Press one shortcut. Type a few letters. Your app, file, answer, or emoji is already there.
Install · Website · Docs · Get a license
| ⚡ Ultrafast | Searches 100,000 items in about 10 ms. Results appear while you type. |
| 🛠️ Native | Objective-C and C on AppKit, with a search matcher in C. No Electron, no web views, no third-party dependencies. |
| 🪶 Light | RAM consumption less than 45 MB when idle. About 1 MB on disk. Under 0.2% CPU when idle. |
| 🔒 Private | Works offline. Reads file names, never file contents. No account, no tracking. |
| 🧠 Smart | Forgives typos, ignores accents, and learns which results you open. |
| 💸 Fair | Free to evaluate, with every feature. License price: $15 once, for 3 Macs. No subscription. |
| Type | Press Return to | |
|---|---|---|
| 🚀 Open apps and files | term, safri, notes.txt |
Open it |
| ⚙️ Go to System Settings | storage, displays |
Open the pane |
| 🧮 Calculate | 48*12, 15% of 240, 240 + 15% |
Copy the answer |
| 📏 Convert units | 5 km to mi, 72f to c |
Copy the answer |
| 🎨 Convert colours | #ff5733, rgb(255 87 51), hsl(11 100% 60%) |
Copy it as hex or rgb; ⌘K has every form |
| 🌐 Open websites | github.com, localhost:3000 |
Open it in your browser |
| 🔍 Search the web | Anything, in the last row | Search it with Google, or the engine you choose in Settings… |
| 😀 Find emoji | fire, happy, japan |
Copy the emoji |
| 💤 Run commands | sleep, restart, mute, dark, empty trash |
Run it |
| 📋 Paste from clipboard history | Press ⌥⌘V | Paste it |
Paste this in Terminal:
curl -fsSL https://superhound.app/install | shThat's it. Superhound downloads, checks the download against its published SHA-256, goes into ~/Applications, and opens. The hound appears in your menu bar.
Superhound is free to evaluate, with every feature, and it shows a reminder now and then. License price: $15 once, for 3 Macs, at superhound.app. To activate, choose Enter License… from the menu bar.
Tip
Want Superhound on ⌘Space? See Open Superhound with ⌘Space.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌘Space | Open Superhound (after the setup) |
| ⌥⌘V | Open clipboard history |
| ↑ ↓ | Select a result |
| Return | Open, run, copy, or paste the result |
| ⌘Return | Show a file in Finder. In clipboard history: copy only |
| ⌘K | All actions: Open With, Quick Look, Copy Path, Move to Trash, and more |
| ⌘Y | Quick Look |
| ⇧⌘C | Copy path |
| Tab or → | Keep the completion of the top result. Turn on Complete the top result as you type in Settings… first; it is off by default. |
| Esc | Close |
Right-click a result for the same actions as ⌘K. Click the logo at the bottom of the panel for the menu.
Superhound works offline. It makes only two kinds of network request:
- A daily update check. It carries no license key and no device ID. Turn it off with Check for Updates Automatically.
- License activation. It sends your license key and a one-way device ID to superhound.app, once.
Web addresses and web searches open in your browser, which loads the page. Superhound itself sends nothing for them.
Superhound reads file names, never file contents. All its data stays on your Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/Superhound/.
Is Superhound a Spotlight alternative?
Yes. Superhound opens apps, files, and System Settings panes like Spotlight, and it adds a calculator, unit conversion, emoji search, system commands, and a clipboard history. You can put it on ⌘Space in place of Spotlight.
How much does it cost?
Superhound is free to evaluate, with every feature and a reminder. License price: $15 once, for 3 Macs. Refunds are open for 14 days, for any reason.
Which Macs does it run on?
Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 15 or later.
Is it open source?
Yes. The full source is here under the AGPL-3.0 license. You can build it yourself.
Is it finished?
Superhound is an early version. It checks for updates once a day, and you install one with a click.
Open Superhound with ⌘Space
Open Settings… from the menu bar and turn on Use ⌘Space in place of Spotlight. Superhound turns off Spotlight's ⌘Space shortcut and takes ⌘Space.
To give ⌘Space back to Spotlight, turn the switch off. Superhound then moves to ⌥Space, or keeps its keys when ⌥Space is in use.
Search your folders
Superhound always searches your app folders. To search your own folders, add them in Settings…. No personal folder is added for you.
- Changes to files appear in a few seconds. Refresh Catalog scans everything now.
