DeskSquad

DeskSquad

Cartoon characters that live on your taskbar.

Download for Windows — free 2-day trialSee pricing

Windows 10+ and macOS · no account needed

How it works

Install. Pick a mate. Forget about them.

Three steps, none of them a tutorial.

  1. Install

    Grab the installer for Windows or macOS. Free 2-day trial, no card required.

  2. Pick your mate

    Six characters, one taskbar. Bolt, Stretch, Gizmo, Jitters, or send in the whole Bean Squad.

  3. They live there

    They run, jump, and hide behind your real pinned icons. You keep working; they keep being a nuisance about it.

Meet the cast

Six characters. One taskbar.

Every card below is running the real app code, live, in your browser — not a screenshot, not a video.

Bolt

Banana Rush

One-eyed and over-caffeinated — drops everything to sprint after a banana.

Stretch

Icon Climber

Tall, earnest and a little clumsy — climbs onto your pinned taskbar icons and balances up there.

Gizmo

Recoil Blast

Fires his homemade puff-cannon forward and rockets himself backwards across the screen.

Jitters

Peek-a-Boo

Terrified of the cursor — bolts behind a real taskbar icon and peeks around the edge.

Bean Squad

All four at once

The whole crew together — conga lines, shoulder-boosts onto icons, and a four-way scramble for one banana.

Scruff & Nibs

The chase

Nibs ducks behind your icons, Scruff hunts for him, and neither of them ever wins.

Features

Small app, does a lot on purpose.

No bloat, no background service farm — just the things a desktop pet actually needs to feel real.

They know your taskbar

Characters read your real pinned taskbar icons and hide, peek, and climb behind them — not a painted backdrop, the actual icons on your machine.

Click and cursor reactions

Left-click a character and they react — jump, spin, wave, whatever fits their personality. Move your cursor near them and they notice you, mid-scene.

About 2% CPU at idle

Runs efficiently in the background — roughly 2% CPU while idle and about 5% while active, so it never fights your other apps for the GPU or the battery.

Every monitor, sharp at any resolution

Works across multiple monitors and renders crisp at any screen resolution, with smooth animation at 60 FPS.

Tray control, clean quit

Pause, resume, switch characters, or quit entirely from the tray menu — always-on-top but never blocking your clicks, and it never hangs on the way out.

Pricing

One toy, three ways to keep it.

Every plan starts with the same free 2-day trial.

Monthly

$0.99/month

  • Free 2-day trial, no card required to try it
  • All six characters, switch anytime
  • Real taskbar icon integration
  • Cancel anytime
Start free trial
Best value

Yearly

$4.99/year

  • Free 2-day trial, no card required to try it
  • All six characters, switch anytime
  • Real taskbar icon integration
  • Under $0.42/month, billed once a year
Start free trial

Lifetime

$9.99once

  • Free 2-day trial, no card required to try it
  • All six characters, switch anytime
  • Real taskbar icon integration
  • Pay once, keep every future update
Start free trial

Free 2-day trial on every plan. After that, keep going with any tier above — cancel the subscription plans anytime, no questions asked.

FAQ

Questions worth answering upfront.

What happens after the free trial?

Every plan starts with a free 2-day trial. After that, keep your character active with any of the three plans above — monthly, yearly, or a one-time lifetime purchase.

Which operating systems are supported?

Windows 10 or later, and macOS 10.13 or later. On macOS, the first run asks for Accessibility permission so the character can read your Dock/taskbar for the hide-and-peek behavior.

Will it slow my PC down?

It's built to be lightweight — about 2% CPU while idle and about 5% while a character is active, with integrated graphics fully supported. You can also pause it from the tray menu anytime.

What data does it collect?

DeskSquad runs the character animation locally — it reads your screen geometry (taskbar and pinned-icon positions) on-device to place characters correctly. It does not read your files or browse your activity.

How do I uninstall it?

Quit from the tray menu, then remove it the normal way for your OS: Windows Settings → Apps on Windows, or drag it out of Applications on macOS.