CodeLauncher

A lightweight macOS menu bar app that lets you instantly open recent VSCode (or Cursor) projects from anywhere with a global hotkey.

Features

• Global hotkey — Press ⌘⇧S from any app to bring up the launcher panel
• Fuzzy search — Type to filter projects by name or path
• Keyboard navigation — ↑↓ to move, ↵ to open, ⇧↵ to reveal in Finder, esc to dismiss
• Quick open — ⌘1 – ⌘5 to open the first 5 projects directly
• Frosted glass UI — Native macOS panel with vibrancy effect
• Cursor support — Automatically detects VSCode or Cursor, whichever is installed
• Launch at login — Optional, configurable in Settings
• Custom hotkey — Rebind the global shortcut in Settings

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• VSCode or Cursor installed

Installation

Download the latest DMG from Releases, open it, and drag CodeLauncher to your Applications folder.

First launch: macOS may block the app because it is not notarized. Right-click (or Control-click) the app icon and choose Open, then click Open in the dialog. You only need to do this once.

Alternatively, remove the quarantine attribute from Terminal:

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

On first launch, grant Accessibility permission when prompted — this is required for the global hotkey to work system-wide.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/WtXeLd/CodeLauncher.git
cd CodeLauncher
swift build
swift run

To build a release DMG:

make package VERSION=1.0.0

How it works

CodeLauncher reads VSCode's recent projects from its SQLite state database at:

~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

No background polling or file watching — the list is refreshed each time you open the panel.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate list
↵	Open in VSCode
⇧↵	Reveal in Finder
⌘1 – ⌘5	Open project at position 1–5
esc	Dismiss panel

License

MIT