Desktop Buddy

A small pixel cat that lives on your Windows taskbar. It walks, naps, pounces on your mouse, and nudges you to take a break now and then.

Download for Windows View on GitHub
A blue-grey pixel cat walks onto a taskbar, sits, grooms, naps, then pounces and runs off.

A cat with a life of its own

It sits on top of the taskbar, out of your way, and gets on with its day. It is click-through where it is transparent, hides for fullscreen games and videos, and copes with auto-hide taskbars and multiple monitors. Every behaviour has a switch in Settings.

The cat grooms and bats at the air

Walks, sits and grooms

Strolls along the taskbar, washes its face, blinks and flicks its tail.

The cat napping

Naps when you're away

Step away and it curls up. Come back and it takes its time waking.

The cat startled awake, yawning

Grumbles if you wake it

Click a sleeping cat and you'll get a startled hop, a glare and a yawn.

The cat crouches and leaps

Hunts your mouse

Sometimes it follows the cursor along the taskbar, and sometimes it pounces.

The cat purring with a heart above it

Likes a pat

Click it and it purrs. Pick it up and it hangs by the scruff or the belly, depending on where you grab.

The cat rolling on its back

Asks for belly scratches

Every so often it rolls over and asks. Ignore it and it sulks for a moment.

The cat scratching

Break reminders and focus timer

A speech bubble tells you when it's time to stretch, and the cat holds up a focus timer while you work.

The cat galloping

Feels your PC working

When the CPU is busy, the cat hurries and breaks a sweat.

Pick your cat

Eleven cats to choose from in Settings. The original cat also lets you pick its fur colour and pattern; the other five come in a cartoon style and a realistic one.

The original cat, a blue-grey tabby
Originalyour colour, your pattern
Bean, cartoon style
Beanginger tabby, cartoon
Bean, realistic style
Beanginger tabby, realistic
Wisp, cartoon style
Wispblack shorthair, cartoon
Wisp, realistic style
Wispblack shorthair, realistic
Puff, cartoon style
Pufflong-haired colorpoint, cartoon
Puff, realistic style
Pufflong-haired colorpoint, realistic
Pebble, cartoon style
Pebbletuxedo, cartoon
Pebble, realistic style
Pebbletuxedo, realistic
Sprout, cartoon style
Sproutcalico kitten, cartoon
Sprout, realistic style
Sproutcalico kitten, realistic

Download

Desktop Buddy runs on Windows 11. It's a single DesktopBuddy.exe with nothing to install.

Download DesktopBuddy.exe All releases
  1. Download DesktopBuddy.exe and run it. The cat appears on your taskbar and an icon shows up in the tray.
  2. Windows may warn about an unrecognised app because the exe isn't signed yet. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Right-click the tray icon for Settings: pick a cat, turn behaviours on or off, and choose whether it starts with Windows.

Want the very latest? Every build of main also produces the exe. Open the latest build run, scroll to Artifacts and download DesktopBuddy-win-x64 (you need to be signed in to GitHub).

Build it yourself

You need the .NET 8 SDK on Windows.

git clone https://github.com/theaob/desktop-buddy
cd desktop-buddy
dotnet run --project src/DesktopBuddy