Bolt

A native macOS keyboard launcher. One hotkey, fuzzy search across apps, files, windows and commands, with clipboard history, window tiling, snippets and more built in. 100% Swift/SwiftUI, no Electron, no backend, idles in the tens of MB.

Features · Download · Build and install · Permissions · Hotkeys · Search syntax · Snippets · Quicklinks · Aliases · Config · Privacy · Architecture · License

Features

• App launcher. Fuzzy search with frecency ranking, the things you pick often float to the top. An empty query shows your most-used apps.
• File search. Backed by Spotlight (mdfind), so results are instant.
• Window switcher. Jump to any open window of any app.
• Menu bar search. /query lists the menu items of the app you were just in and triggers them.
• Clipboard history. Text and images, searchable, paste / copy / delete per entry. Entries marked concealed by password managers are skipped.
• Snippets. Insert from search, or live-expand ;keyword anywhere you type, with {date}, {time} and {clipboard} placeholders.
• Calculator. Inline expressions and percentages, including the GST-style 18% on 25000.
• Unit and currency conversion. 3 miles to km, 72 f to c, 100 usd to inr (daily ECB rates, cached).
• Color tools. Hex / rgb / hsl conversions plus a screen eyedropper.
• Emoji picker. :fire, Enter pastes it.
• Dictionary. define <word> against the system dictionary.
• Process killer. kill <name>, sorted by CPU.
• System commands. Dark mode, empty trash, lock, sleep, restart, mute, quit and force-quit apps.
• Window management. Halves, quarters, maximize, center, next display, by hotkey or by name.
• Quicklinks. Keyword web searches (g, gh, yt, ...), fully customizable.
• Browser bookmarks. Chrome, Brave, Edge, Chromium, Vivaldi (and Safari with Full Disk Access) bookmarks in your results, opened in your default browser.
• Scratchpad. A pop-up note that persists between sessions.

Calculator	Currency

Unit conversion	Color tools

Emoji	Dictionary

Clipboard history	Menu bar search

Window switcher	Window management

Process killer	System commands

Quicklinks

Download

Grab Bolt-x.y.z.zip from the latest release, unzip, and drag Bolt.app to /Applications.

First launch: macOS will warn that the app is from an unidentified developer (it is open source and self-signed, not notarized). Right-click Bolt.app > Open > Open, or approve it under System Settings > Privacy & Security. This is a one-time step, as is granting Accessibility for the window features (see Permissions).

Prefer building from source? Read on.

Build and install

./build-app.sh            # builds dist/Bolt.app
./build-app.sh --install  # also copies to /Applications and launches

Requires Xcode command line tools (Swift 5.9+). For development, swift build && swift run works too, but permissions are tied to the app bundle, so day-to-day use should be the installed .app.

If you rebuild often: macOS ties permission grants to the code signature, and the default ad-hoc signature changes every build, so grants like Accessibility die on each reinstall. Create a self-signed code-signing certificate named "Bolt Dev" (Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Create a Certificate, type: Code Signing) and build-app.sh will use it automatically, keeping your grants across rebuilds. CODESIGN_IDENTITY=<name> overrides the identity.

Permissions (one-time)

Bolt asks for these on first run, all in System Settings > Privacy & Security:

• Accessibility: required for window tiling, menu bar search, window switching, auto-paste and snippet expansion. The Option+Space hotkey and app/file search work without it.
• Automation > System Events / Finder: prompted the first time you run a system command that uses AppleScript (Toggle Dark Mode, Empty Trash, Restart).

If something silently does nothing, check Accessibility first. After reinstalling to a different path, re-grant it.

Hotkeys

All defaults below are rebindable, see Rebinding. "Settings" is the ~/.bolt folder: open it via the menu bar icon > Open Config Folder, or the "Open Config" command in the launcher.

Hotkey	Action
Option+Space	Toggle the launcher
Ctrl+Option+V	Clipboard history
Ctrl+Option+S	Scratchpad
Ctrl+Option+Arrow	Tile window to half (left/right/top/bottom)
Ctrl+Option+U / I / J / K	Tile window to quarter
Ctrl+Option+Return	Maximize window
Ctrl+Option+C	Center window
Ctrl+Option+N	Move window to next display

Inside the launcher: type to search, arrows or Ctrl+N/P to move, Enter to run, Cmd+1..9 to run the nth result, Esc to close. Destructive commands (Restart, Shut Down, Empty Trash, Force Quit) ask for Enter twice.

Rebinding

Every global hotkey is rebindable. Add a hotkeys block to ~/.bolt/config.json (the default file already contains one), then run "Reload Bolt Config" from the launcher, no restart needed:

"hotkeys": {
  "toggleLauncher": "cmd+space",
  "clipboardHistory": "cmd+shift+v",
  "scratchpad": "none"
}

Binding names: toggleLauncher, clipboardHistory, scratchpad, tileLeft, tileRight, tileTop, tileBottom, tileTopLeft, tileTopRight, tileBottomLeft, tileBottomRight, maximize, almostMaximize (unbound by default), center, nextDisplay.

