Install, update and uninstall Lightspot

Requirements

• macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• An internet connection for the installer, which downloads the latest release from GitHub.
• No administrator password: the installer does not use sudo.

Install

Open Terminal and run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhoangnc/mac-lightspot/main/install.sh | bash

Lightspot installs into /Applications when your account can write there, and into ~/Applications otherwise. To always use ~/Applications, add -s -- --user:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhoangnc/mac-lightspot/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --user

A successful install prints:

==========================================
  Lightspot Installer
==========================================
Target directory: /Applications
[1/3] Downloading latest release of Lightspot...
--> Downloaded Lightspot.zip from GitHub Release.
[2/3] Installing to /Applications/Lightspot.app...
🛑 Stopping existing Lightspot process...
🔏 Setting permissions and codesigning...
[3/3] Launching Lightspot...
==========================================
✅ Installation complete!
📍 Location: /Applications/Lightspot.app
⌨️ Hotkey: ⌘Space (Command + Space)

Lightspot then starts, a magnifying glass appears in the menu bar, and ⌘Space opens the search bar once Apple Spotlight no longer holds that shortcut (see first launch).

What the installer does

1. Checks that it runs on macOS and picks the target folder.
2. Downloads Lightspot.zip from the latest GitHub release into a temporary folder and unzips it. (Run from a clone of the repository instead, it builds the app from source with build.sh.)
3. Quits any running Lightspot, waits up to three seconds, and force-quits it if it is still running. If it is not allowed to stop it, it says so; the new copy then asks the old one to quit.
4. Replaces Lightspot.app in the target folder with the new copy.
5. Removes the com.apple.quarantine attribute and signs the app locally (codesign --sign -), so macOS opens it without a Gatekeeper warning. Lightspot is not notarized by Apple.
6. Opens the new Lightspot and deletes the temporary folder.

The script is short and readable: install.sh on GitHub. It sends nothing anywhere except the download request to GitHub.

First launch

On its very first start Lightspot does two things:

1. It turns on Launch at Login, so it is there after a restart. You can turn this off in the menu bar menu.
2. It offers to switch off Apple Spotlight, so ⌘Space opens Lightspot instead:

• Disable Everything turns off Spotlight’s ⌘Space and ⌥⌘Space shortcuts, its background process and its file indexing. macOS asks for your password for the indexing part. A second dialog then lists what changed and anything macOS refused. Everything can be restored later; see Turning off Apple Spotlight.
• Keep Spotlight changes nothing. Spotlight keeps ⌘Space, so Lightspot tells you that ⌘Space is already taken and offers to free it; or pick ⌥Space or ⌘⇧Space for Lightspot from the menu bar icon: Shortcut.

The dialog is skipped if Spotlight is already fully off. Lightspot never shows it again; the same actions stay available in the System Spotlight menu.

Lightspot has no Dock icon and no window of its own. It lives in the menu bar, and the search bar appears on the screen where your mouse pointer is. Opening Lightspot from Finder or Launchpad while it is already running shows the search bar instead of starting a second copy.

Installing by hand

If you prefer not to pipe a script into bash:

1. Download Lightspot.zip from the releases page and unzip it.
2. Move Lightspot.app to /Applications.
3. Because the app is not notarized, remove the download quarantine before the first launch:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lightspot.app

Updates

Lightspot checks GitHub for a new release once a day: five seconds after it starts, and when you open its menu, if the last successful check was more than 24 hours ago. When the check at launch finds a newer version, a dialog titled Lightspot x.y.z is available shows the version you are running, the download size and the start of the release notes; the menu also gains an Update to x.y.z… item. The dialog offers:

• Install and Relaunch downloads Lightspot.zip from the GitHub release, checks that it contains Lightspot with the version the release names, replaces the app, removes the quarantine flag, signs it locally like the installer does, and reopens it. If the app’s folder is not writable by your account, macOS asks for Touch ID or your password. If the copy fails, the previous version is put back.
• Release Notes opens the release on GitHub.
• Skip This Version stops the reminders for that version; it stays available from Check for Updates….
• Later closes the dialog; Update to x.y.z… stays in the menu.

Choose Check for Updates… in the menu to check right away, and untick Automatically Check for Updates to turn the daily check off; nothing is sent then. The check asks the GitHub API for the latest release; its user agent names only the app and its version. Details are on the privacy page. Like the installer, the updater trusts GitHub releases of the project: Lightspot is not notarized, so there is no Apple signature to verify.

You can also update by running the install command again. Your settings, custom commands and pinned commands stay either way. About Lightspot shows the version you have, and a newer one if it is available. A copy of Lightspot 1.2.0 or later quits by itself when a different build of Lightspot starts; an older copy that the installer cannot stop has to be quit from its menu bar icon.

Building from source

Lightspot is a Swift package with no dependencies. You need the Swift 6 toolchain, from Xcode or the Command Line Tools; an Xcode project is not required.

git clone https://github.com/openhoangnc/mac-lightspot.git

cd mac-lightspot

Use build.sh rather than plain swift build: the bare binary has no app bundle and no Info.plist, so it does not run as a menu bar app. How the build and the tests work is described in How Lightspot works.

Uninstalling

Run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhoangnc/mac-lightspot/main/uninstall.sh | bash

The uninstaller:

1. Asks Lightspot to remove its Launch at Login item.
2. Quits Lightspot, forcing it after three seconds if needed.
3. Deletes Lightspot.app from /Applications and ~/Applications.
4. Deletes its settings (defaults delete com.lightspot.app and ~/Library/Preferences/com.lightspot.app.plist): custom commands, pinned commands, snippets, search history and preferences, and its folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Lightspot.
5. Turns Apple Spotlight back on where it was turned off: the ⌘Space shortcut and the Spotlight process without a password, then file indexing, which needs sudo. It asks before running sudo mdutil -a -i on, and if it cannot ask, it prints that command for you to run.

Two options, added after bash -s --:

• --dry-run prints every step without changing anything:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhoangnc/mac-lightspot/main/uninstall.sh | bash -s -- --dry-run

• --keep-spotlight-disabled leaves Apple Spotlight as it is.

Lightspot keeps no other files: clipboard history only ever lives in memory. To keep your custom commands, export your settings before uninstalling.

Version history