Lynx
A file search tool for the macOS menu bar.
Press ⌥Space and type what you remember: part of a file name, a line inside a file, or only a rough idea of what it was about.
This device is not a Mac. Send this address to your Mac.
Press ⌥Space or click the Lynx icon in the menu bar to open it again.
Try:
A mock-up in your browser, using 48 fake files. The real app searches your whole disk.
As in the app, ⌥Space closes and reopens the panel, ⌘Y previews, and ⌘⌫ deletes. ⌘Z brings it back.
What it does
- Name
- Uses an index from fsearch, written in Rust. A name search over 8 million files takes about 0.1ms. It forgives typos, and it finds the hidden files and development folders that Spotlight skips.
- Content
- Without a prefix, Lynx searches names and contents together. Add
grep:regex:orsym:to search contents only. Each result shows the matching line and its line number. - Meaning
- Runs Google's EmbeddingGemma 2 on the Mac's GPU through Apple MLX. Documents, code, photos, audio (first 30 seconds) and video (32 frames) share one space. Describe what you want, or find files similar to the one you selected (⌘⇧S).
- Filters
- Type
ext:type:in:size:ormtime:and it becomes a chip. For example:in:~/dev ext:swift mtime:7d - Preview
- ⌘Y opens Quick Look. While it is open, ↑↓ move to the next result.
- Network
- Lynx connects to Hugging Face once, when it first downloads the semantic search model. It sends nothing else. There is no account.
- Requirements
- macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon. Turning on semantic search downloads a model: 473MB for text and code, or 1.1GB for everything.
Shortcuts
| ⌥Space | Open or close the panel (can be changed in Settings) |
| ↩ / ⌘↩ | Open / Show in Finder |
| ⌘1–9 | Open the nth result |
| ⇧⇥ | All → Content → Meaning |
| ⌘C / ⌘⌥C | Copy file / Copy path |
| ⌘⌫ | Move to Trash |
| Esc | Clear the query; close the panel if it is empty |
Install
- Open Lynx.dmg and move Lynx to the Applications folder.
- Apple has not notarized Lynx. If macOS blocks it the first time, open System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway, or run this in Terminal:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lynx.app - To search protected folders, turn Lynx on under Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access. If results come back empty after an update, switch this permission off and on once. Lynx is unsigned, so macOS treats each update as a new app.
To build from source, see the README. You need Xcode, XcodeGen and Rust. Earlier versions are on the releases page.