Pester for Mac

Lightweight clock and reminder app for macOS

Pester is a minimalist alarm and reminder utility for the Mac. It presents a clean, easy-to-read interface that makes creating alerts quick and painless. Set a message, decide whether it should repeat, and choose when the alert should appear — the app handles the rest without getting in your way.

What it offers

• Starts up and is ready to use within seconds, so alarms can be created almost instantly.
• Lets you pick a notification sound or have the message spoken aloud using a chosen voice.
• Provides a straightforward place to enter the reminder text, schedule repeats, and set the trigger time.
• Displays a countdown to your next alert when you open the application.
• Keeps a program log you can review to see past reminders.
• Uses very little memory and runs unobtrusively in the background.

Limitations and behavior

Pester does not surface missed reminders in the main interface — they won’t be shown after the fact — but you can still inspect the history via the activity log. Otherwise, it stays quiet until a scheduled reminder appears on screen.

Recent fixes and improvements

• Resolved long-standing mismatches between the time shown in the app icon and the Dock menu.
• Improved handling for audio hardware being connected or disconnected while the app is running.
• Eliminated a crash that could occur when previewing speech voices.
• Fixed problems that prevented assigning certain keyboard shortcuts and made the keyboard shortcut display more reliable.
• Restored the behavior that brings Pester to the front automatically on Mac OS X 10.5.

Other options

Consider a free alternative such as Alarm Clock if you want a different approach or additional features.