Shuttle

A simple shortcut menu for macOS

http://fitztrev.github.io/shuttle/

Fork note: This is a fork of fitztrev/shuttle. It builds as a universal binary that runs natively on Apple Silicon, replaces the unreliable LSSharedFileList login-item backend with a launchd LaunchAgent, and fixes menu entries failing with "The application can't be opened." on current macOS. No binaries are published here, build it from source.

Sidenote: Many people ask, so here's how I have my terminal setup.

Installation

This fork publishes no releases. Build it yourself with the steps below, then copy build/Release/Shuttle.app to /Applications.

The upstream download is still available, but it ships version 1.2.9 as x86_64 only, so it runs under Rosetta on Apple Silicon and does not reliably start at login. Those are the two things this fork exists to fix.

Building from source

Requires Xcode. From the repository root:

xcodebuild -project Shuttle.xcodeproj -scheme Shuttle -configuration Release \
  SYMROOT=build ONLY_ACTIVE_ARCH=NO build

The app lands in build/Release/Shuttle.app and runs natively on Apple Silicon, no Rosetta involved. Xcode ad-hoc signs it automatically, so no Apple Developer account and no notarization are needed to build and run your own copy.

Both overrides matter:

• SYMROOT=build puts the product in build/Release/. Without it the product goes to a DerivedData path, which is easy to miss and leaves any older copy in build/ looking current.
• ONLY_ACTIVE_ARCH=NO produces a universal binary. The project already sets this, but xcodebuild builds only the active architecture for a scheme-based build action unless you override it here, which quietly yields an arm64-only binary.

The build prints Shuttle isn't code signed but requires entitlements. That is expected and harmless: Shuttle.entitlements only requests a sandbox exception for Apple Events, and Shuttle is not sandboxed. The Automation permission prompt comes from NSAppleEventsUsageDescription in the Info.plist, which is unaffected.

The deployment target is macOS 11.0. Two things force that floor: arm64 macOS starts at 11.0, so no universal build can target lower, and the x86_64 slice fails to link below 10.11 anyway because current Xcode no longer ships the libarclite ARC compatibility library.

Launch at login

Setting "launch_at_login": true in your config registers Shuttle with launchd by writing ~/Library/LaunchAgents/shuttle.Shuttle.LaunchAtLogin.plist. It takes effect at your next login. Setting it back to false unloads and removes the agent.

Editing the config is not enough on its own: Shuttle only re-reads it when you open the menu. So after changing this key, click the menu bar icon once to apply it. This is how every Shuttle setting works, but it is easy to miss here because the effect is a file on disk rather than a visible change in the menu. You can confirm the current state with ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents/shuttle.Shuttle.LaunchAtLogin.plist.

This replaces the old LSSharedFileList implementation, deprecated in macOS 10.11 and marked "no longer supported" in the system headers. In testing it proved unreliable rather than uniformly broken: a fresh build of the old code did register successfully on macOS 26, while the shipped 1.2.9 release did not register at all on a current system even with the key set to true. A mechanism that depends on which binary you happen to be running is not worth keeping.

SMAppService would be the modern API, but it requires a Team ID and does not accept an ad-hoc signature, so it is unusable in a build anyone can produce for free. A plain LaunchAgent carries no signing requirement and is a readable file you can inspect with launchctl print gui/$(id -u)/shuttle.Shuttle.LaunchAtLogin.

Upgrading: if a previous version already registered Shuttle the old way, that entry is independent of the new agent and will start a second copy at login. Remove it once under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.

Help

See the Wiki pages.

Roadmap

• Cloud hosting integration
  • AWS, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, etc
  • Using their APIs, automatically add all of your machines to the menu
• Preferences panel for easier configuration
• Update notifications
• Keyboard hotkeys
  • Open menu
  • Select host option within menu

Contributors

This project was created by Trevor Fitzgerald. I owe many thanks to the following people who have helped make Shuttle even better.

(In alphabetical order)

• Alexis NIVON
• Alex Carter
• bihicheng
• Dave Eddy
• Dmitry Filimonov
• Frank Enderle
• Jack Weeden
• Justin Swanson
• Kees Fransen
• Marco Aurélio
• Martin Grund
• Matt Turner
• Michael Davis
• Morton Fox
• Pluwen
• Rebecca Dominguez
• Rui Rodrigues
• Ryan Cohen
• Stefan Jansen
• Thomas Rosenstein
• Thoro
• Tibor Bödecs
• welsonla

Credits

Shuttle was inspired by SSHMenu, the GNOME applet for Linux.

I also looked to projects such as MLBMenu and QuickSmileText for direction on building a Cocoa app for the status bar.