One App, 5 Creative Tools
Millisecond Deep Search, Encrypted OCR Clipboard, Lid-Closed KeepAwake, DriveAlive & KeyLock.
OpenFind frees you from multi-app lag: Zero-latency search inside ZIPs and PDFs, Instant text extraction from screenshot clipboards with AES encryption, Keep servers and builds running with lid closed, and Prevent external SSD/NAS disconnects.
π Download OpenFind v1.1.3 (macOS Universal) Β· v1.1.3 Release Notes
| Minimum-window search | Unified interface size |
|---|---|
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This isn't just a simple replacement or bloated utility bundle. OpenFind unifies 5 creative tools into a single micro-native process, so five always-on utilities stop each holding their own resident memory. Measured, not promised β one process at ~274 MB after 21 hours of uptime with live search indexes:
To get a decent workflow on macOS, developers usually end up installing:
- Spotlight Alternatives / Search tools: Heavy, slow indexing that burns CPU cycles.
- Clipboard Managers: Unencrypted clipboard history tools that accidentally leak passwords.
- Keep-Awake Utilities (Caffeine/Amphetamine): Basic menu bar toggles without smart automation or clamshell support.
- Drive Keep-Alive Utilities: Separate scripts to stop external drives from spinning down.
- Keyboard Cleaner Tools: Single-function utility apps just to wipe off keycaps.
OpenFind combines all 5 essential power-tools into a single, unified, privacy-first native macOS application that consumes minimal system RAM and CPU.
| Scenario / Feature | 5 Separate Apps (Spotlight + Paste + Amphetamine + etc.) | OpenFind Way π |
|---|---|---|
| System Resource Impact | π₯΅ 5 background processes, each holding its own resident memory and battery drain. | π One lightweight native engine with mmap binary index β ~274 MB measured after 21 h uptime. |
| File & Content Search | β±οΈ 5~10s disk scans; no regex, no deep search in ZIPs. | β‘ Instant millisecond search across code, PDFs, Office & inside ZIPs without extracting. |
| Clipboard History | π Plaintext storage, security risk for API keys. | π Encrypted SQLite storage, Vision OCR text recognition, Paste Stack & auto-privacy masking. |
| Sleep Prevention | β Manual toggles; breaks when you close the MacBook lid. | β Smart Keep-Awake, Clamshell (Lid-Closed) Mode, and condition-based automation (App/Download). |
| External Drive Health | π Hard drives sleep, disconnect, or freeze Finder. | πΎ DriveAlive Heartbeat: Prevents external SSDs/HDDs/NAS from spinning down or disconnecting. |
| Keyboard Maintenance | π§Ό Download another 3rd-party app to lock keyboard. | π Instant Keyboard Lock via shortcut to clean keycaps or block pet accidents. |
- Instant
mmapIndexing: Loads millions of file paths in microseconds without heap memory overhead. - Real-time FSEvents Sync: Instantly indexes terminal changes (
git pull,touch) as they happen. - Deep Space Extraction: Search inside PDFs, Word/Excel, Apple iWork, and stream inside
.zip/.tar.gzcompressed archives without disk extraction. - Regex, Globs & Quick Look: Complete support for
src/**/*.swift,regex:^Report-[0-9]+$, and instantSpacekey Quick Look preview.
- Encrypted Storage: AES-GCM encryption. Apple-signed builds keep the key in the macOS Keychain; the self-signed local/customer build uses a user-only (
0600) key file so updates do not repeatedly prompt for credentials. Clipboard payloads never enter logs. - Vision Framework OCR: Copy any screenshot or image, and OpenFind automatically extracts and lets you search text inside images.
- Sequential Paste Stack: Copy 10 items in order, then paste them sequentially with a single shortcut.
- Snippet Expansion & Auto-Privacy: Pin frequent snippets and automatically ignore 1Password, Keychain, and sensitive app data.
- Immediate Two-Column Preview: Clipboard history opens with the list and selected-item preview side by side; your resized window frame is remembered.
- Sleep Prevention: Keep your Mac display or system awake for custom durations or indefinitely.
- Clamshell Mode: Keep your MacBook running complex scripts or servers even when the lid is closed. Toggling it runs
pmset disablesleep, so macOS asks for an administrator password. - Automated Condition Triggers: Activate keep-awake automatically on 14 condition types β running apps, active downloads, CPU load, Wi-Fi/VPN network, connected displays, USB/Bluetooth devices, schedules, and more.
