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 Raycast users are switching launchers in 2026
Raycast was, for the better part of three years, the default answer to "what macOS launcher should I install." Active development, beautiful UI, healthy extensions ecosystem, generous free tier. It still is a good product. Yet through 2025…
When a launcher syncs to a remote server, here's the real price
Several modern macOS launchers advertise "sync across your devices" as a headline feature. It sounds free — your snippets just show up on your other Mac, like magic. The actual mechanics are not free, and the bill is not paid in money. Thi…
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…
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…
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…
Local LLM on a Mac vs cloud-powered launcher AI: a 2026 reality check
Two years ago, "AI in a launcher" meant a Raycast button that called OpenAI. Today it means: a panel that streams Claude or GPT-4-class output, a chat-with-your-files mode, voice dictation, image editing, a few dozen extension-specific AI…
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…
How to audit your launcher's network activity on macOS
Your launcher is the app you press more times a day than any other. It has Accessibility permission, Full Disk Access, and a foreground process that runs constantly. If it phones home — to log usage, to fetch updates, to sync settings, to…