Tabby
A minimal ⌥Tab app switcher for macOS.
Hold ⌥, tap Tab, see every app as a live window preview, let go to switch.
↓ Download · Website · Install · Build
Features
- Live previews: each app's front window, captured with ScreenCaptureKit, falling back to the app icon
- Most recent first: apps are ordered by when you last used them, like ⌘Tab
- Mouse friendly: hover a preview to select it; once you've used the mouse, letting go of ⌥ keeps the switcher open until you click a preview (click outside or
esc to close)
- Quit from the switcher: hover a preview for ✕ (quit) and ⏻ (force quit); the switcher stays open
- Instant flip: a quick ⌥Tab tap jumps to your last app without showing the panel
- Every Space: the panel shows on the current desktop and over full-screen apps
- Menu bar only: no Dock icon; the menu shows permission status, pause, launch at login, updates and quit
- Auto-updates: Sparkle-signed updates, signed with a stable certificate so your permissions survive them
Shortcuts
| Action | Keys |
|---|
| Open switcher / next app | ⌥Tab |
| Previous app | ⌥⇧Tab |
| Move selection | ← → |
| Switch to selected app | release ⌥, ↩, or click |
| Cancel | esc |
| Quit / force quit an app | hover a preview, click ✕ / ⏻ |
Install
Homebrew
brew tap aimen08/tabby https://github.com/aimen08/tabby
brew install --cask aimen08/tabby/tabby
Use the full aimen08/tabby/tabby name: plain tabby is a different app (the Tabby terminal) in Homebrew's main catalogue.
Manual
- Download Tabby.dmg and drag Tabby.app into Applications
- Open it. Tabby isn't notarized, so macOS blocks the first launch: go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway
- Allow Accessibility (required, for the ⌥Tab shortcut)
- Allow Screen Recording (optional, for previews; quit and reopen Tabby after granting)
Quit AltTab or any other switcher that uses ⌥Tab first. Requires macOS 14 or later.
Build from source
Needs Xcode 16+ (Swift 5.9, macOS 14 SDK).
git clone [email protected]:aimen08/tabby.git
cd tabby
swift run # run in dev
./Scripts/launch.sh # build dist/Tabby.app and launch it
./Scripts/make-dmg.sh # package dist/Tabby.dmg
./Scripts/release.sh # build, sign, publish a GitHub release, update appcast + cask
Stable permissions: macOS ties Accessibility and Screen Recording to the app's signature. Put the name of a code-signing certificate from your keychain in .signing-identity (gitignored); without it builds are ad-hoc signed and you have to re-grant after every build.
Auto-updates: releases are signed with an Ed25519 key kept in .sparkle-keys/private_key (gitignored, back it up). Its public half is .sparkle-public-key. release.sh signs the DMG, prepends it to appcast.xml and bumps Casks/tabby.rb. Releases are cut locally rather than in CI, because CI can't sign with your certificate.
Icon and social image: ./Scripts/make-icon.swift and ./Scripts/make-og.swift redraw them from code.
Support
Tabby is free and open source. If it saves you some time:
