FanTuner — a Mac fan control app for your Mac

Cooler under load.

Live CPU Core Average thermals, both fans, and deliberate control — from a small menu bar app built for one Mac, done properly.

Download Beta for MacVersion 1.0.6 · macOS 14+ See how it worksFour-step tour

Hardware-verified fan control on M3 Max (Mac15,11)

? ? ? ? ? ?

Smart Auto — a steady 60 °C maps to 2,750 RPM; a rapidly rising CPU can trigger a higher predictive tier.

Fan speed1,400RPM

45.0°C

CPU Core Average Curve target

01 What it does

Your Mac knows when it’s hot.
Now you do too.

Live thermals, deliberate cooling, and quick presets — without burying the controls inside a utility drawer.

Live thermal monitoring

CPU Core Average, both fan speeds, targets, modes, and history — readable at a glance, right in the menu bar.

Smart Auto

A performance-biased curve that ramps earlier under load, jumps ahead of fast-rising heat, and steps down gently once the work is done.

Your own presets

Full Blast when you mean it. Constant speeds or temperature curves when you don’t — linked fans, or left and right tuned independently.

02 How it works

Four steps between you
and a cooler Mac.

1 Choose a preset
Smart Auto, Full Blast, System Automatic, or a curve of your own — one click in the menu bar.
2 FanTuner watches the heat
It samples validated per-fan CPU and GPU zones every two seconds, with sustained die heat as a safety floor for Smart Auto.
3 The helper adjusts the fans
A small approved helper sets each fan’s target, always within its live hardware limits.
4 Automatic stays a click away
Recovery to macOS control is built in — on quit, sleep, disconnect, or watchdog timeout.

Choose a cooling mode

03 Three ways to cool

One click when you need it.
Automatic when you don’t.

Move between the system’s own control, proactive cooling, and maximum airflow without hunting through settings.

AApple DefaultHand everything back to macOS

✦Smart AutoPerformance-biased cooling

↗Full BlastAll fans at maximum RPM

04 Designed with a way back

Control when you want it.
Recovery by design.

Manual fan control is a privileged operation, so the app is engineered around one idea: getting back to macOS control should never depend on luck.

A narrow, type-checked helper

Fan writes require a privileged helper you approve once in System Settings. Its only operations are fan mode and fan target — validated against live hardware limits. No raw hardware access, no arbitrary keys, nothing else.

Heartbeat watchdog

The app must check in constantly. If it stops responding — crash, force-quit, disconnect — the helper notices the silence and returns both fans to macOS Automatic on its own.

Every write is logged

Each attempted fan change is recorded to the system log with its result, so behavior can be audited after the fact instead of guessed at.

Back to macOS, always

Quit, sleep, disconnect, watchdog timeout, or the in-app reset — every path ends with both fans under macOS Automatic control again.

Fan control of this kind can never be called risk-free. FanTuner is designed so that losing control of the app never means losing control of your cooling.

Compatibility Check

✓ HARDWARE VERIFIED ON M3 MAX

Verified on one Mac.
Designed for a family.

FanTuner fan control is currently hardware-verified only on the 16-inch MacBook Pro from November 2023 with Apple M3 Max, model identifier Mac15,11, on macOS 14 or later. Other Mac models are not yet validated and stay in safe monitoring-only mode. MacBook Air models are unsupported because they are fanless.

Verified controlM3 Max · Mac15,11Monitoring onlyOther modelsUnsupportedFanless Macs

How do I find my model identifier?＋

Apple menu → About This Mac → More Info… → Model Identifier. Or in Terminal: sysctl -n hw.model. FanTuner targets Apple Silicon with fans; Macs without fans (like MacBook Air) have nothing to control.

Not using Mac15,11? Fan control is not enabled yet. Similar SMC keys do not prove that another model has the same fan indexing or airflow zones, so each model must be validated before support is claimed. Apple firmware updates can also change fan behavior; we re-validate against each macOS release.

Important: Only one app should write fan targets at a time. Stop another controller’s background helper before giving FanTuner control, or leave that app in charge and use FanTuner’s monitoring-only mode.

05 Controlled Beta · Version 1.0.6

Keep performance cool.

FanTuner 1.0.6 is available as a controlled beta for verified hardware.

Latest update

What’s new in 1.0.6 Beta

Controlled beta release. This build is ready for testers on the hardware-verified 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro.
One fan controller at a time. FanTuner detects verified competing write helpers and safely stays on Apple Default until they are gone.
Monitoring-only mode. Choose another app as the fan-control owner while FanTuner continues showing live temperatures and RPM.
Thoroughly verified. Thermal, preset, persistence, malformed-data, concurrency, and ownership checks total 140 automated tests.

Download Beta for MacVersion 1.0.6 · macOS 14+ Download the 1.0.6 controlled beta directly. Fan control is hardware-verified only on M3 Max (Mac15,11); other models remain monitoring-only pending validation. No checkout is required for this build. Not affiliated with Apple. Important: Only one app should control the fans. Close another controller’s background helper before using FanTuner control, or choose monitoring-only mode in FanTuner Settings.

06 The small print, made readable

Frequently asked questions.

Which Macs are supported?

FanTuner fan control is currently verified only on the 16-inch November 2023 MacBook Pro with M3 Max (Mac15,11), on macOS 14 or later. Other Mac models remain in monitoring-only mode until their exact sensor and fan topology is validated. MacBook Air models are unsupported because they are fanless, so there is no fan hardware to control. Apple firmware updates can change fan behavior, and compatibility is re-validated with each macOS release.

Does FanTuner replace Apple’s thermal protection?

No. FanTuner sets fan targets through a narrow privileged helper; macOS thermal management and hardware-level protections remain in place. And whenever a control session ends — quit, sleep, disconnect, watchdog timeout, or manual reset — both fans return to macOS Automatic.

Why does installation require administrator approval?

macOS only permits fan writes from a privileged process. FanTuner’s helper is a standard launch daemon registered through Apple’s service-management APIs, and macOS — not the app — asks you to approve it once under System Settings → General → Login Items. The helper exposes only validated fan operations.

Can I run it alongside another fan utility?

Yes for monitoring, but only one app should control the fans. Choose “Another app controls fans” in FanTuner Settings to keep live temperatures and RPM while another utility remains in charge. To switch control back, stop the other app’s write helper first; FanTuner also refuses a session unless the fans begin in a clean automatic state.

What happens if the app crashes or I force-quit it?

The helper’s heartbeat watchdog notices the silence within seconds and returns both fans to macOS Automatic. The same recovery happens on sleep, disconnect, helper restart, and uninstall. You can also trigger it yourself anytime from Settings.

What about privacy — does it collect data?

Monitoring and control run locally on your Mac. There is no analytics or tracking in the app or on this site. A formal privacy policy will be published before release and linked here.

How do updates and refunds work?

Those terms haven’t been finalized, so they aren’t promised here either. Update and refund policies will be published on this page before checkout opens — you’ll be able to read them before paying anything.

Is FanTuner affiliated with Apple?

No. FanTuner is an independent utility. Mac and MacBook Pro are trademarks of Apple Inc.; this product is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc.