Shiny

Shiny needs macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer and runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel Macs as a Universal app. Same app, same licence, no separate downloads. Not sure which macOS you have? Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac to check.

Open the downloaded file and drag Shiny into your Applications folder - it needs to live there, that part matters. Open it, and Shiny walks you through two quick steps: approving its small background helper in System Settings (this is what lets it actually free memory) and pasting the license key from your purchase email. That's it. Shiny then lives quietly in your menu bar as a little twelve-tick dial, ready whenever your Mac needs a polish.

During setup, Shiny opens System Settings for you. Go to General, then Login Items & Extensions, scroll to "Allow in the Background", and turn Shiny on. macOS may ask for your admin password. This approves the small helper that does the actual memory cleanup - freeing memory needs a level of access that macOS rightly keeps behind your say-so. Once you flip the toggle, just come back to Shiny; the setup window notices on its own and moves you along.

That's macOS asking, not Shiny - and it's a good sign. The deep memory cleanup uses a built-in macOS tool that only runs with your explicit approval, so the system asks for your admin password once when you switch Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Shiny never sees or stores your password; macOS handles the whole exchange. After that one approval, every Polish works silently with no further prompts. The helper is removed automatically if you ever move Shiny to the Trash.

Polish does its work in a few seconds: it settles anything waiting to be written to disk, asks macOS to release the memory apps are no longer using (via the system's own built-in cleanup tool), and refreshes stale network lookups that can make browsing feel sluggish. Then it shows you how much lighter your Mac is - the real measured number, never an inflated one. If you've turned on "Quit hidden apps on Polish", it also politely closes apps with no windows open. And if music or a call is playing, Shiny holds off the deep clean so your audio stays smooth.

The dial is a live gauge of how your Mac feels. Twelve ticks fill as things get busier: green means comfortable, amber (from about half full) means starting to fill up, red (from about 80%) means it's time to polish. It measures the slowdowns you actually feel - not just how much RAM is in use, because a busy-looking Mac can still feel perfectly fine. After a Polish it dips to a calm mint and eases back to the honest reading over a few minutes. A greyed-out dial just means setup isn't finished; click it to continue.

Yes. Press Option-Shift-C from any app and Shiny runs a Polish right away - no need to reach for the menu bar. To pick your own combination, open Shiny's Settings (the gear in the popover), choose General, click the Global Hotkey row, and press the keys you want. Any combination with at least one modifier key works, and Escape cancels recording if you change your mind.

Updates take care of themselves. Shiny quietly checks for new versions about once an hour and offers them when they're ready - every update is cryptographically verified before it installs, so you always get the genuine article. Want to check right now? Open Settings, choose About, and press "Check Now", or right-click the menu bar dial and pick "Check for Updates". All updates are included with your license, forever, at no extra cost.

No - this is something Shiny is genuinely careful about. Before the deep clean, it checks whether your Mac is actually playing sound (music, a video, a call). If it is, Shiny does a lighter tidy instead and tells you so: "Held off the deep polish so your audio stays smooth." The same courtesy applies to Auto-polish, so background polishes never stutter your playlist or your meeting. Once the audio stops, the very next Polish does the full job. On macOS 14.2 or later the listening check is at its most precise.

When your Mac is filling up, the popover adds a line like "Safari and Slack are using the most right now." Shiny adds up everything each app is really using, including its hidden helper processes, so Chrome's many helpers count as Chrome. It only ever names apps you'd actually recognise - never cryptic system processes. Each name is clickable: click it, confirm, and Shiny asks that app to quit as politely as Cmd-Q would, so it can save your work first. The app isn't gone; you can reopen it any time.

With Auto-polish on (Settings, then General), Shiny watches for the moment macOS itself reports memory pressure and quietly runs a polish for you - no click needed. It waits at least five minutes between automatic polishes, so it never churns away in the background. It's also thoughtful about timing: if you're listening to music or on a call, it holds off the deep clean so your audio stays perfectly smooth. While Auto-polish is on, the "your Mac is full" nudge notifications stay quiet, since Shiny is already handling it.

