Tinycast is a native macOS launcher — a keyboard-driven command palette that searches apps and files, keeps clipboard history, converts currencies and snaps windows, all behind a single global hotkey. It is written in Swift with SwiftUI and AppKit, ships with zero third-party dependencies, and its headline claim is that the whole thing runs under 100 MB of RAM. It is aimed at Mac users who work from the keyboard and have noticed their launcher sitting near the top of Activity Monitor all day, and — because the source is public under AGPL-3.0 — at Swift developers who would rather read a launcher than trust an opaque binary.
What it does
Tinycast puts one palette in front of the things you reach for repeatedly during a working day:
- A global hotkey opens the palette from anywhere, over any app.
- Search runs across installed applications, files, and your full clipboard history.
- Currency conversions happen live in the search bar.
- Windows snap into halves, thirds or quarters on command.
- Real Raycast extensions run inside it, rendered as native SwiftUI rather than a web view.
That last point is the unusual one. Rather than asking an ecosystem to migrate, Tinycast executes extensions written for Raycast and draws them with native controls, so an existing extension library carries over instead of being abandoned.
How it works
The architecture is the pitch. Tinycast is built on SwiftUI and AppKit with no third-party dependencies at all — no Electron runtime, no bundled browser engine, and, per the project, no telemetry. The README states Swift 6.0 and macOS 15 or later, and a GitHub Actions CI workflow builds the project on main.
The 100 MB figure is the project's own target, not a third-party benchmark, and no measured comparison against other launchers appears in the materials. Treat it as a design goal rather than a published result. What can be checked from the repository is what makes such a goal plausible: a dependency list of zero and a UI stack already resident in the operating system, so there is no second runtime to load before the palette draws its first row.
Raycast extension support is described as rendering those extensions as native SwiftUI. The README does not spell out how much of the extension API is covered, so if you depend on a specific extension, try it rather than assume.
Getting started
Tinycast publishes tagged releases and the README links straight to the latest one — the shortest path to a running copy. You need macOS 15 or newer; there is no Windows or Linux build, and by design there never will be. Building from source requires a Swift 6 toolchain.
The project runs a Discord server for questions, and the author lists an email address for anything private. It is free and, according to the README, staying that way; there is a one-off tip link through Polar because GitHub Sponsors is not available in the author's country. The license is AGPL-3.0, which matters mostly if you plan to fork it into something you distribute or host.
When to use it / when not
Reach for Tinycast if you are on macOS 15 or later, you use a launcher constantly, and memory footprint or the absence of telemetry is something you actually care about. If you already rely on Raycast extensions, the compatibility story makes switching cheaper than usual.
Skip it if you are not on a recent Mac, if you need a cross-platform tool, or if your workflow leans on commercial launcher features that are not claimed here — the README describes a launcher, a hotkey layer, clipboard history, window snapping and a currency converter, and nothing beyond that. And it is young: the repository was created in mid-2026 and pushed as recently as September 2026, so its 5,226 stars and 242 forks signal interest more than settled maturity.
Alternatives
The comparison the project makes itself is against Electron-based launchers, which it characterizes as memory-hungry. Raycast is the obvious point of reference, since Tinycast explicitly runs its extensions — the trade is a commercial, closed product with a large ecosystem versus a free, open, native one that borrows part of that ecosystem. No other named alternative appears in the materials, so the sensible evaluation is to run Tinycast alongside whatever you use now and watch both the memory graph and whether your extensions come along.
If you keep a launcher open on a Mac all day and have ever resented how much memory it costs, Tinycast deserves a trial: free, native, dependency-free, and it removes the migration tax by running the extensions you already have. Swift developers get a second reason — a real, non-trivial SwiftUI and AppKit application with no dependency thicket to read through. The caution is its age: a fast-moving young project with a single visible maintainer, so treat it as a promising daily driver you can inspect, not as infrastructure you would bet a team's workflow on without a trial period.