Fartscroll-Lid: an App That Plays Fart Sounds When Opening or Closing a Macbook

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

gaws

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A humorous app that plays fart sounds when opening or closing a MacBook has gained popularity on GitHub and HN, sparking discussions about its creativity and potential uses.

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01Story posted
Sep 11, 2025 at 6:41 PM EDT
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Sep 12, 2025 at 12:47 PM EDT
4 months ago
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Discussion (61 comments)

Showing 56 comments of 61

andersco

4 months ago

2 replies

For this to truly be funny, it needs to be installed on on an unsuspecting user’s laptop, preferably some C-level type about to join an in-person board meeting.

Angostura

4 months ago

1 reply

I don't have a C-level to hand. My daughter's university laptop, however is just here...

lotsofpulp

4 months ago

Child-level works, too.

astrospective

4 months ago

We had a classmate would would wander off with his laptop unlocked so one day we set all his system sounds to fart noises and cranked up the volume. He came back to class minimized a window and the whole class heard the noise and cracked up. We also got good mileage out of adding a wireless mouse on another occasion and zipping his cursor around the screen for probably a good ten minutes.

VladVladikoff

4 months ago

2 replies

The GitHub needs a video demo. I’m too lazy to install this just to see it in action.

hagbard_c

4 months ago

1 reply

Just play the fart sound [1] and imagine you're opening or closing a laptop lid.

[1] https://github.com/iannuttall/fartscroll-lid/blob/main/FartS...

spectralglitch

4 months ago

Its actually quite a bit funnier then that in practice, due to the alignment of fart pitch to lid angle, it creates a range of... you know just try it :D

en3r0

4 months ago

1 reply

https://x.com/iannuttall/status/1966074800595698131?t=SDsVQI...

notachatbot123

4 months ago

Non-Twitter link: https://xcancel.com/iannuttall/status/1966074800595698131

vaenaes

4 months ago

1 reply

Tesla IT will be deploying this to all employee MacBooks tonight.

sonofhans

4 months ago

3 replies

They should deploy it to all _Teslas_ tonight :D

cluckindan

4 months ago

And use it whenever they detect someone sitting down

anakaine

4 months ago

On_door_close()

astrospective

4 months ago

Swapping lid for trunk?

kirb

4 months ago

1 reply

Note: This appears to be a fork of Sam Henri Gold’s recent lid-angle sensor project, with the wav file changed. The readme does give credit, though the license has been changed from Apache to MIT for some reason.

Original: https://github.com/samhenrigold/LidAngleSensor

Demos (no farts, sorry): https://hachyderm.io/@samhenrigold/115159295473019599 https://hachyderm.io/@samhenrigold/115159854830332329

bertman

4 months ago

1 reply

Thanks for this!

Sam Henri Gold's readme is really funny, especially in comparison to Fartscroll-Lid's soulless AI emoji slopfest of a readme.

ljm

4 months ago

The bullet lists, emojis, and a weird focus on insanely specific technical details, are a telltale sign of Claude Driven Development.

Tade0

4 months ago

1 reply

What a glorious homage to fartscroll.js:

https://theonion.github.io/fartscroll.js/

Coincidentally the number of stars this library had over the years was a decent predictor whether a new frontend library/framework was mature enough for adoption.

In other words: if something is less popular than a joke library that makes fart sounds, can it really be considered as having the momentum to go mainstream? For instance, ReasonML struggled for years to beat fartscroll.js. Where is it now?

random3

4 months ago

4 replies

— remember iFart?

https://www.wired.com/2008/12/iphone-fart-app/

It got #1 in App Store and made $10k/day

void-star

4 months ago

Fart noise apps were the first iPhone killer app for a good long stretch in the early days, dominating the app leaderboards for at least half a year.

Yep… Humanity is… let’s face it, pretty stupid.

I, for one welcome, the latest bubble. And, with it, our new, venerable AI overlords!

Mobile^H^H^H^H^H^HAI first!!!!

grugagag

4 months ago

Yes, that’s what came to my moind as well. I guess those were the golden era for Iphone app devs.

serf

4 months ago

I think that's fair historically. Roland made serjeanty and got a mansion/acres for similar work in the 12th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_the_Farter

e1ghtSpace

4 months ago

Does anyone else find articles from 2008 etc. easier to read? Its like I gloss over it if I think an AI has written the article but when its from ages ago I take more care to actually understand it.

vunderba

4 months ago

1 reply

What you really want is two slightly different "NOM NOM" noshing sounds on open and close so you can feed it some flash drives and instantly wear out the hinge as you rapidly make your laptop mimic an eating motion.

I'm sure the fine details of the Apple warranty covers cookie monster roleplaying.

DonHopkins

4 months ago

2 replies

As long as we're testing the warrantee, how about a Farty Bird game where you flap by opening and closing your MacBook screen really fast!

freedomben

4 months ago

Brilliant variation on the clicking games! Love it

vunderba

4 months ago

Nice. Or Pac-Man in a QWOP style movement system where the angle of the screen determines how open his mouth is. :)

2snakes

4 months ago

2 replies

What's next, pr0n sounds? lulz

p0w3n3d

4 months ago

Haha. It took me 20 years to understand what does pr0n mean. First time I've encountered this word on the web game notpr0n

hulitu

4 months ago

Diarrhea on the screen. /s

qwertytyyuu

4 months ago

1 reply

How did this get number one spot on hacker news feed XD

DimmieMan

4 months ago

"wait you can do that?" + farts.