With this setting on (Settings, then General), each Polish also asks apps that have no windows on screen to quit - the ones sitting invisibly in the background holding onto memory. The ask is always polite, exactly like pressing Cmd-Q yourself: apps get the chance to save their work and can show a save prompt if they need to. Nothing is ever force-quit, and anything with a window you're actually using is left alone. It's off by default, so Polish only does this if you choose it.

Open Settings and choose Sneaky Apps to see everything that runs on your Mac without you opening it - login items, background helpers, and auto-updaters, each named in plain English with a short note on what it does and how heavy it is right now. The heaviest sit at the top. You can pause items you don't need, quit ones that are running, and remove leftovers from apps you deleted long ago. Apple's own system processes are tucked away, since those are safe and shouldn't be touched.

When you delete an app, it sometimes leaves behind a startup entry that still asks macOS to launch something that no longer exists. Shiny checks each entry against what's actually on your disk, and flags the orphans as "Leftover, safe to remove". Click Remove (or "Remove all" in the banner) to clear them. Every removal comes with a six-second Undo button, and Shiny sets the entry aside first rather than deleting it outright, so an accidental click is never final within that window.

Yes. In Settings, open Sneaky Apps. When Shiny spots auto-updaters running in the background, a banner offers "Pause all", or you can Disable them one at a time. Pausing is completely reversible - Shiny sets the startup entry aside rather than deleting anything, so an Enable click brings it straight back. The apps themselves keep working normally; you'd simply update them by opening them, instead of having their updaters idling in the background all day.

Gentle nudges (Settings, then Notifications) send a single quiet notification when your Mac crosses into genuinely-full territory: "Your Mac is feeling full. A quick polish should help." with a Polish Now button right on it. It fires once per episode, waits at least 30 minutes before repeating, and respects Focus modes when "Stay quiet during Focus" is on. If you'd previously declined notifications for Shiny in macOS, allow them under System Settings, Notifications, Shiny, then flip the toggle back on. Nudges also stay silent while Auto-polish is handling things for you.

An ambient cue that lives on the screen itself. Turn on "Soft edge glow" (Settings, then Screen) and the edges of every display take on a soft, warm tint when your Mac is very close to full - the kindest possible way to be told it's time to polish. It fades away on its own as soon as pressure drops. The glow is purely visual, sits behind your work, and is off by default, so nothing appears unless you invite it.

Yes. Right-click the Shiny dial in your menu bar and you'll find Restart Dock and Restart Finder - handy classics when the Dock stops responding or Finder windows misbehave. macOS relaunches both automatically within a second or two, so nothing is lost; your windows and desktop come straight back. The same right-click menu also gives you Polish Now, Check for Updates, and a quick jump to the Login Items page in System Settings.

One-time. $4.99 once covers Shiny on up to three Macs, forever, with all future updates included. No recurring charges, no auto-renewals, no Pro tier upsells. Every purchase also carries a 14-day money-back guarantee: email us within 14 days and a real person will sort your refund, no questions asked.

No account, ever - your license key is the whole story. Internet is only needed for two things: activating the key, and a quick occasional check that it's still valid. Between checks, Shiny happily runs offline for up to 7 days. If you're away from a connection longer, Shiny shows a small "Running offline" note in Settings under About, with a countdown of the days remaining, and everything keeps working. The moment you're back online, the check completes silently and the countdown disappears.

No. Once activated, your license is stored in the macOS Keychain - the same protected vault that holds your Wi-Fi passwords - so it survives app updates and even deleting and reinstalling Shiny on the same Mac. Updates delivered through Shiny's built-in updater never touch it. You'd only enter the key again on a brand-new Mac or after erasing this one, and it's always waiting in your purchase email from Polar.sh with the subject "Your Shiny license" if you need it.

