Bitcoin QT history

If your Bitcoin-Qt app on Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks is taking for ever to download blocks of transaction history and synchronize with the network (if your starting from scratch, it should typically take several days — but I mean if it is looking like it will take months), it’s quite likely that the app is taking an “app nap” when it is not in focus.

This is a new feature of Mavericks: App Nap suspends applications you have running in the background to save battery life.

But, if you really do not want an app to run in the background, App Nap is not your friend.

And you do want Bitcoin-Qt to run as if it is in the foreground, at least while it is first catching up to the latest block.

So, you want to disable App Nap for Bitcoin-Qt.

To do this:

1. right click on the Bitcoin-Qticon in your Applications directory.
2. In the Get Info window, under the “General” section check “Prevent App Nap”