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…
Spotlight Search privacy in 2026: what Apple sends, and what stays local
Spotlight is one of the most-used features on macOS and one of the least-examined. Most users type ⌘Space dozens of times a day and never read a privacy disclosure. The mechanics are not secret — Apple has documentation for most of it — bu…
mdworker eating your CPU on macOS? Here's what to do in 2026
If your fans suddenly sound like a jet engine and Activity Monitor shows a process named mdworkershared or mdsstores near the top, you have already met Spotlight's indexer. On a healthy machine the indexer should be invisible — it runs in…
Rebuild the Spotlight index in 2026: the only guide you need
A Spotlight rebuild is the macOS equivalent of "have you tried turning it off and on again?" — boring, slightly slow, and effective often enough to be the first real fix to try when search results stop matching reality. This guide is the l…
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…
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 clipboard history options in 2026: Maccy, Paste, Clipy, and built-in
macOS has had a system clipboard since 1984. It still holds exactly one item. Copy something, copy something else, the first thing is gone. For everyone except the lightest users this is a problem they hit dozens of times a day — paste the…
macOS apps with zero telemetry: a verified 2026 list
Most macOS apps phone home in some way. App opens, button clicks, crash reports, "anonymous usage analytics," feature gates that check a license server — all of it shows up as network traffic that 99% of users will never notice. For the 1%…
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…
The 2026 list of local-first macOS apps that respect your machine
"Local-first" went from a niche academic term to a buyer's filter in three short years. Inkandswitch published the original essay in 2019 laying out the seven properties (no spinners, multi-device, network-optional, longevity, privacy, use…
Is Raycast Pro worth $8/month in 2026? An honest math check
Raycast Pro is $8/month or $96/year (raycast.com/pricing). For a productivity tool you touch every hour, that is either obviously worth it or obviously not, and which side you fall on depends on three specific questions. This post is the h…