Fast, keyboard-first window and application switching for macOS.
SwitchTab provides two focused switching modes:
- Press Command+` to move between windows in the current application, with live previews when Screen Recording permission is available.
- Press Command+Tab to move between applications with compact icons and a caption for the selected app.
Both shortcuts can be enabled, disabled, and changed independently in Settings > Shortcut. If macOS refuses the reserved current-window default, SwitchTab falls back to Option+Control+`.
Fresh installations enable both switching modes by default. Existing installations preserve an explicit previous application-switcher choice; when no previous choice can be detected, application switching remains disabled. When enabled, Command+Tab moves forward, Command+Shift+Tab moves backward, and releasing Command activates the selected app. Turning the setting off or quitting SwitchTab restores the native switcher.
Only the selected application shows its name. When Accessibility reports two or more standard windows for that app, the caption also shows the window count. Arrow keys move through the same selection grid, and Command+Q asks the selected app to quit normally while the switcher stays open; the tile disappears only after that app exits.
Accessibility permission is required for window focus and application switching. Screen Recording is required only for window previews, not for application icons or names. If Cmd-Tab interception is unavailable, SwitchTab keeps the setting saved, shows recovery guidance, and leaves native Cmd-Tab working.
SwitchTab is free, and it stays free. There are no ads, no in-app purchases, no subscription, and no paid Pro tier — every feature is available to everyone, with nothing held back behind a paywall.
The app bundles no advertising SDK and has no third-party runtime dependency other than Sparkle, which is present only in the direct-distribution build so it can deliver updates.
- macOS 14.0 or later
- Swift 6 toolchain or Xcode with Swift 5.10+
Open SwitchTab.xcodeproj in Xcode, select the SwitchTab scheme, then use
Product > Build or Product > Test.
For command-line development:
swift build
swift test- Landing page — a visual introduction to the SwitchTab workflow
- Development — local setup, build, test, and verification
- AI context and verification — current architecture, invariants, and compact macOS QA guidance
- Project history — task-selective decisions, rationale, changed requirements, and release evidence
- Direct distribution — generated Sparkle workspace and signed DMG builds
- Update hosting — Cloudflare R2, Sparkle publishing, and local fallback operations
- Release workflow — versioning, GitHub releases, Homebrew integration, and recovery
- Repository maintenance — dependency, security, and verification state