to Applications and launch it.
Grant Accessibility accessmacOS requires this for any app that needs to see ⌘Q before other apps do. HoldToQuit watches nothing but ⌘Q and ⌘W — and it's honest about the moments it can't watch.
That's itLook for the ⌘Q icon in your menu bar. Tap ⌘Q anywhere and enjoy the nothing that happens.
Straight answers
Why isn't this on the App Store? Intercepting keystrokes before other apps see them requires a macOS event tap, which Apple's App Store sandbox forbids — for any app, not just this one. That's why it ships as a notarized direct download instead.
Is it safe? The app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple's malware scan. Updates are downloaded over HTTPS and their code signature is verified against the same Developer ID before they're installed.
What does it do with the permission? It watches for exactly two shortcuts, ⌘Q and ⌘W. During secure input — password fields — macOS hides all keystrokes from it, and the app reports that pause rather than pretending otherwise.