Blog
Notes from the launcher
Product updates, deep dives into keyboard-first workflows, and the occasional rant about Spotlight. Written by the CmdSpace team.
Raycast privacy in 2026: what their AI and sync features mean for your data
Raycast is a good launcher and a well-run company. The privacy posture is also genuinely transparent — the privacy page and security page are clearer than most SaaS competitors. None of what follows is "Raycast is shady." It is a careful l…
Quicksilver and LaunchBar in 2026: are the classics still worth installing?
Quicksilver and LaunchBar are the two macOS launchers that predate the modern Spotlight era. Quicksilver shipped in 2003, LaunchBar in 1995 as an Apple ResEdit utility. Both are still maintained in 2026. The question is not "do they still…
Open-source macOS launchers compared: Ueli, Kando, and the rest
"Open source macOS launcher" is a small but real category in 2026. Most of the major launchers — Raycast, Alfred, LaunchBar, CmdSpace — are closed-source. If your threat model or your principles require open-source software in your hotkey…
An offline-first macOS workflow that survives flaky Wi-Fi and AI hype
Half the apps on a modern Mac stop working when the network does. Your launcher's AI panel returns a spinner. Your notes app refuses to open the local file until it has authenticated. Your text expander syncs from a server before it lets y…
How to migrate from Spotlight to CmdSpace on macOS Tahoe
Spotlight on macOS Tahoe 26 looks better than ever. It also breaks more than ever. If you have ever watched mdworkershared pin a CPU core for an afternoon, or asked Spotlight for a file you know is on disk and gotten a blank result page, y…
macOS keyboard shortcuts: a 2026 power-user reference
Most macOS shortcut lists are written for the median user. They tell you ⌘C and ⌘V and stop just before the interesting ones begin. This is not that list. This is the 2026 reference for power users — the people who have already internalize…
macOS window management without a third-party app (and when you still need one)
For most of macOS's history, window management meant either dragging by the title bar like an animal, learning AppleScript, or installing a third-party app. Apple finally shipped real tiling in Sequoia and refined it in Tahoe. The built-in…
A keyboard-only macOS terminal launcher workflow
If you spend your day in iTerm, Ghostty, or Terminal.app, the ergonomic gap between "I need a terminal" and "I am typing into one" matters more than for any other app. Three seconds of friction per terminal-open, ten times a day, is 30 sec…
macOS Spotlight tips and tricks that still work in Tahoe 26
Spotlight has more capability than most users discover. Apple ships features into Spotlight every year, retires others quietly, and rarely documents the differences. By 2026, the result is a search bar where half the useful tricks are folk…
Using a Mac launcher without Apple Intelligence in the picture
Apple Intelligence shipped with macOS Sequoia and is now the default on Tahoe 26. For many users it is a nice quality-of-life upgrade. For users who want their launcher to behave like a launcher — local, predictable, no inference fired in…
A Mac focus stack for deep work: keyboard-first, AI-free
Most "focus app" recommendations are about blocking. Block Twitter. Block Reddit. Block your own browser. The result is a Mac that looks like a parental-controlled iPad — useful, but not the same Mac you bought.
Searching files from the command line on macOS: mdfind, fd, and friends
Finder's search is slow. Spotlight's is noisy. When you actually need to find a file on macOS — by name, by content, by metadata — the command line is faster and more honest. This post walks through every tool worth knowing in 2026, with t…