Last updated · every competitor fact checked against its primary source
The best Desktop Goose alternative in 2026 is OpenPets: a free, open-source desktop pet app for Windows, macOS, and Linux with 1,200+ characters that have personality without stealing your cursor. If you specifically want window-climbing mischief, a Shimeji-style mascot comes closest to the goose's chaos.
TL;DR
Want pets with personality, minus the sabotage? OpenPets gives you 1,200+ animated companions (including several ducks) that live on your desktop without grabbing your mouse.
Want maximum mischief? Shimeji mascots climb, multiply, and toss windows around; the closest thing to goose chaos that's still maintained.
The goose still works on Windows if you accept a 2022-era app: last update was v0.31 in October 2022, and the Mac port is older still.
Desktop Goose is a tiny Windows app that releases an aggressively unhelpful goose onto your screen. It honks, tracks muddy footprints, drags handwritten notes and memes into view, and, most famously, steals your cursor and runs off with it. Indie developer Sam Chiet released it on itch.io in January 2020, riding the cultural moment of Untitled Goose Game, and it went viral within a day. Kotaku, Polygon, PC Gamer, and Wired all covered it in the same week, and the pay-what-you-want download became one of itch.io's best-known desktop toys.
It deserved the attention. Desktop Goose is a nearly perfect joke shipped as software: one character, one gag, executed with real craft. A later update added a modding API, and a Windows community grew around custom skins and note packs. But the goose was always a prank first and a pet second, and its development wound down as Chiet moved on to new toys. The official itch.io page lists v0.31, the "Autumn Update" from October 2022, as the latest Windows release, with an older, mod-less v0.22 port for macOS.
Why people look for an alternative
Nobody regrets installing Desktop Goose. Plenty of people uninstall it within a week anyway, and the reasons are consistent:
The chaos is the whole product. Cursor theft is hilarious in a screenshare and unbearable during actual work. The goose has no calm mode; your options are full sabotage or closing the app.
Even quitting is a prank. You close it by holding Escape until a progress bar fills. Great joke, and also the top support question about the app.
Development ended in 2022. The last Windows update was v0.31 in October 2022. It still runs, but nothing new is coming, and the macOS port never caught up or got mod support.
One goose, forever. Windows mods can reskin it, but there's no second character, no roster, and no way to make the goose yours beyond swapping textures.
Antivirus jumpiness. Because it hooks your cursor, security tools sometimes flag it, and lookalike download sites have made "is desktop goose safe" a permanent search query.
In short: people don't stop liking the goose, they just run out of tolerance for it. What they usually want next is a desktop companion with the same charm and none of the hostage situations.
What to expect before installing Desktop Goose
Desktop Goose is best treated as a short-lived desktop joke rather than an unobtrusive companion. Its official itch.io listing is the useful source of truth for platforms and the uneven feature set; cursor and multi-monitor friction are worth considering before using it during work.
Desktop Goose practical constraints
Platforms
Windows and macOS; the macOS build requires macOS 10.10 or later.
Distribution
The official download is on itch.io.
macOS features
The macOS version has no mod support.
Workspace fit
Reports note friction around cursor control and multi-monitor use.
Windows (v0.31); macOS port (v0.22, fewer features)
Windows, macOS, Linux
Runtime
Native
Native app, nothing else to install
Custom pets
Goose only; Windows mods can reskin it
Yes, open pet format + Plugin SDK
Multiple pets at once
Extra geese via extra instances
Yes
Ready-made pets
Single character
1,200+ pets in the gallery
Maintained
Last updated October 2022
Actively maintained
Facts as of July 11, 2026, verified against samperson.itch.io. Spot something outdated? Tell us and we'll fix it.
The two apps want different things from you. Desktop Goose wants a reaction; OpenPets wants to keep you company. If your ideal desktop animal interferes on purpose, keep the goose installed for demo days. If you want something alive on your screen while you actually work, with 1,200+ characters to choose from and an open format for making your own, that's the OpenPets side of the table.
