lolPing

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League of Legends pings and emotes for your whole desktop, on Windows and macOS.
Hold Alt (⌥ Option on a Mac), drag, and let go on a ping. The animation pops and the sound plays on top of any app, on any monitor.
Hold Ctrl (⌃ Control on a Mac) and drag for the emote wheel: League's emotes, or your own images.

Download for Windows · Download for Mac (Apple Silicon, experimental)

Pings and emotes show up in whole-screen capture, so friends watching your Discord or OBS stream see them too. lolPing is a desktop toy: it doesn't read, change or hook into League itself.

Linux (experimental)

This source tree includes an X11 Linux port, with AppImage and Debian package targets. It requires a genuine X11 session, XInput 2.1/XTest and a compositor. Wayland sessions, including XWayland inside Wayland, are not supported yet. Caps Lock triggers and automatic fullscreen-game detection are not available on Linux. Build with Node.js 22.12+, a C++20 compiler and libx11-dev libxi-dev libxtst-dev, then run npm ci and npm run dist:linux.

See Linux build, installation and testing instructions for package usage, desktop shortcut conflicts, tray requirements, HiDPI behavior and manual updates. Upstream releases may not yet contain this port.

Install

Windows

1. Download lolPing-Setup-<version>.exe from the latest release.
2. Run it. The installer isn't code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC". Select More info, then Run anyway.
3. lolPing opens its settings and moves to the tray. Hold Alt and drag anywhere to ping.

lolPing is built for Windows 11, 64-bit. Windows 10 may work, but it isn't tested.

macOS (experimental)

The Mac version needs an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) and macOS 13 or later. It is built and tested automatically, but hasn't had much use on real Macs yet. Please report anything that doesn't work.

1. Download lolPing-<version>-arm64.dmg from the latest release, open it, and drag lolPing into Applications.
2. Open lolPing. It isn't signed by a registered Apple developer, so macOS says it can't check it for malware. Select Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, select Open Anyway next to the lolPing message, and confirm. If macOS instead says lolPing "is damaged", run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/lolPing.app in Terminal and open it again.
3. lolPing asks for Accessibility access, which it needs to read the mouse and keyboard. Select Open System Settings and turn lolPing on. Pinging starts as soon as it's allowed.
4. lolPing lives in the menu bar. Hold ⌥ Option and drag anywhere to ping.

After every update, macOS forgets the Accessibility permission, because the app isn't signed with a fixed developer identity. In Privacy & Security → Accessibility, select lolPing, remove it with –, then turn it on again. The settings window walks you through it.

Updating an older version

Updating from v0.4 or earlier: download the new version by hand once. From v0.5 on, lolPing updates itself (see Updates).

Use

On a Mac, use ⌥ Option instead of Alt, ⌃ Control instead of Ctrl for emotes, ⌃⌥P to pause, and the ping icon in the menu bar instead of the tray icon.

The wheel, from the top going clockwise: Danger, Push, On My Way, All In, Assist Me, Need Vision, Enemy Missing, Enemy Vision. You can rearrange it and add Bait, Vision Cleared or an upside-down Enemy Missing ("¿") in settings. The emote wheel has 8 slots too, and you pick its emotes in settings. Each imported image plays its own signature effect (a spin, a bounce, a heartbeat...), picked by right-clicking it in the settings window from a grid where every effect plays live on that image.

Settings

• Trigger key: Alt, Ctrl, Shift, Win, Caps Lock, Mouse 4, Mouse 5 or any other key (on a Mac: Option, Control, Shift, Command, Mouse 4, Mouse 5 or any other key). A custom key still types when tapped, but its letter appears when the key comes up, and holding it alone doesn't repeat.
• Alt + click places a ping: off by default, so ordinary Alt + click shortcuts keep working. The ping is the one in the centre of the wheel editor (Generic unless you change it).
• Pause in fullscreen apps: on by default. A fullscreen game keeps every click — trigger + click does nothing there — and gestures resume on the desktop and on other monitors. Windowed games aren't detected, and with an auto-hiding taskbar only borderless fullscreen counts. Windows only for now.
• Enable / disable shortcut: must include Ctrl, Alt or Win (⌃, ⌥ or ⌘ on a Mac).
• Pings and sound: size, duration, volume, mute and the wheel's tick sound. Keep my last ping on screen leaves your newest ping up until your next one or until you pause lolPing, for example to mark where you stopped reading.
• Wheel: adjust the size of both the ping and emote wheels, without changing placed pings or emotes. Drag any ping onto any slice, including Bait, Vision Cleared and the upside-down Enemy Missing, or onto the centre to make it the Alt + click ping. Click a ping to preview it. Reset to default brings back League's layout.
• Emotes: the emote key (Ctrl by default, or off), Ctrl + click places an emote (off by default), emote size, emote sound and the emote wheel, which you edit like the ping wheel. Add image…, or dropping a file on the list, adds your own images: PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, up to 24. Animated ones play on your screen only. The speaker on one of your images gives it a sound (MP3, OGG or WAV, up to 1 MB and 5 seconds), which plays on your computer only.
• Room: your name and tag colour, how friends' text appears (at the spot they pointed at, or scrolling across the top as 弹幕), the text shortcut (Alt + T by default) and the room panel key (Tab by default). The text shortcut and the panel key reach other apps except while you are in a room.
• Features: turns off the parts you don't use: emotes, rooms, room text, votes and the room panel. A feature that is off has no keys, no settings section, sends nothing and ignores what friends send for it.
• Launch at Windows startup (Open at login on a Mac): starts hidden in the tray or menu bar.
• Language: follows the system display language, or pick English or 简体中文.

