teamsTrick

Keep Microsoft Teams (and any presence system driven by OS idle time) showing Available while you're reading, watching a video, on a call, or otherwise not touching the keyboard. Teams flips you to Away after roughly 5 minutes of no input; these scripts reset the OS idle timer with a brief, invisible signal so that never happens.

No third-party packages — each script uses only the standard OS APIs via Python's ctypes.

Scripts

Script	Platform	Method
stay_active.py	Linux (X11)	1px mouse nudge (or key tap) via the X11 XTest extension
stay_active_win.py	Windows	Invisible F15 key tap (or mouse nudge) via the Win32 SendInput API

Requirements

• Python 3
• Linux: an X11 session (echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE → x11) and the libX11 / libXtst system libraries (present on essentially every desktop). Wayland is not supported — XTest does not reset the idle timer there.
• Windows: nothing beyond Python. If python isn't on your PATH, use py.

Run the script from inside your desktop session (not over SSH) so it can talk to the display / input system.

Usage

Linux

./stay_active.py                 # default: invisible 1px mouse nudge every 120s
./stay_active.py -i 90           # nudge every 90s
./stay_active.py -m key -k shift # tap Shift instead of moving the mouse
./stay_active.py -q &            # quiet, run in the background

Windows

python stay_active_win.py                 # default: invisible F15 tap every 120s
python stay_active_win.py -i 90           # every 90s
python stay_active_win.py -m mouse        # 1px mouse nudge instead
python stay_active_win.py --no-sleep      # also keep the PC/display awake
python stay_active_win.py -q              # quiet, good for background

Stop either script with Ctrl+C.

Options

Flag	Description
-i, --interval	Seconds between signals (default 120). Keep it under Teams' ~300s Away threshold.
-m, --method	mouse or key. Default is mouse on Linux, key on Windows.
-k, --key	Which key to tap in key mode (Linux: f13–f15, shift).
--no-sleep	(Windows only) Also prevent the system and display from sleeping.
-q, --quiet	Suppress the heartbeat output.

Notes & caveats

• It only prevents the idle → Away transition. It does not override a status you set manually (e.g. Do Not Disturb).
• It won't help if the machine sleeps — a sleeping PC goes offline regardless. On Windows use --no-sleep; on Linux disable screen lock / suspend if you need to stay green while away for a long time.
• The signals are designed to be invisible: the mouse nudge returns the cursor to where it started, and F15 / the chosen keys aren't bound to anything on a normal desktop.