v0.1.0
First public release of Emacs Launcher — a small, fast macOS app that bridges
Finder, the Dock, Spotlight, drag-and-drop, and URL schemes to a running Emacs daemon
(emacs --daemon). It speaks the Emacs server protocol directly over the daemon's local
socket — no emacsclient binary required.
Highlights
- Open With → Emacs Launcher for text, source, Org, Emacs Lisp, Markdown, and more —
files open in your existing Emacs frame, reusing it instead of spawning a new one (a
frame is created only when none exists yet). - Reliably raises Emacs to the foreground, including the activation workaround needed
on macOS 14 and later. org-protocol://support fororg-capture,org-roam, and friends.emacs://links that open a file — optionally at a line and column — from
anywhere macOS resolves URLs (Obsidian, Things, notes, …).- Invisible launcher — no Dock bounce or stray icon; it does its job and quits.
- Offers to install a daemon LaunchAgent when no Emacs server is reachable.
Installation
Download the attached zip, unzip it, drag Emacs Launcher.app to ~/Applications,
and run it once so macOS registers the file-type and URL-scheme associations. The build
is universal (Apple Silicon + Intel), Developer ID-signed, and notarized.
Requires macOS 12 (Monterey) or later and Emacs run as a daemon.