**I built FaceGate — World's first macOS app locker with on-device Face Unlock (Open Source)**







A few months ago I realized something strange:

You can lock your entire Mac, but you can't easily lock individual apps.

If you hand your laptop to someone for a few minutes, they can still open Messages, Photos, Notes, Mail, WhatsApp, browsers, password managers, and other personal apps. I wanted a way to protect specific applications without constantly locking my entire Mac.

I looked around for solutions, but most were outdated, paid, abandoned, or didn't feel native to macOS. And the ones that worked , lacked features that I wanted. 

So I built FaceGate. (1400+ downloads and 250+ github stars)

FaceGate is a native macOS app that lets you lock individual applications and unlock them using Face Unlock, Touch ID, or a password.

It is the most capable and feature heavy MacOS app-locker out there. 



A few things I focused on from day one:

\* Everything runs locally on your Mac

\* No cloud processing

\* No accounts

\* No telemetry

\* No subscriptions

\* Fully open source





Features:

• Face Unlock powered entirely on-device using Apple's Neural Engine.

• Fast authentication with very low memory and CPU usage

• Liveness detection to prevent photo and video spoofing attacks

• Touch ID and password fallback

• Per-app unlock timers

• Automatic re-lock on sleep, wake, or screen lock

  
• option to re-lock on app switch as well as keep unlocked indefinitely - completely customizable



• Custom schedules for automatic lock/unlock periods

• Tamper protection that prevents FaceGate from being quit, disabled, or uninstalled without authentication

• Runs quietly from the menu bar with minimal system impact.



• Multi-Monitor protection 



The entire project is written in Swift and designed specifically for macOS.

This is still actively being maintained and I'd genuinely love feedback from Mac users.



Some questions:

\* Is app-level locking something you've wanted on macOS?

\* Which apps would you personally lock?

\* What security or privacy features would you like to see added?



Website: [https://dweep-desai.github.io/FaceGate-web/](https://dweep-desai.github.io/FaceGate-web/)

GitHub: [https://github.com/dweep-desai/FaceGate-Mac](https://github.com/dweep-desai/FaceGate-Mac)



If you think I did a good job, please feel free to leave a star on my github repo - means a lot to me.

Feedback, feature requests, bug reports, and contributions are all welcome. I'd love to hear what you think.