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Jo Jo
Jo Jo

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I built two free, open-source native macOS menu bar utilities in Swift: GhostMouse & PortRadar

#macos #swift #opensource #webdev

Over the weekend I built and open-sourced two native macOS menu bar utilities in pure Swift & SwiftUI (macOS 14+ Universal binaries for Apple Silicon & Intel) to solve two everyday problems on my Mac — 100% free and MIT licensed.

1. 👻 GhostMouse — Invisible Stealth Mouse Mover & Awake Utility

GhostMouse Screenshot

I loved how the classic Windows Mouse Mover had an invisible "Stealth" mode where your cursor never visibly moves on screen, and how it automatically stops the instant you touch your physical mouse or keyboard — so I built that natively for macOS.

Key Features:

  • True Invisible Stealth Mode: Dispatches zero-displacement hardware HID pulses (+1/-1 delta at the exact same pixel) combined with IOPMAssertionDeclareUserActivity. Your cursor never visibly moves a single pixel, while macOS, Microsoft Teams, and Slack register active hardware input.
  • Natural Mode: Prefer visible movement? Smoothly glides the cursor out and back to its exact starting coordinate (Subtle 5px, Medium 40px, or Full 150px).
  • Instant Activity Detection (Stop vs Smart Pause): Tags its own synthetic CGEvents (0x4A494747) so the moment you move your physical mouse or press any key, it either turns off immediately (Stop) or pauses and auto-resumes after an idle threshold (Smart Pause).
  • Built-in Schedule & Countdown Timer: Restrict activity to work hours/days or set an auto-deactivate timer.
  • Global Hotkey: Toggle anywhere with ⌃⌘J or right-click the menu bar icon.

Install GhostMouse: 

brew tap joeystdio/tap
brew install --cask ghostmouse
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2. 📡 PortRadar — Menu Bar Localhost & Dev Port Manager

Every developer runs into EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::3000 and has to drop into a terminal to run lsof -i :3000 and kill -9. PortRadar puts a live TCP port radar right in your macOS menu bar.

Key Features:

  • 1-Click Kill (SIGTERM / SIGKILL -9): Free any stuck localhost port in a single click.
  • Smart Stack & Framework Detection: Automatically inspects process arguments to badge Next.js, Vite, Angular, Node.js, Bun, .NET / Kestrel, FastAPI / Python, Go, Rust, Docker / OrbStack, PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, MongoDB, and Ollama — along with live RAM (MB), CPU %, and PID badges.
  • Pinned Watchlist Bar: Pin your core ports (:3000, :5173, :8080, :5000, :5432, :6379) to the top watchlist bar with live green/grey status indicators and 1-click Open in Browser.
  • Global Hotkey: Summon anywhere with ⌃⌘P.

Install PortRadar: 

brew tap joeystdio/tap
brew install --cask portradar
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Both projects are 100% open-source under the MIT license and built with zero external dependencies using Swift Package Manager. Feedback, stars, and PRs are very welcome!

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