Blog
Notes from the launcher
Product updates, deep dives into keyboard-first workflows, and the occasional rant about Spotlight. Written by the CmdSpace team.
Why `git checkout` triggers a Spotlight storm (and how to stop it for good)
You run git checkout main. Three seconds later, your fan spins up. Activity Monitor shows mdworkershared at 280% CPU. Your battery icon turns yellow. The build you wanted to start is now waiting on the indexer to settle.
Looking for a free Raycast alternative in 2026? Read this first
"Free Raycast alternative" is one of the highest-volume launcher queries in 2026, and most of the results are misleading. Half of them recommend Raycast's own free tier (which is fine but is still Raycast). The other half recommend whateve…
The Finder shortcuts cheatsheet every macOS user should know
Finder is the macOS app most users touch dozens of times a day, and the macOS app most users use the slowest. Apple has spent twenty years adding keyboard shortcuts to Finder; most users have memorized seven of them.
What is using port 3000 on my Mac? A practical investigation
You ran npm run dev and got "Error: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::3000". Your terminal is fresh, you don't remember leaving anything running, and Activity Monitor shows nothing obvious. The port is in use. By what? This post…
How to safely disable Spotlight indexing without breaking macOS
There is a particular kind of frustration that ends with the words "I just want to turn this thing off". On Sequoia and Tahoe 26 a lot of Mac users have arrived at exactly that thought about Spotlight — often after watching mdsstores chew…
CmdSpace vs Spotlight: side-by-side after Tahoe 26
Spotlight is the macOS launcher most users default to because it ships with the OS. It is also the macOS launcher most power users have spent the last two years complaining about. After Sequoia's indexing regressions (Notebookcheck coverag…
CmdSpace vs Raycast in 2026: one is local-only, the other went AI-focused
Raycast and CmdSpace are both modern macOS launchers, both keyboard-first, both deeply customizable. From a screenshot on the App Store you could swap them and not immediately notice. After a week of daily use you will absolutely notice. T…
CmdSpace vs Alfred: a 2026 comparison from someone who used Alfred for 10 years
I bought my first Alfred Powerpack license in 2014, when the Mega Supporter tier was £35 and the workflow system was the most exciting thing on the platform. I used Alfred daily through five jobs, three major macOS releases, and roughly fo…
⌘Space is deeper than you think: every modifier, every trick
⌘Space is the most-pressed shortcut on most Macs. It opens Spotlight, you type a thing, you hit Return. Most users stop there. They miss what ⌘Space actually contains: a small graph of modifier combinations, alternate behaviors, and config…
Rebind ⌘Space to a third-party launcher without breaking Spotlight
⌘Space is the most expensive piece of real estate on a Mac keyboard. Apple has owned it for Spotlight since Tiger; most third-party launchers want it back. Rebinding the hotkey is a 30-second job — but doing it badly is a five-minute job,…
The best macOS launcher in 2026: a tested, no-AI-hype roundup
A modern macOS launcher should do four things well: open apps and files in under a quarter second, run a few high-impact actions without leaving the keyboard, stay out of the way when you do not need it, and never quietly ship your text to…
Automate your Mac with launcher commands: shells, scripts, snippets
A launcher hotkey is a 50-millisecond window into anything your Mac can do. Most people use it to open apps. A small minority use it to run shell scripts, paste snippets, and automate the kind of multi-step tasks that would otherwise live…