There's something wonderful in only knowing that there's and entire lid angle sensor API in a macbook purely because someone reverse engineered it to make the laptop fart.

onlinehost

4 months ago

3 replies

I don't know why this reminded me of a really scumbag troll thing we would do on AIM/AOL. I guess because it involves sound and open/close.

If you remember using AOL or AIM(AOL Instant Messenger) there were sound effects for various "events" like "Welcome" or "You've got mail" when you got a new email.

AOL and AIM had "buddy lists" and there were sound effects when they came online or offline. Like a knocking sound and door closing sound.

In the early 2000s when cable and DSL was becoming more widespread, it became cool for people to leave their AOL/AIM accounts connected all the time. This generally meant a computer running usually in their house, bedroom, or living room. People would leave "Away Messages" sort of like a status on a social media timeline. I think Jack Dorsey said turning AIM away messages into a timeline was one of his original inspirations for making a social media app. Anyway

So someone opens Visual Basic and starts writing some code. It goes to the privacy preferences of their own account and checks "Don't allow anyone to see me online" and then clicks apply.

Now it checks "Allow everyone to see me online" and clicks apply.

What does this do for everyone on your buddy list?

They hear a constant rotation of WAV files like BuddyIn.wav BuddyOut.wav. Over and over.

you can hear in the first few seconds of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQjfU4g6_SQ

gdudeman

4 months ago

Even farther off topic, but this reminds me of the time my friends and I recorded a 3 minute long wav file that ended with a quiet “this is god. Can you hear me? I’d like to talk with you,” and set it to be the error sound on a friend’s PC.

Much hilarity ensued.

Fnoord

4 months ago

Back in the late 90s, ICQ's "oh! oh!" (incoming message) has been used in media items (such as TV) about online threats such as malware, phishing, or just anything concerning children (such as online predators). One cool thing though was that there were entire sound packs to turn your ICQ into something else. And if you'd use it as ring-tone on your GSM (before that smartphone age) people around you would recognize it.

I guess I could still use it when my wife messages me on Signal.

userbinator

4 months ago

That reminds me of the Hook Flash in telephony for getting an operator's attention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_flash#History

lherron

4 months ago

1 reply

Need someone to do this with the old THX test sound.

cluckindan

4 months ago

Even better if it’s dynamic. Just start with a number of tones at random frequencies, and bring them towards unison as the screen opens.

mr-wendel

4 months ago

1 reply

I already think the power-on noise sounds like an obnoxious fart. I can never remember how to suppress it so I refuse to turn a macbook on around other people.

I may as well install this to reaffirm that yes, this is an Apple product (in case you fail to see the prominent logo) and yes, I am better than everyone else for owning one (/sarc).

djxfade

4 months ago

Open System Settings, click "Sound" in the sidebar. Under the "Sound Effects" section, you'll find a toggle labeled "Play sound on startup". Turn this off to permanently disable it. Otherwise, the startup sound is tied to the audio level you had before last shutdown.

hudo

4 months ago

Aaaah says no angle sensor detected on my MB Air M1 :( This is it i am buying new model

robbingtherob

4 months ago

This wasted effort could have been spend on furthering climage justice. SNH.

fragmede

4 months ago

Where's dbatalero when you need him! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45120517

(I will be sending a pull request just as soon as I get back to my laptop after dinner and seeing my nephews)

tempodox

4 months ago

The iPhone had a slew of fart apps back in the day, but it clearly didn’t have a lid to trigger the farts. Still, everything old is new again.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2

4 months ago

But does it change tune depending on the angle ( how tight is the opening )?

edit: clicked link. ofcourse it does

Tewboo

4 months ago

I've seen some quirky apps, but this one takes the cake! Could be fun for a laugh, though I wonder about battery life.

kaptain

4 months ago

Imagine a Beowulf cluster running this.

sien

4 months ago

You can do this in Python now with :

https://github.com/tcsenpai/pybooklid

here is an example that plays a sound via Pygame

https://github.com/Petess/MacLidPythonSound

This avoids having to deal with Xcode.

scyzoryk_xyz

4 months ago

The GitHub posts for MacBook lid making X sound are going to be a daily thing now

classichasclass

4 months ago

I can't believe the sound effect isn't in the "Assets" folder. This seems like a miss-ed opportunity.

p0w3n3d

4 months ago

That's the software I've been needing for a long time

nottorp

4 months ago

The most funny thing is that a primary school humor app is native and probably not vibe coded, while all* those serious apps that make it to the HN front page pull half of npm...

* except the rewrites of existing software in Rust of course.

ElCapitanMarkla

4 months ago

Fantastic, my kids are going to love this.

Seconding the call for a video.

Also the instructions to remove the quarantine attr don't work.

xattr -cr ~/Downloads/FartScrollLid.app 11:12:20

option -r not recognized

edit: that should be `xattr -d FartScrollLid.app`

shawn_w

4 months ago

The modern whoopie cushion.

benguild

4 months ago

Been waiting for this

wombatpm

4 months ago

Back in the days of OS7/OS8 there was a system extension called MacSniff. Your MacIntosh would randomly sniff like it had a runny nose and clear its throat. I put it on one of our group machines and within 24 hours someone turned it off with a note: machine sounds sick

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