Turn on the Space helper and PDFs, RAW photos, video and CSV open in spacebar, beside their folder1
Or paste this in Terminal
spacebarcurl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/install.sh | sh
Free and open source · Notarized · macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel
| You press Space on… | Apple’s Quick Look | spacebar |
|---|---|---|
| a folder | Its icon | The whole folder, in a sidebar |
README.md | Raw Markdown symbols | Rendered, with Mermaid and math |
| a script .py, .go, .sh | Plain text at best | Highlighted, with line numbers |
| a config .yaml, .toml, .json | Plain text at best | Highlighted; JSON as a tree. Click to fix |
a binary Info.plist | Often just an icon | Readable XML |
archive.zip | Its icon and size | Every file inside, not extracted |
| a PDF, a RAW photo, a CSV .pdf, .cr3, .csv | One file at a time | With the helper: spacebar, the folder beside it |
| Word, Excel, Keynote .docx, .xlsx, .key | One file at a time | With the helper: Apple’s preview, inside spacebar |
The app’s own preview, in your browser
Click a file, press Space · ↑ ↓ to move · esc to close Double-click a folder or ⌘↓ to open it · ⌘↑ to go up Tap a file, then space to preview it · tap a folder twice to open it Click any file in the preview’s sidebarClick the sidebar button to browse the folder Tap any file in the preview’s sidebarTap the sidebar button to browse the folder ⌘F to find · ⌥⌘F to filter the sidebar
Pick a theme
Turn on the Space helper and Space in Finder opens any file in spacebar. Apps, packages and .rtfd stay with Apple’s Quick Look. ⌘Y still opens Apple’s, and so does Space under secure input. How it works
Each is a normal window: in the Dock and ⌘Tab, resizable, full screen with the green button, and still open when you switch apps. The newest follows Finder’s arrow keys until you click into it
The whole folder, one pane Preview a folder ›
Highlighted, with line numbers. Click to fix a line Code in Quick Look ›
⌥⌘F, then a few letters, across every folder
Folder previews, on by default Obsidian vaults ›
Click a line of code, config or text and type. It saves, in the file’s own encoding. .zshrc and LaunchAgents stay read only
Find in the file, see it raw, copy all of it
Each one previewed in the same pane
Switch the filter to Contents and search the folder’s text files Search guide ›
Text, code, images and PDFs, read-only. Nothing extracted
A folder of pictures opens on a grid of thumbnails
Drag a file out of the Space window, or open it in another app
Added lines green, removed lines red
A page count, ⌘F and zoom PDFs with Space ›
Diagrams, KaTeX and code, all offline Markdown in Quick Look › Mermaid diagrams ›
Redraws as the file changes Claude Code’s plans ›
For documents and code
Orbit 2.0
Workers hold a lease, not a lock. Run orbit up.
Size, width and font, or your own CSS
Workers hold a lease, not a lock, so a job runs once even when a worker stops mid-task.
Click, type, saved
Workers hold a lease, not a lock
Click the text to editTap the text to edit
Press Enter to edit the Markdown. It saves as you type; Enter or Escape finishes.
Tick a task; it’s saved to the file
Front matter, contents, optional word count
| title | Orbit 2.0 release notes |
|---|---|
| tags | releasequeue |
Orbit is a small job queue for Postgres. Version 2.0 moves workers from locks to leases, so a stopped worker never holds a job for good.
Leases expire on their own. Retries back off exponentially, and jobs that keep failing land in a dead-letter queue.
Run the migration, then restart workers one at a time. Old and new workers can share a queue during the rollout.
lock_timeout is now lease_ttl, in seconds.
Measured in Quick Look on our test Mac
MIT licensed, source on GitHub (opens in a new tab) · Who makes it ›
spacebar 0.4
macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel
One email for big releases. No spam.
No analytics, no account. A daily update check reads only a version number
A sandboxed viewer draws each file. The Space helper never opens one
No cookies. Your email if you give it, and anonymous page and demo stats
More questions? Ask on X (opens in a new tab)
Only for the optional Space helper, so it can see Space in Finder and which file is selected. It never opens a file. Without the helper, spacebar never asks.
No. Like anything with Accessibility, the helper sees key events go by, but acts only on Space in Finder and the keys that drive spacebar’s window. Nothing you type is recorded, stored or sent.
Turn off Use spacebar for every file in Settings. To take back the permission too, remove spacebar Helper in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility.
With the optional Space helper, which needs Accessibility, any file except apps, packages and .rtfd documents. Without it: folders, Markdown, code, config, plists, archives, logs and files with no extension. macOS keeps Space for .txt, HTML, CSV, PDFs, images, most audio and video, and Office files.
It can. Turn the other one off in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Quick Look. On macOS 13 and 14: Privacy & Security › Extensions › Quick Look. See Help.
Yes, so the .dmg opens like any Mac app.
When a new version is out, an Update button shows in the preview’s toolbar; one click installs it.
curl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/install.sh | sh