Windows comforts for macOS.
A lightweight menu-bar app that brings back the little habits you miss after switching from Windows — one toggle at a time.
macOS is great, but if your muscle memory comes from Windows, a few things feel wrong: closing the last window doesn't quit the app, and hovering the Dock doesn't show you window previews. WinHub adds those behaviors back as small, independent modules you turn on or off from the menu bar. No Dock icon, no clutter — it just sits in your status bar.
- Close button quits the app — closing an app's last window quits it, Windows-style. It's a graceful quit, so apps with unsaved work still prompt you. A built-in safe list (Finder, System Settings, Dock, Control Center) is never quit, and you can exclude any other app from Settings.
- Dock hover previews — hover a Dock icon to see live thumbnails of that app's windows, like the Windows taskbar. Click a thumbnail to jump straight to that window, or click its ⊗ to close that window (gracefully — unsaved work still prompts). Minimized windows are shown too, and clicking restores them.
- Snap windows to edges — drag a window to a screen edge to snap it, Aero Snap-style: left/right edge for half the screen, a corner for a quarter, top edge to maximize. A preview shows where it'll land before you let go, and dragging a snapped window away restores its original size — just like Windows. Prefer the keyboard? ⌃⌥←/→ for halves, ⌃⌥↑ to maximize, ⌃⌥↓ to restore.
- Snap icons to a grid — makes macOS's "Snap to Grid" the default everywhere, on the desktop and in Finder icon views, so files always line up to a tidy grid. On by default; folders you've individually arranged keep their own layout, and turning it off restores what you had. No permissions needed.
- Dynamic notch (off by default) — turns the MacBook notch into a Dynamic-Island-style hub. While music plays, a live activity sits beside the notch — album art on one side, a real-time audio visualizer on the other that reacts to the actual sound. Hover to expand it into a full player: artwork with an ambient glow pulled from the cover art, a scrubber, and transport controls. Drop files, links, or text onto the notch to stash them on a shelf, drag them back out anywhere, or AirDrop the lot in one click. Now-playing data comes from the bundled MediaRemoteAdapter (BSD-3), so it works on macOS 15.4+ where Apple locked down MediaRemote. The notch itself needs no permissions; the live visualizer optionally asks for system-audio access (you can turn it off to keep the smooth fallback motion).
- Starts at login and stays out of your way in the menu bar — and out of your battery's: when you're not using a tweak, WinHub's idle cost is near zero.
- Settings window (⌘,) to toggle tweaks, manage the exclusion list, and grant permissions — no Terminal required. Check for Updates… in the menu tells you when a new version is out.
More tweaks are on the roadmap — and the module system makes adding one straightforward (see CONTRIBUTING).
Download WinHub.dmg from the latest release,
open it, and drag WinHub into Applications. (Or build from
source — it's a single script.)
WinHub isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS blocks the very first launch regardless of how you installed it. Clear it once, either way:
- Right-click WinHub in Applications → Open → Open, or
- run
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/WinHub.app
After that it launches normally. A warning-free double-click would require Apple notarization (a paid Apple Developer account) — on the roadmap if there's demand.
WinHub asks only for what each module needs, and only when you enable it:
| Permission | Used by | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | Close-to-quit, window raising | Observe window close events and raise windows. |
| Screen Recording | Dock hover previews | Capture the thumbnail images of your windows. |
| System Audio Recording | Dynamic notch's live visualizer (optional) | Read the audio levels that drive the equalizer. Decline it and the bars fall back to smooth motion. |
Accessibility takes effect immediately. Screen Recording only applies on a
fresh launch — after granting it, use Relaunch WinHub from the menu. If
WinHub isn't listed under Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio
Recording, add it with the + button. The audio visualizer needs macOS 14.2+
and is the only thing that ever touches audio — WinHub records nothing; it reads
levels to animate the bars and stops the moment music does.
- macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
You only need Apple's Command Line Tools (Swift 6+) — no full Xcode required.
git clone https://github.com/v2matosevic/WinHub.git
cd WinHub
./build.sh # builds and code-signs WinHub.app
open WinHub.appIf you're iterating, set up a stable local signing identity once so your permission grants survive rebuilds:
./Scripts/dev_identity.shSee docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for how the app is structured and how to add a module.
- Alt+Tab per-window switching
- Cut & paste files in Finder (⌘X)
- Apple notarization for warning-free installs
Got an idea? Open an issue.
Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.
MIT © 2026 Version2