Tinycast
A tiny, fully native macOS launcher. One hotkey, everything you reach for all day, under 100 MB of RAM.
SwiftUI and AppKit, zero third-party dependencies, no Electron and no telemetry. It also runs real Raycast extensions, rendered as native SwiftUI. Free, open source, and staying that way.
For anything private, email [email protected].
Features
- App launcher — fuzzy-search and launch anything, pin favorites, see what's running, quit an app or every app at once.
- Global hotkey — one shortcut summons the palette from anywhere.
- Per-app hotkeys — bind a key to an app; press it to toggle (focus/hide).
- Search Files — open files and folders from the folders you choose, through Spotlight, with no index of our own.
- Dictionary — look a word up with the Define Word command, or define whatever you typed from the launcher's fallbacks, read from the Mac's own dictionaries.
- Clipboard history — text and images, searchable, pasted back into the app you were using.
- Calculator — do math, unit, live currency and crypto conversions inline, right in the palette.
- Quicklinks — turn a URL, search, file or deeplink into a command, with placeholders for typed input, the clipboard or the date.
- Apple Shortcuts — search and run the shortcuts you built in the Shortcuts app, with aliases and global hotkeys.
- Snippets — reusable Markdown templates with dynamic placeholders, arguments, nested references and optional keyword expansion.
- Custom commands — run named shell commands through fuzzy search or their own global hotkeys.
- Window management — 34 Rectangle-style actions: halves, quarters, thirds, sizing, nudging, display moves, fullscreen and Spaces.
- System actions — lock, sleep, restart, empty trash, toggle appearance, Bluetooth, mute, hidden files, and more.
- Calendar and meetings — your next meeting on the empty palette and in the menu bar, one key to join it, or let it join itself.
- Notes — an unlimited collection of plain Markdown files in one floating editor, searchable from the palette and rendered as you write.
- Emoji picker — a searchable emoji grid, one keystroke away.
- AI chat — use your own key or an installed AI account: ask Quick AI from the palette, or keep longer conversations in the AI Chat window, with a searchable, pinnable history. Off out of the box, like every AI feature.
- Quick Actions — fix grammar, rewrite, translate or summarize the selected text in any app.
- Raycast extensions — run the ones you already have natively, rendered as SwiftUI.
- Backup and import — export your settings to a file, or import your setup from Raycast.
Install
First, add the tap:
brew trust --tap abue-ammar/tinycast # required for third-party taps
brew tap abue-ammar/tinycastThen run the one line that matches your Mac:
| Your Mac | Install |
|---|---|
| Apple silicon, macOS 26 or newer | brew install --cask tinycast |
| Intel, macOS 26 | brew install --cask tinycast-universal |
Not sure which Mac you have? Apple menu → About This Mac.
- Early builds:
brew install --cask tinycast@betainstallsTinycast Beta.appbeside the stable app. - DMG from Releases? It's self-signed, so run
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Tinycast.app"once.
Building from source
See docs/development.md for the toolchain, build, packaging, release and website workflows. docs/ indexes everything else — architecture, engineering standards, the design system and one document per feature.
Support
Tinycast is free, and it stays that way. If you enjoy it, you can support it with crypto: scan a code with your wallet, or copy an address. Send only on the network named for that address. If yours isn't listed, email me.
 Bitcoin |
 Ethereum, Base, BNB Smart Chain |
 Solana |
Bitcoin
bc1qpfxtjpuhm2cm8kg4lqgu3ffjch7vcjf678arwn
Ethereum, Base and BNB Smart Chain (one address for all three)
0x22A00612bc0bf1Dc73AAC75e8De1BA4e81fF0810
Solana
4EH7JDXZxkJiahas1xgPyC1iBW9pfCVUXxVtpqvwAz6T
Prefer a card? Buy the wallpaper pack and get a Discord role.
Card payments are handled securely by Polar.sh.