Settings are saved in %APPDATA%\lolPing\settings.json on Windows and ~/Library/Application Support/lolPing/settings.json on a Mac.

Updates

lolPing checks GitHub for a new version 10 seconds after it starts, then every 6 hours. When there is one, you get a notice on screen, and the tray menu and Settings → App → About offer Update. It asks first: nothing downloads until you click.

• Windows: one click downloads the installer, verifies it, installs it silently into the same folder and restarts lolPing. The settings window opens after the restart.
• Mac: lolPing downloads the disk image to your Downloads folder, verifies it, explains what to do, opens it, and quits. Drag lolPing into Applications, choose Replace, open it, and allow Accessibility again.
• Check for updates in the tray menu, or in Settings → App → About, checks right away. From the tray, the result (up to date, or what went wrong) appears as a notice on screen.
• Check for updates automatically (Settings → App, on by default) controls the scheduled checks. With it off, lolPing contacts GitHub only when you click Check for updates or Update.
• Privacy: a check tells GitHub your IP address and lolPing's version, nothing else.

Ping with friends (rooms)

Join a room and everyone in it sees your pings on their own screen, at the same spot (scaled to their resolution), with your name under them. Their pings show up on yours. It works between Windows and Mac.

1. One person opens Settings → Room (or the tray menu → Room) and clicks Create room.
2. They copy the code, such as PING-7KQ4M-2HXTR, and send it to friends.
3. Each friend copies it and clicks Join from clipboard in the tray menu, or pastes it into the Room page and clicks Join.

• Same network: the first time, Windows asks whether lolPing may use the network: allow it, and set your Wi‑Fi to Private (Windows blocks it on Public networks). A Mac asks to find devices on the local network.
• Different networks: with Allow internet connections on (the default), friends anywhere join with the same code. Their pings travel through free public Nostr relays and take a moment longer than on a local network, which is still used whenever it works. Virtual LANs such as ZeroTier or Radmin VPN work too, and Tailscale users simply connect over the internet.
• A ping lands on the display with the same number (1 is the primary display), or on display 1.
• Emotes travel like pings: friends see yours on their own screen with your name under it. Your own images reach friends as a small still picture; animations and sounds stay on your computer. Friends' images are kept in a small cache on your computer. Show friends' custom emotes in Settings → Room turns this off both ways: nothing is sent or fetched, and friends' images show as "?". Friends on v0.4 or older don't see emotes, and the Room page says so under their names. Friends on older versions may not see newer message types.
• Text: press Alt + T (⌥T on a Mac), type up to 120 characters and press Enter. Esc cancels. Friends see the line with your name, either at the spot where your pointer was or scrolling across the top of their screen, as they chose in Settings → Room. You see it too. /ff, /noff and /ready work as in League's chat and are not sent as text.
• Votes: /ff or the Surrender button on the panel starts a surrender vote. It passes when 70% of the people in the room say yes (4 of 5), and ends early once the result is clear. Ready check needs everyone to accept. Kick (the button on a person's row) removes someone when more than half of the others say yes. Votes last 60 seconds, a ready check 15. A missing answer counts as no. Answer a surrender or kick vote with the ✓ and ✗ at the right edge of your screen, and a ready check with Accept or Decline in the centre, which plays League's ready check sounds at your ping volume; they take clicks without taking focus from your game or app.
• Kick is best effort: every app counts the votes itself, so a lost packet can leave someone in a room that others have left. A kicked person can join again by typing the room code again; to keep someone out, leave and create a new room.
• Room panel: hold Tab to see everyone in the room, with their tag colour, whether they are on, paused, muted or can't see text and votes, and whether they are on your network or the internet. Click a name to post " - Alive", as on League's scoreboard. The speaker button mutes one person. The History tab lists this session's text and vote results, up to 200 lines, and is cleared when you leave.
• Tab and other apps: while you are in a room, a held Tab doesn't reach other apps, because the panel takes it. Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Tab and Shift + Tab are not touched, and a fullscreen game keeps its own Tab while Pause in fullscreen apps is on (Windows). Outside a room, or with lolPing paused, Tab works as usual. You can pick another panel key or turn the panel off in Settings → Room and Settings → Features.
• Mute room, muting one person, and an Incoming ping, emote and text limit (up to Unlimited, counted together) keep the spam under control. Pausing lolPing with the shortcut pauses all room content too.
• A room holds up to 16 people. To remove someone, start a kick vote, or leave and create a new room.
• Privacy: pings, emotes, text, votes, your emote images and names are end-to-end encrypted with a key made from the room code, and text and votes use no new network hosts. People on your network can see your local IP address. With internet connections on, public relays see your IP address, an anonymous room ID and when you send, but never your content, images or name. Turn Allow internet connections off to stay on your local network.