Other alternatives worth considering
Different people loved different parts of the goose. Here's the rest of the field, sorted by what you're actually after:
Shimeji-ee
Windows (Java)
The classic Java desktop-mascot app with a huge fan-art community. Characters climb windows, multiply, and occasionally throw your windows around, so it scratches a similar mischief itch with far more character variety than one goose. The trade-off is Java setup friction and a Windows-only official build. We cover it in depth in our full Shimeji alternatives guide.
The open-source remake of the 1995 screen-wandering sheep. It has real Desktop Goose energy, thirty years earlier: an animal that walks window edges, falls off title bars, and ignores your work. Gentler than the goose (it never steals your cursor) and genuinely nostalgic, but it's Windows-only with a small animal roster.
A cat that drums along with your keystrokes. Where the goose interrupts you, Bongo Cat celebrates you: it reacts to your typing instead of fighting it, which makes it one of the few desktop pets that's actually pleasant during work. Open source and actively maintained, but it's a single character in a fixed spot. See our full Bongo Cat alternatives guide.
Cats, dogs, snakes, rubber ducks, and Clippy in a VS Code panel. If the goose lived in your editor rather than your desktop, this is that: playful, MIT-licensed, actively maintained. The pets stay inside their panel though, so you lose the whole 'animal loose on your screen' effect that made the goose famous.
A menu-bar cat that sprints faster as your CPU climbs. Zero chaos, all charm: it's the anti-goose, a pet that gives you information instead of taking your cursor. Great as a permanent fixture on a Mac, but it never leaves the menu bar and there's nothing to customize beyond runner skins.
Sam Chiet's own follow-up: a desktop sand-and-physics toy from the same creator, with the same tactile silliness and no goose harassment. It's a toy rather than a pet, so nothing lives on your desktop between sessions, but if what you loved was Chiet's playful design instinct, this is where it went.
If what you'll miss is the waterfowl specifically, the OpenPets gallery has you covered: Rubber Duck 2.0 keeps a classic debugging duck on screen, and there are more ducks and birds alongside the 1,200+ other pets. Every pet reacts, animates, and can show speech bubbles through plugins, so your desktop still feels alive; it just stops fighting you for the mouse.
Pick a pet in the gallery; search "duck" if you know what you're about.
Want a goose that's actually yours? The open pet format means you can draw one and run it, no modding API gymnastics required.
Desktop Goose FAQ
Is Desktop Goose safe?
Yes, when downloaded from the official itch.io page (samperson.itch.io). Antivirus tools sometimes flag it because cursor-grabbing looks suspicious to heuristics, but the app itself is harmless prank software. The real risk is fake mirror sites, so skip any download that isn't the official itch.io listing.
How do I close Desktop Goose?
Hold the Escape key until the on-screen progress bar fills, and the goose leaves. On Windows you can also run the bundled Close Goose script or end the process in Task Manager; on a Mac, quit it from Activity Monitor or the terminal.
Is Desktop Goose still being updated?
No. The last release was v0.31, the Autumn Update, in October 2022. The creator, Sam Chiet, has since shipped other desktop toys. The goose still runs on current Windows, but nothing new is coming.
Does Desktop Goose work on Mac?
There's an older macOS port (v0.22) with fewer features than the Windows version, and it never received mod support. On a modern Mac a natively cross-platform pet app like OpenPets is the smoother option.
Can I change the goose into a different animal?
Not officially. Windows mods can reskin the goose and change the memes it drags in, but the app is built around one character. If you want to pick from many animals, that's exactly what desktop pet galleries like the OpenPets one are for.
What is the best Desktop Goose alternative?
OpenPets, if you want desktop companions with personality that don't hijack your work: free, open source, on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with a large gallery including several ducks for the waterfowl-loyal. If you specifically want mischief, Shimeji-style mascots interact with your windows the most.
