Pullcord

Pullcord

The most powerful things macOS can do are often the hardest to reach — Pullcord puts them at your fingertips.

Download for macOS or
$brew install --cask grokcodile/tap/pullcord

macOS 26 · Apple Silicon · 415 KB download · signed & notarized · free, no account, no subscription

The Pullcord settings window: twelve tools grouped into Spotlight Panels, System Utilities and Text Tools, each with its keyboard shortcut The Pullcord settings window: twelve tools grouped into Spotlight Panels, System Utilities and Text Tools, each with its keyboard shortcut
One window, twelve keys. Every shortcut is yours to change.

Twelve tools

Each one is a shortcut onto something macOS already does — the Spotlight panels, then the system utilities, then the text tools. The chord on each card is the default; every one is yours to change.

Apps

Spotlight's app grid

⌃⌥⌘ .

Files

Search docs and folders only

⌃⌥⌘ /

Actions

Search and run any of your Shortcuts

⌃⌥⌘ \

Clipboard

View and search clipboard history

⌃⌥⌘ V

System Settings

Open Settings, press again to go back

⌃⌥⌘ ,

Keep Awake

Stop your Mac going to sleep

⌃⌥⌘ K

Color Picker

Sample any pixel and copy it as code

⌃⌥⌘ P

Color History

Every color you've picked, ready to reuse

⌃⌥⌘ H

Capture Text

Copy the text out of anything on screen

⌃⌥⌘ O

Rewrite Text

Clean up, restyle, shorten or translate

tap ⌃ twice

Dictate Text

Hold a key and talk, let go and it stops

hold Right ⌥

Speak Text

Have your selection read aloud

macOS's own

Already paid for

macOS ships the hard part and leaves out the key. That gap is a whole category of paid utilities — apps that bundle their own engine, or their own subscription, to sell you a keystroke.

Pullcord uses
Instead of
IOKit power assertions — the same thing caffeinate uses
Amphetamine, Caffeine, KeepingYouAwake
Vision on-device OCR
TextSniper
NSColorSampler — the system loupe
Sip, ColorSlurp
Apple Intelligence on-device
Grammarly and friends
macOS Dictation, on-device
Wispr Flow, superwhisper
Spotlight's own panels
Alfred, Raycast, LaunchBar, Paste

How it's built

One file

A single main.swift, no dependencies, compiled with swiftc. Twelve tools in a 415 KB download, 660 KB installed.

Nothing leaves

OCR, dictation and rewriting all run on your Mac. No account, no API key, no telemetry.

Built to shrink

Each tool covers a gap macOS misses by a hair. When a release closes one, the tool comes out.

Asks only when needed

Accessibility for the tools that synthesize keystrokes, Screen Recording for Capture Text, Apple Intelligence for Rewrite Text — each requested the first time you use it, and never before.