Known limitations

• The wheel can't open over windows running as administrator, such as Task Manager. Windows hides their input from normal apps.
• Exclusive-fullscreen games draw above the overlay.
• Sharing a single window doesn't include the pings. Share your entire screen instead.
• While you are in a room, a held Tab shows the room panel and doesn't reach other apps, and Alt + T opens the text box instead of reaching the app underneath. Change these keys, or turn the features off, in Settings → Room and Settings → Features.
• While lolPing is on, Ctrl + drag opens the emote wheel instead of copying files or text. Pick another emote key, or turn it off, in Settings → Emotes.
• On a Mac, the wheel can't open while a secure screen is showing, such as the login window or a password prompt, and Accessibility has to be allowed again after each update.

Build from source

You need Node 22.12 or later, plus:

• Windows: Windows 11 and Visual Studio 2022 or later with the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
• macOS: an Apple Silicon Mac with the Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Allow Accessibility for the app that runs npm run dev (for example Terminal) so the helper can read input.

npm install
npx install-electron
npm run build:helper
npm run dev

npx install-electron downloads the Electron binary that npm run dev needs.

Releasing

Bump version in package.json, commit, then push a matching tag such as v0.2.0. The Release workflow creates the GitHub release as a draft. The Windows job attaches the installer, latest.yml and the installer's .blockmap, and the Mac job attaches the disk image. electron-updater needs both latest.yml and the .blockmap to update installed copies. A last job publishes the release once everything is attached.

How it works

• Input: native/hook-helper is a small C++ process that owns the low-level mouse and keyboard hooks on Windows, or an event tap on macOS. It swallows the Alt + drag so the app underneath never sees it, and talks to Electron in JSON lines over stdin and stdout.
• Display: Electron draws the wheel and pings in one transparent, click-through, always-on-top window per monitor (src/renderer/overlay), and plays the sounds through Web Audio.
• Rooms: src/main/roomManager.ts keeps the room's members and encrypts every message (AES-256-GCM, key from scrypt over the room code). src/main/lanTransport.ts carries the encrypted packets over UDP on the local network, and src/main/relayTransport.ts through public Nostr relays as ephemeral events.
• Updates: src/main/updater.ts runs the schedule and the state the tray and settings show. src/main/updateWin.ts updates through electron-updater and the latest.yml on the release, and src/main/updateMac.ts reads the GitHub releases API and checks the disk image against its SHA-256.
• Settings: a Fluent UI window (src/renderer/settings) with Mica on Windows, restyled like System Settings on macOS.
• Demo page: site runs the same overlay code in the browser, with a small input shim in place of the helper. The README GIF is recorded from it.
• Design notes: docs/design.md covers the protocol, the input state machine and the multi-monitor maths. docs/design-macos.md covers the Mac port.

Contributing

Pull requests and ideas are welcome. Before you start:

• Read AGENTS.md: the layout, the behaviour every change keeps, and the code, test and commit conventions. If you use an AI tool, give it that file too. Claude Code reads it through CLAUDE.md, and most other agents read AGENTS.md on their own.
• Title the pull request in Conventional Commits style, such as fix(helper): keep clicks in order after a cancelled wheel. Pull requests are squash-merged, so the title becomes the commit on main.
• Keep one change per pull request and fill in the template. CI has to pass on Windows and macOS before anything merges.
• For bigger ideas, open an issue or a discussion first, so we can agree on the approach before you write it.

Ping assets

The icons in assets/textures and the sounds in assets/sounds come from a local League of Legends install. tools/extract-assets explains how to extract them again after a patch. The emote animations, icons and sounds in assets/emotes are © Riot Games too, and tools/extract-assets --emotes bakes them from the same install.

License

The code is under the MIT license. The ping and emote icons, animations and sounds are © Riot Games and aren't covered by it. If you represent Riot Games and want something removed, please open an issue.

lolPing isn't endorsed by Riot Games and doesn't reflect the views or opinions of Riot Games or anyone officially involved in producing or managing Riot Games properties. Riot Games, and all associated properties are trademarks or registered trademarks of Riot Games, Inc.