Combos are modifier+modifier+key. Modifiers: cmd, ctrl, option (or alt), shift. Keys: letters, digits, space, return, tab, escape, delete, arrow names (left, right, up, down), home, end, pageup, pagedown, f1-f12, and punctuation (comma, period, slash, semicolon, quote, backslash, minus, equal, grave). "none" disables a binding. At least one modifier is required except for F-keys. Invalid combos fall back to the default and show a warning toast, so a typo never locks you out of the launcher.

Search syntax

Type	Get
vsco	Apps, open windows, files, commands, all fuzzy ranked
1920*0.18	Inline calculator, Enter copies
18% of 25000 or 18% on 25000	Percentage (the on form adds it, GST style)
3 miles to km, 16 gb in mb, 72 f to c	Unit conversion
100 usd to inr	Currency (daily ECB rates, cached 24h)
#ff8800	Color conversions (hex / rgb / hsl)
clip or clip <text>	Clipboard history. Enter pastes, Cmd+Enter copies, Ctrl+Enter deletes
kill <name>	Processes by CPU. Enter SIGTERM, Cmd+Enter SIGKILL
kill 3000	What's listening on that TCP port, with its command line
servers	All dev servers: ports, project folder, command. Enter kills
define <word>	System dictionary
:fire or emoji rocket	Emoji, Enter pastes
/save	Menu items of the app you were in, Enter triggers
g <query>, gh, yt, npm, wiki, ...	Quicklinks (web searches)
quit safari, force quit chrome	Quit running apps
lock, sleep, dark mode, empty trash, mute	System commands
left half, maximize, center	Window tiling by name
snippet name or ;keyword	Snippets, Enter pastes
pick color	Screen eyedropper, copies hex
note	Scratchpad

Results are ranked by fuzzy match score plus frecency (things you pick often float up). On an empty query you get your most-used apps.

Snippets

Search insertion works out of the box. Live expansion (type ;sig anywhere and it becomes the snippet) needs Accessibility and is on by default; toggle snippetExpansionEnabled in config.

Edit ~/.bolt/snippets.json:

[
  { "keyword": ";sig", "name": "Email signature", "content": "Best,\nYour Name" }
]

Placeholders: {date}, {time}, {clipboard}, {cursor}. The {cursor} marker sets where the caret lands after the snippet is inserted (needs Accessibility, like auto-paste). Run "Reload Bolt Config" from the launcher after editing.

Quicklinks

Edit ~/.bolt/quicklinks.json. {query} is replaced with whatever you type after the keyword, URL-encoded. base opens when there is no argument.

[
  { "keyword": "gh", "name": "GitHub", "template": "https://github.com/search?q={query}", "base": "https://github.com" }
]

Aliases

~/.bolt/aliases.json maps a keyword to the query it stands for. Typing the keyword searches as if you typed the expansion, so an alias can point at any app, command, snippet or quicklink. Words after the alias are appended, which makes quicklink shortcuts work: with the alias below, gs swift fuzzy searches GitHub for "swift fuzzy".

{
  "dm": "dark mode",
  "gs": "gh"
}

Run "Reload Bolt Config" after editing.

Config

~/.bolt/config.json:

Key	Default	Meaning
clipboardHistoryEnabled	true	Watch the pasteboard
clipboardCapacity	50	FIFO cap, oldest evicted
snippetExpansionEnabled	true	Live ;keyword expansion
fileSearchEnabled	true	mdfind file results
currencyEnabled	true	Daily currency rates fetch
updateCheckEnabled	true	Daily new-release check against the GitHub API
bookmarksEnabled	true	Browser bookmarks in search results
maxResults	40	Result list cap
hotkeys	see Rebinding	Global hotkey bindings

Runtime data (clipboard history, frecency, rates cache, scratchpad) lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Bolt/.

Privacy notes

• Clipboard history persists to disk unencrypted. Entries marked transient/concealed by password managers are skipped automatically. clip then Ctrl+Enter deletes a single entry.
• Bolt makes exactly two kinds of network request, each at most once a day: currency rates (api.frankfurter.app) and an update check (api.github.com). Both send nothing but the request itself, and both can be turned off (currencyEnabled, updateCheckEnabled) for a fully offline build.

Architecture

SPM executable, packaged into an .app by build-app.sh. Carbon RegisterEventHotKey for hotkeys (no keystroke observation), non-activating borderless NSPanel + SwiftUI for the UI (the app you were in never loses focus), Accessibility API for window tiling / menu search / window switching, mdfind for files, a hand-written recursive-descent parser for the calculator, and JSON files for all state. No third-party dependencies.

Your data stays yours

All personal customization (snippets, quicklinks, config) lives in ~/.bolt/ and all runtime state in ~/Library/Application Support/Bolt/, both outside the repo. Pulling updates or rebuilding never touches them, and nothing you configure can end up in a commit.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.