appetised
Free while Flit is in beta. The whole app — no account, no email address, nothing locked.

Flit

Flit effortlessly between apps with a Windows-like desktop approach to macOS

The only taskbar for macOS with a truly seamless desktop experience. Switching from Windows, or just prefer working that way? Flit gives you one bar for every app — no more hunting through desktops and full-screen spaces.

  • Full-screen without losing your desktop
  • Windows resize so nothing hides underneath
  • One button per app, on every display

Version 0.1 · 1.2 MB · universal · macOS 14 or later. Free for the whole beta; when it ends you will be told in the app, and it becomes a one-off £15.

Features

A taskbar that behaves like one.

Every running app along the bottom edge, plus the ones you pinned in your Dock.

🖥️Full-screen, without the Space

Send an app full-screen and macOS moves it to a Space of its own. Flit takes the window back out and maximises it instead. Same screen filled, everything else still one click away.

👁️Never disappears

Stays on screen over native full-screen apps, where every other taskbar hides. Notifications still draw above it, so nothing important gets covered.

🪟One button per app

Click to launch or switch. Click the app you are already in to go back to the previous one. Running and frontmost indicators, window-count pips and Dock badges.

📐Nothing hides behind it

Resizes your windows so none sit underneath the bar. macOS will not let an app reserve screen space — not even uBar — so the bar does it itself, window by window.

🔍Search from the bar

Type to find any installed app and launch it. Grant Screen Recording as well and the same box searches your open windows by title — jump to a document, not the app it lives in.

⌨️Keyboard first

⌥1–9 switches between the first nine apps on the bar, ⌥⌘B hides or shows it, ⌥⌘D clears the desktop. No trackpad involved.

🖵A bar for every screen

A bar on each display, showing either the apps on that screen or all of them — whichever you prefer. Plug and unplug freely.

👀Hover for previews

Hover any app on the bar to see a preview of the windows it has open, including when there are several — then click straight through to the one you meant. Needs Screen Recording, like window search.

Already set up

Picks up your pinned apps from the Dock on first run, so there is nothing to configure. After that it keeps its own list — drag to reorder, pin, unpin.

Make it yours

It does not have to look like ours.

A bar sits across the bottom of your screen all day, so it gets to look the way you want. Style, size, colour, opacity, which edge it clings to, and what sits on it — all of it is in Settings, and none of it needs a restart.

Style
Solid, translucent or gradient.
Colour
Your own tint and accent colour, as hex. The accent is what marks the app you are in.
Opacity
Anywhere from 50% to fully opaque.
Size
Small, medium or large. Buttons, icons and text all scale together.
Position
Bottom or top edge, and floating off the edge if you prefer.
Buttons
Show or hide the apps launcher, the search box, Show Desktop, Finder and the Trash.
Grouping
One button per app, one per window, or automatic once an app has more than one.
Order
Drag to rearrange. Pin and unpin apps, and reorder the fixed buttons too.
Displays
Each bar shows the apps on its own screen, or every bar shows everything.
Spaces
Show only the apps on the desktop you are looking at, or all of them.
Dock
Hide the Dock behind the bar while it runs, or leave your Dock alone entirely.
Elsewhere
Tooltips, the menu-bar icon, and whether it opens at login.
Leaves no trace
One click puts every system setting back the way it was and removes the app.

Installing

Three steps, then it is running.

It is a normal disk image. Nothing is installed system-wide and nothing runs before you open it.

Version
0.1 · build 2026-08-23 · 84d597
Size
1.2 MB
Architecture
Universal — native on Apple Silicon and Intel
Requires
macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
Licence
Checked on your Mac. No account, no network.
01

Open the disk image

Double-click the downloaded .dmg. A window opens with the app and a shortcut to Applications.

02

Drag it to Applications

Keep it there. macOS ties permissions to where an app lives, so moving it later means granting them again.

03

Open it

The bar appears along the bottom of every display, already populated from your Dock. There is nothing to configure first.

macOS will refuse to open it the first time. This build is not yet notarised by Apple, so Gatekeeper blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway. Notarisation is in progress and this step will disappear once it is done — being told about it beforehand beats hitting it unexplained.

Permissions

Two, and only one is required.

macOS will prompt for these on first launch. Both are granted by you in System Settings and can be revoked there at any time.

Accessibility Required

Lets the bar bring a window forward when you click its button, and move windows clear of itself. macOS has no other way for one app to control another app's windows.

Without it: clicking a taskbar button cannot switch apps, so the bar does not do its job.

Screen Recording Optional

Used only to read window titles and draw hover previews. Nothing is recorded and nothing is sent anywhere — macOS simply offers no narrower permission for reading a window's title.

Without it: everything else works normally. You lose previews and searching windows by title.

Pricing

Free in beta. £15 once, after.

Nothing to pay while Flit is in beta. When the beta ends it becomes a single £15 payment for three Macs, and your licence is valid forever, whether you renew or not.

Price
Free during the beta. £15 once afterwards, for three Macs.
Trial
21 days, the full app, nothing locked. No account and no email address.
Licence
Verified on your own Mac. Never sent anywhere, and it works offline forever.
Updates
At least twelve months included. Your licence is valid forever — the build you have keeps working after that.
Refunds
14 days, no questions asked. Refund policy.
Payment
Nothing to pay yet. When the beta ends, payment is handled by Paddle, who deal with VAT and appear on your statement.

Updates

New versions come from this page.

Free for at least a year, and the app never stops working after that.

How updates arrive
You download the new build from this page. There is no auto-updater yet.
What they cost
At least twelve months of updates are included, and your licence is valid forever.
What it sends
Nothing. Flit makes no network requests at all — it cannot even check for its own updates.
Older versions
Not kept. This page always serves the current build.

Removing it

One button, and your Mac is as it was.

Worth knowing before you install rather than after. Flit changes Dock and trackpad settings while it runs, and it backs every one of them up first.

Undo everything
Settings has an Undo everything and quit button. Dock size, position, auto-hide and gestures all go back exactly as they were.
Login item
Removed at the same time, so nothing starts at your next login.
The app itself
Shown in Finder so you can drag it to the Trash.
If it crashes
A repair job restores your Dock at the next login, so a crash cannot leave your Mac changed.
Your licence
Kept. Reinstalling later costs you nothing.

FAQ

The questions people actually ask.

If yours is not here, ask it and it probably will be.

Is there a Windows-style taskbar for macOS?

Yes — Flit is one. It puts a full-width bar along the bottom edge of every display with a button for each running app, plus the ones you pinned in your Dock, exactly the way the Windows taskbar does. Unlike the Dock, and unlike other Mac taskbars, it stays visible when an app goes full-screen.

How do I keep a taskbar visible in full-screen on a Mac?

You cannot with the Dock — macOS gives a full-screen app the whole display and hides everything else behind a swipe. Flit works around it by running as a floating panel that joins every Space and sits above full-screen windows, while still letting notification banners draw on top. It is the reason this app exists.

Does it replace the Dock?

It can. Move your pinned apps into the taskbar and the Dock is shrunk and auto-hidden behind it, so you never see it. Or leave the Dock alone and run both. Either way your original Dock settings are backed up before anything changes and restored when you quit.

Will a macOS update break it?

Possibly, and it is fair to say so. Reading which desktop a window is on needs Apple interfaces that are not publicly documented — every app in this category uses them. If one changes, it gets fixed in an update.