- It skips hidden items, the inside of packages, online-only files, and generated folders such as
node_modules. You can turn off the generated-folder rule. - Removing a location never deletes files.
You can change both shortcuts in Settings….
Clipboard history
Superhound keeps the last 500 pieces of text you copy, newest first. Press ⌥⌘V, or choose Clipboard History in the menu bar, then type to filter. A normal search of 3 or more characters also shows up to 2 matching copies.
It does not keep:
- copies that password managers mark as private
- copies from Keychain Access and Passwords
- text longer than 100,000 characters
Clear Clipboard History in the menu bar deletes it all.
Licenses
To activate, click Activate license at the bottom of the panel, or choose Enter License… in the menu bar. To move a license to another Mac, choose Deactivate License… on the old Mac first. To get your key again, go to superhound.app/license.
Updates
Superhound checks for a new version once a day. When there is one, the panel shows Update to and the menu shows Update to…. Superhound downloads the update, checks that it has the Superhound signature, and opens again. It keeps the previous version in ~/Applications/.superhound-backup.*. To go back, quit Superhound and put that previous.app in place of ~/Applications/Superhound.app.
To turn off the daily check, turn off Check for Updates Automatically in the menu. Check for Updates… checks at once.
Permissions
| Permission | When macOS asks | Without it |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | When you paste from clipboard history | Return copies the text, and you paste it yourself |
| Automation for Finder, System Events, or the login window | The first use of a command such as Empty Trash or Restart | That command does not run |
Restart, Shut Down, and Log Out show the macOS confirmation first. Empty Trash asks first. Lock Screen uses a private macOS call that a later macOS can break.
Your data
| File | Content |
|---|---|
folders.plist |
Your search locations |
catalog.sqlite |
The list of indexed names. Safe to delete; Superhound builds it again. |
usage.plist |
The results you opened and what you typed for them |
clipboard.plist |
Your clipboard history, readable only by your macOS user |
license.plist |
Your license key and this Mac's activation, readable only by your macOS user |
performance.jsonl |
Timing records |
Uninstall
Choose Uninstall Superhound… in the menu bar. Superhound frees this Mac's license activation, gives ⌘Space back to Spotlight if it took it, deletes its settings and data, and moves itself to the Trash.
If the app does not open, paste this in Terminal. It does the same:
curl -fsSL https://superhound.app/uninstall | shIf you dragged Superhound to the Trash, Spotlight's ⌘Space stays off. Run the command above, or turn on Show Spotlight search in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight.
Build from source
You need the Apple Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Nothing else.
git clone https://github.com/PGHQdev/superhound.git
cd superhound
scripts/build.sh
scripts/install.sh .build/Superhound.app
open ~/Applications/Superhound.appA build from source cannot update itself. To update it, pull the latest code, quit Superhound, and run the same build and install commands. It has a local signature, so macOS can ask for Accessibility again after you install a new build. If paste stops working, remove Superhound in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and add it again.
Performance
Measured on an Apple M1 with macOS 15.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| App size | 1.0 MB (983 KiB); the program itself is 464 KB |
| RAM consumption when idle | 32 to 38 MB from 1 to 8.5 minutes after launch; 28 to 42 MiB (29 to 44 MB) over 20 minutes in an earlier build. The launch scan peaks higher, at 74 MB. |
| CPU when idle | 0.14% of one core over 120 seconds, panel closed |
| Search across 100,000 items | 9.6 ms median, 20.3 ms at the 95th percentile |
The search time comes from a synthetic benchmark. The methods and all results are in docs/prototype-validation.md.
Code and tests
Superhound is written in Objective-C and C with AppKit, SQLite, and FSEvents. It has no third-party dependencies.
scripts/test.sh # eleven test suites with AddressSanitizer and UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer
scripts/benchmark.sh # search and catalog speed at 10,000 and 100,000 items
tests/install.sh # installer checks; quit Superhound first| Folder | Content |
|---|---|
core/ |
Search, ranking, scanning, the catalog, calculator, emoji, and clipboard history. No window code. |
app/ |
The panel, the settings window, shortcuts, and macOS actions |
tests/ |
Test suites for core/ and the installer |
bench/ |
Benchmark programs |
scripts/ |
Build, test, install, release, and benchmark |
AGENTS.md describes each file. The first design and plan are in docs/superpowers.
Copyright (C) 2026 PGHQdev. Superhound is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. See LICENSE.
superhound.app · Made for the Mac 🐕