Better URL-Handling, Smarter App Discovery, and a More Refined Experience

I’ve just released a new update for Start, bringing a collection of practical enhancements designed to make everyday workflows faster, more flexible, and more intuitive. While this release includes many improvements across the app, two additions stand out in particular: ...

Version 9.1 is all about performance and bug fixes. In addition to numerous smaller adjustments, the speed of the internal Spotlight query has been significantly optimized.

With version 9.0, Start receives a fundamental overhaul that significantly improves both appearance and user-friendliness. The update brings a completely new UI design in macOS style, expanded organisation possibilities and numerous improvements that make usage even more efficient.

Over the years, Start has developed into an exceptionally powerful and comprehensive tool. To better explain the numerous features of Start, the help documentation was completely revised with version 8.5 and is now available as an extensive PDF document directly within the application as well as in the 'Help' section on the website.

Improved ...

Start introduces a new command for the Shortcuts app: "Add to Start". With this command, you can add entries directly from the Shortcuts app to Start. For example, this allows you to automatically add the current web page from Safari or the current file in Finder to Start. More infos about "Add to Start" can be ...

Improved stability and bug fixes

• Previously, Start could crash when creating file thumbnails if the necessary permissions were missing.
• In rare instances, Start might not capture Spotlight data correctly.
• The input field for hotkeys was not always displayed correctly in Dark Mode.

New

You can ...

New

The configuration dialog has been completely revised to provide you with an even better user experience:

• New Sidebar: The new sidebar on the left side of the configuration dialog allows you easy and intuitive navigation. It resembles the sidebar of the main window and gives you direct access ...

The new update includes comprehensive optimizations and exciting new features:

New category "Recent Files":
You can now quickly and easily access recently opened files with Start. You can specify in settings where to search for these files.

Read ...

This update has optimized folder management and expanded it with a new feature:

Navigation to the contents of your favorite folders.

When you add folders to Start, you can open them in Finder - or show the contents of the folder directly in Start. The right part of the main window thus becomes a compact browser for ...

In the latest update, we have made optimizations and adjustments:

• The file extension for file entries is now hidden by default, but can be displayed again by pressing the option key.
• In the path display, a shortening is now done in the middle, instead of at the end, when it cannot be fully displayed.
• The issue where ...

New Features

Start now incorporates its own commands into the Shortcuts app (macOS 13 and later). These include:

• ShowStart: Opens the main window at a defined position on the screen
• AddToDropStack: Adds files and directories to Start's DropStack
• ClearDropStack: Empties the content of the DropStack
• LaunchTag: ...

New version, more power!

We have listened and worked hard to improve Start. The latest update not only enhances stability but also fixes numerous issues. We sincerely thank you for your valuable feedback!

What's new? Here are a few highlights:

• Quickly create tags directly in the main window. With just ...

• New: Start now supports favicons for URLs.
• New: The generation of thumbnails as well as favicons can optionally be disabled.
• New: The cache for thumbnails and favicons is now stored locally.
• New: Start now supports more file types for thumbnail creation.
• New: Individual thumbnails or favicons can be updated ...

Start v7.0 offers many new and revised features:

DropStack

Start now offers a DropStack for files and folders. Simply drag files and folders with the mouse into the upper free area. As soon as there are entries in the DropStack, they will ...

The new update improves the stability and performance of Start.

Improvements

• In rare cases, Start could crash when macOS woke up from standby.
• Tag autocompletion was not case-sensitive, which caused problems for tags with similar names.
• When a new drive is detected, the dataset is only updated if there are ...

New features

The settings have been revised and now offer a dedicated "Appearance" section with more options to customize Start to your own preferences:

• The width of the main window can be adjusted.
• The height of the ...

New features

More colors

Self-defined colors can now be used in addition to the predefined colors for tags and entries. Make your colors even more flexible than before!

More tag icons

For Start 5.7 and 5.7.1, numerous code optimizations and internal adjustments were made. The primary focus was on stability and bug fixes.

Bug fixes and other adjustments

• In light mode, the search text for entries in the main window was not always underlined in the correct color.
• The recording of recently used applications ...

New features

• In Start it has always been very easy to call various URLs. Especially the use of URL schemes are a powerful, but sometimes hard to remember tool. For this reason you can now save URL templates in Start's preferences and simply paste them into the URL dialog. Using similar URLs in Start is now much easier.
• The ...

With start v5.5, mainly internal processes have been optimized and minor bugs have been fixed.

Bug fixes and other adjustments

• During the internal processing of URL's which contain a placeholder a small error had crept in.
• Newly created tags for manually added applications were not correctly evaluated and displayed.
• The ...

New features

• Support for shortcuts from the shortcuts-app. You can use the "Import shortcuts from shortcuts app" menu item to automatically import existing shortcuts into start. Imported shortcuts are then in the new category "Shortcuts" and can be tagged, colored, hotkeys, etc. afterwards.
• The behavior ...

This version is a small update to optimize Start for the new macOS Monterey.

Bug fixes

• Adjustments for macOS 12.
• The hotkey display is now center-aligned.
• In rare cases, the change of a file path was not recognized correctly.
• When the main window is displayed in the center of the screen, it is correctly ...

New functions

• You can now drag'n'drop files and directories onto the menu bar icon or the top of the main window and then pass them to an application.
• URLs from Safari can now be added using drag'n'drop.
• Files and directories can now be added directly to a tag using drag'n'drop from the Finder.
• The current ...

With start v5.1 mainly internal processes have been optimized and minor bugs have been fixed. Since start normally runs constantly in the background, memory consumption is very important. For this reason, special effort was put into optimizing memory consumption in this update. Start was already very modest in terms of the system resources used, ...

New functions

• You can now optionally switch tags and categories without a mouse click while the mouse is over them.
• The use of hotkeys has been extended. You can now assign hotkeys to single tags. In fact, you can assign two hotkeys to a tag. The first hotkey opens the main window and then switches to the corresponding tag. ...

New functions

• Enhancement of the drag'n'drop functionality in the main window: Individual entries can now simply be dragged onto an existing tag so that the tag is assigned to these entries.
• The configuration dialog has been revised and divided into three areas. Besides a better structure, there is now space for future options.
• In ...

A few days ago Apple released Big Sur. During the beta of Big Sur we already looked if and where there might be problems with Start. First the good news: apart from the strange fact that the menu icon is not visible in the main window (but still works) no problems have arisen and Start also runs under Big Sur.

You might ask yourself: "ok, ...

The next major update of Start is nearing completion! Start v4 will contain many new and great features. Here is a little preview:

• The context menu of the main window has been visually and functionally revised. You can now use the context menu to display the currently selected entry in the Finder, customize URLs on the fly and remove ...

We now have a blog on our website. The blog is the new home for all information about Start. Product announcements, tips and tricks, general news - here you will find everything you need :-)

More URL-Schemes

start 3.2 added basic URL support. With the new version 3.3 you can now use any URL scheme besides HTTP and HTTPS URLs.

New functions

• Besides http and https URLs, any URL scheme is now supported.

Bug fixes

• Using tab to switch between textfields in the ...

• Context menu for quick customization of entries directly in the main window.

• Display of currently opened programs by a small dot next to the program entry.

• Easy and fast use of favorites: entries can be quickly added to favorites via a star button.

• Sourcecode optimized and migrated to ...

• new: The category fields in the configuration now also support copy&paste via hotkey (cmd + xcv)

• new: The search function in the configuration has been revised. Now it is possible to search for comments.

• new: Entries can now optionally be started with a simple mouse click

• bugfix: ...