Tabby
Tabby
Free keyboard navigation for Mission Control and your desktops
Mission Control shows every window at a glance, but choosing one still means reaching for the mouse. Tabby lets you do it with the keyboard, the same way you use ⌘Tab.
Download Tabby for macOSFree · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon & Intel · No installer · All releases
How it works
The way you always do: keyboard shortcut, F3, trackpad gesture or hot corner.
Move through your windows, most recent first. ⇧Tab goes back. The selected window lifts slightly so you always know where you are.
Mission Control closes and that exact window comes to the front, even when several windows belong to the same app.
⌘1…⌘9 sends the selected window to that desktop, creating it if it doesn't exist yet. Mission Control stays open, so you can keep sorting.
Tabby doesn't replace Mission Control: it works on top of the native one. Outside it, ⌘Tab shows your windows one by one, like Windows does, and ⌘Q closes just the selected one. You can turn that off in Settings.
Features
Tab, ⇧Tab and Return inside Mission Control, most recent window first.
Focuses the window you picked, even when several windows belong to the same app.
The selected window lifts with a soft spring and settles back when you move on.
⌘1…⌘9 moves the selected window to that desktop, creating it if it doesn't exist yet.
Tabby's app switcher lists windows, not apps. Hold ⌘, press Tab, release to switch. ⌘Q closes just the selected window.
Change every shortcut in Settings.
Shortcut, F3, trackpad gesture or hot corner: Tabby doesn't depend on any of them.
Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit. A menu bar app that stays out of your way.
No analytics, no accounts. It only listens to the keyboard while Mission Control is open.
First time: let macOS open it
Tabby is free and isn't notarized by Apple, which requires a paid developer account. So the first time you open it, macOS says it couldn't verify the app. Tabby is safe, and this takes 20 seconds, once:
- Download the zip and open it to unzip Tabby.app.
- Drag Tabby.app to your Applications folder, then open it.
- macOS says it couldn't verify Tabby: click Done. Don't move it to the Trash.
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security and click Open Anyway.
- macOS asks again: click Open Anyway.
- Enter your password or use Touch ID. On a Mac with Touch ID, rest your finger on the sensor even if you see no dialog: the request can wait silently, especially with an external display.
- If Tabby's icon doesn't appear in the menu bar after a few seconds, the copy you opened before approving stayed frozen: open Activity Monitor, select Tabby, click ⓧ → Force Quit, and open Tabby again. Your approval is already saved.
- A short welcome tour guides you through the Accessibility permission and a first try.
Troubleshooting
▸macOS says it couldn't verify Tabby.
Expected: Tabby isn't notarized by Apple. Click Done and follow the first-run steps above.
▸I clicked Open Anyway and nothing happens. Activity Monitor shows Tabby at 0 % CPU.
macOS is waiting for your approval and the request can be silent: on a Mac with Touch ID, rest your finger on the sensor; with an external display, look at the other screen. If it stays stuck, force quit Tabby in Activity Monitor and open it again; your approval is already saved (Terminal: pkill -9 Tabby; open ~/Downloads/Tabby.app). If it still won't start, the Gatekeeper service got stuck: run sudo killall syspolicyd, then open Tabby again.
▸Double-clicking Tabby does nothing.
A frozen copy is catching every click. Force quit it and open Tabby again.
▸There's no Open Anyway button.
It's only there for about an hour after macOS blocks Tabby. Open Tabby again so macOS blocks it, then go back to Privacy & Security.
▸Tabby is in the menu bar, but nothing happens in Mission Control.
Tabby needs the Accessibility permission. Settings → General shows whether it's granted; grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. If Tabby is listed there and still doesn't work, turn its switch off and on again. Diagnostics… in the menu shows what Tabby sees.
▸⌘Tab still shows the standard app switcher.
Check that Settings → General → ⌘Tab shows windows, not apps is on, that Tabby is enabled and has Accessibility. Inside Mission Control, ⌘Tab stays native on purpose. In password fields macOS blocks every keyboard tool, Tabby included.
▸The selected window doesn't lift, or ⌘Tab shows icons instead of thumbnails.
Both need the optional Screen Recording permission: Settings → General → Allow Screen Recording. Without it, Tabby works with a plain highlight and app icons.
▸Launch at login is greyed out.
Tabby is running from Downloads or another folder. Use Settings → General → Move to Applications, or drag Tabby.app to Applications with the Finder and open it again.
▸⌘1…⌘9 says the window is on all desktops.
That app is assigned to every desktop in macOS: right-click its Dock icon → Options → Assign To → None.
▸Tabby asked to be approved again after an update.
Every download goes through Gatekeeper once; your permissions are kept. On a Mac that never shows the approval prompt, skip Gatekeeper for the new copy before opening it: find ~/Downloads/Tabby.app -print0 | xargs -0 xattr -d com.apple.quarantine.
▸How do I report a problem?
Diagnostics… in the menu → Copy Report → paste it in a new issue on GitHub. The report has no window titles, keystrokes or personal data.
Privacy
macOS requires Accessibility permission for apps that detect Mission Control, read window information and focus windows of other apps. Tabby uses it for exactly that:
- It only listens to the keyboard while Mission Control is open, plus ⌘Tab while the window switcher is on. It never records or sends what you type.
- No analytics and no accounts. Its only network request is the optional check for new versions on GitHub, and you can turn it off in Settings.
- Screen Recording is optional and only powers the lift effect; the images stay in memory and are dropped when Mission Control closes.
- Diagnostics… in the menu shows exactly which permissions Tabby has, and its report has no personal data.
Support Tabby
Tabby is free for everyone, made with ❤️ in Argentina 🇦🇷. If it saves you time every day, you can buy me a coffee: every contribution helps add features and keep Tabby up to date with each new macOS.
cristiandjr.mp TFUMsNxJGjum96MKHLfwabf8MTxpVuZLBx Send only USDT on the Tron (TRC20) network to that address. Starring the GitHub repo and sharing Tabby with a friend helps a lot too.
License Changelog Report a problem
© 2026 cristiandjr. All rights reserved. Tabby is free to download and use, for personal and commercial purposes. Its source code is not public, and the Tabby name, logo and icon belong to their author.
Made with ❤️ in Argentina 🇦🇷