A native macOS menu bar app for cascading folder navigation. Click a folder to peek inside, hover deeper, click a file to open it — without ever leaving the keyboard or losing your place.
- Cascading peeks. Hover any folder to open a peek window beside it. Hover deeper for another. Placement adapts near screen edges so the cascade clamps or flips intelligently instead of running off the screen.
- Inline file preview. Hover a file to preview it: images (downsampled for speed), PDFs, syntax-highlighted text & source code, archive contents, fonts, and more. The ↗ button in the preview header opens the file in its default app.
- Frequent + shortcuts. Pin folders/files as root shortcuts (drag onto the menu bar icon to add). Monarch also surfaces a Frequent section at the top, ranked by your actual usage with a recency decay.
- Volume awareness. Small badges show when an item is on iCloud Drive, a network share, or an external drive. When a volume gets ejected, Monarch shows a friendly "Volume not mounted" state instead of a generic error — and refreshes automatically when the drive comes back.
- Keyboard everything. Global hotkey to open. Arrow keys, ⌘F to search, Space for Quick Look, Return to open, Esc to back out.
- Drag & drop. Drag files between folders for Finder-style copy/move. Hold a drag over a folder for 500ms to spring-load into it.
- Custom display names. Give a root shortcut a Monarch-only alias without renaming the file or folder on disk.
- Hover-open (optional). If you prefer a launcher feel, Monarch can open when you hover the menu bar icon for a short delay.
- Download
Monarch-X.Y.zipfrom the latest release. - Unzip and move
Monarch.appto/Applications. - Right-click → Open the first time (the build is ad-hoc signed, so macOS asks you to confirm).
- The Monarch icon appears in the menu bar — click it to start configuring shortcuts.
Requires macOS 13+ and Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
bash build.shThis compiles a universal release build, assembles Monarch.app, ad-hoc codesigns it, kills any running instance, and relaunches the fresh binary.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Click menu bar icon | Open Monarch |
| Hover a folder row | Open peek window |
| Hover a file | Open inline preview (image, PDF, text, archive…) |
| Click ↗ in preview header | Open the previewed file |
| Click a file | Open the file |
| Click a folder | Reveal in Finder |
| ↑ / ↓ | Move highlighted row |
| → | Open folder peek or file preview for highlighted row |
| ← | Go back one peek level; at level 0, close Monarch |
| Return | Open highlighted item |
| Space | Quick Look focused file |
| ⌘F | Search / filter the current level |
| Esc | Clear selection first, then exit search / close peek / close Monarch |
| Drag file/folder onto menu bar icon | Add it to your shortcuts |
| Drag file onto folder row | Move/copy into that folder |
| Hold drag over folder (500ms) | Spring-load: peek opens mid-drag |
| ⌘-click rows | Multi-select for bulk drag or open |
| Right-click a row | Context menu (pin, rename, set display name, add to Monarch, open in Terminal, copy path, share, trash…) |
In search mode, ← keeps its normal text-editing behavior in the search field. Use Esc to exit search, then ← to navigate back or close Monarch. Exception: if a file preview peek is open, ← closes that preview first even while search is active.
Open via the ··· menu → Preferences…
- Shortcuts — drag to reorder, click − to remove, and drag the handle beneath the list to resize its own scrollable area
- Text size — Small / Medium / Large; scales row height, font, and icon size together
- Appearance — System / Light / Dark
- Show item count and size footer — toggle the footer bar at the bottom of each level
- Open when hovering over the menu bar icon — optional delayed hover-open for the status item
- Show Frequent section — show or hide the level-0 Frequent group
- Items to show — choose how many Frequent items appear at level 0
- Reset Frequent… — clear the Frequent ranking and start fresh
- Launch at login — start Monarch automatically when you log in
- Global hotkey — record any key combo to open Monarch from anywhere (⌘, opens Preferences from the popover)
- Preferred terminal — choose which terminal app Monarch uses for Open in Terminal
MIT — see LICENSE.