- Low-Battery Guard: Automatically restores normal sleep rules when battery drops below safety thresholds.
- Amphetamine-Compatible AppleScript: OpenFind implements Amphetamine's AppleScript command set, so your existing keep-awake automation scripts keep working (no affiliation with Amphetamine).
- Prevents Disconnections: Keeps external HDDs, SSDs, and NAS volumes active using background micro-heartbeats.
- No Finder Freezes: Eliminates the 5-second spin-up lag when accessing external storage.
- One-Click Cleaning: Instantly lock all keyboard inputs with a customizable hotkey to safely wipe your MacBook keyboard or protect against accidental pet typing.
- Secure Input Awareness: Detects macOS secure-input sessions and avoids claiming a lock when the system cannot deliver keyboard events to the app.
Prerequisites: macOS 14.0+ (Sonoma or later) Β· Apple Silicon or Intel Mac Β· Swift 6.0 / Xcode 16+ (for source build)
# 1. Clone & Navigate
git clone https://github.com/GravityPoet/OpenFind.git && cd OpenFind
# 2. Build with macOS 14+ SDK
xcrun --sdk macosx swift build
# 3. Perform an instant search for code containing "OpenFind"
xcrun --sdk macosx swift run OpenFind --search "ext:swift content:OpenFind"brew install --cask GravityPoet/tap/openfind- Download
OpenFind.zipandOpenFind.zip.sha256from the latest GitHub Release. - Put both files in the same folder and verify the download:
shasum -a 256 -c OpenFind.zip.sha256- Double-click the ZIP, move
OpenFind.appto Applications, then open it from Finder β Applications. - If macOS blocks that first launch, close the alert and open System Settings β Privacy & Security. In the Security section, click Open Anyway next to OpenFind, then confirm Open.
Open Anyway appears only after one blocked launch attempt and is normally needed once. If it is missing, try opening OpenFind once from Applications, then return to Privacy & Security.
To build from source instead, clone the repository and run
bash Scripts/build_customer_app.sh; maintainers can install atomically with
bash Scripts/install_local_app.sh.
# --- SEARCH SYNTAX ---
*.pdf briefing # PDF files containing briefing in name
type:code openfind # Source code files containing openfind
regex:^Report-[0-9]+$ # Match names using regex
content:"API_SECRET" # Deep text search in files, PDFs & Zipped sources
in:/Users/me/Projects # Search recursively inside specific directory
tag:Project;Important # Finder tag filtering
size:>10mb dm:today # Filter by size and modified (dm:) / created (dc:) date
report AND NOT draft # Boolean operators: AND / OR / NOT
# --- SHORTCUT CHEAT SHEET ---
ββ₯F # Toggle OpenFind Search Bar
Space (on result) # Native Quick Look preview
OpenFind is built using Swift 6 & SwiftUI with strict privacy guarantees:
- 100% Local Execution: No telemetry, no cloud analytics. The only network traffic is the Sparkle update check against GitHub Releases, and you can disable it.
- Unidirectional State Architecture: Clean separation between
Views -> State -> Engine -> Models. - Process-Isolated Extraction: Decompression and text extraction for untrusted archives run in isolated helper processes with output and time limits.
The official v1.1.3 customer artifact is a universal (arm64 + x86_64) build
signed by OpenFind's pinned customer certificate. It is not Apple-notarized;
the one-time first-launch override above is expected.
# Pinned customer release build
bash Scripts/build_customer_app.sh
# Optional Developer ID signed and notarized build for maintainers
SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" \
NOTARIZE=1 \
NOTARY_PROFILE="openfind-notary" \
bash Scripts/build_app.shOpenFind Community Edition is open source under the AGPL-3.0 License.
- Open Source Free Use: Any individual or enterprise may use and distribute OpenFind for free in accordance with AGPL-3.0 license terms.
- Commercial Dual-License: If you or your organization need closed-source integration, exemption from AGPL-3.0 copyleft obligations, or proprietary redistribution rights, please contact us for a Commercial License. See COMMERCIAL_LICENSE.md for details.
- Contributor Agreement (CLA): External contributions are covered by our CLA to maintain dual-licensing clean rights. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
- Trademarks: See TRADEMARKS.md.