Your license covers up to three Macs at once, so often you can simply enter your key on the new Mac and carry on. If all three slots are in use, visit polar.sh/purchases, sign in with your purchase email, and deactivate the Mac you're retiring - that frees a slot instantly. Then paste your key into Shiny on the new machine and tap Activate. Selling or wiping the old Mac? Deactivating from the Polar page works even if you no longer have access to it.

This simply means your key is already active on three Macs - the maximum for one Shiny license - so a fourth needs a slot freed first. Head to polar.sh/purchases, sign in with the email you bought with, find your Shiny license, and deactivate a Mac you no longer use. Then come back to Shiny and tap Activate again; it goes through immediately. If you think the three slots don't add up (say, a Mac you erased still holds one), the same page lets you release it.

Shiny still gave your Mac a gentle tidy, and it's telling you the deep clean is waiting on one approval. Click the Open Settings button under that message (or open System Settings yourself), go to General, then Login Items & Extensions, scroll to "Allow in the Background", and turn Shiny on - macOS may ask for your admin password. That's the whole fix. Come back and press Polish again; from then on every polish is the full one.

First, click over to Shiny (or click its menu bar dial) - it re-checks the moment it comes forward, and usually that's all it takes. If it still says waiting, macOS occasionally holds the approval in a stuck state on its side. Shiny has a purpose-built fix: open Settings, choose About, and press Reinstall next to Background Helper. That re-registers the helper and verifies it's genuinely answering. If System Settings opens afterwards, flip the Shiny toggle once more and you're done.

That's Shiny being honest, and it's usually good news. The "% lighter" figure is measured for real: memory in use the instant before the polish versus the instant after. If your Mac wasn't under memory pressure, there was little to reclaim - macOS was already managing well. Shiny even hides the number below 2% rather than dress up a nothing-result as a win. You'll see the big numbers exactly when they matter: when the dial is amber or red and your Mac genuinely feels slow.

That is Gatekeeper, macOS being cautious about any app downloaded outside the App Store. It is not a problem with Shiny, which is notarized by Apple, meaning Apple scans it for malware before you download it. Right-click the app, choose Open, and you are set. It runs as a normal app from then on, same as Notes or Calendar.

macOS only allows an app to run a background helper when the app lives in the Applications folder - it's a security guarantee from Apple, not a Shiny preference. This usually appears when Shiny is being run straight from the downloaded disk image or from the Downloads folder. The fix takes ten seconds: quit Shiny, drag Shiny.app into Applications (the setup screen's "Open Applications" button takes you right there), open it from its new home, and press Install Helper again. Setup continues exactly where you left off.

There are only two reasons, and hovering over the button tells you which. If your Mac is feeling great, the button rests and the hover message reads "Nothing to polish. Enjoy the calm." - that's Shiny declining to do pointless work, and it wakes up the moment the dial leaves green. If instead the hover mentions the background helper, it needs its one-time approval: open System Settings, General, Login Items & Extensions, and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Polish springs to life right after.

Perfectly normal, and Shiny handles most of it for you. After an app update, macOS sometimes resets its record of background helpers, so Shiny automatically refreshes its helper on the first launch of every new version. Usually that's invisible. Occasionally macOS wants your approval confirmed again - if so, Shiny opens the right System Settings page; just flip the Shiny toggle on under "Allow in the Background". You'll be asked at most once per update, and everything you've set up stays exactly as it was.

Removing or pausing a system-level item goes through Shiny's background helper, and this message means the helper didn't answer in time - Shiny already tried an automatic recovery and a retry for you. The reliable fix: open Settings, choose About, press Reinstall next to Background Helper, wait a moment for "Installed and ready", then repeat the remove. If a toast says the helper needs approval instead, tap its Open Settings button and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Your list refreshes to show exactly what's true on disk, so nothing is left half-done.

Shiny checks its helper every time it launches and quietly repairs it on its own - twice, in fact - before ever bothering you. This notification means it would like one tap of help. Tap Reinstall right on the notification; that's the correct fix in the most common case and takes a couple of seconds. If macOS then asks for approval, tap Open Settings instead and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background" in Login Items & Extensions. Shiny won't nag: this notification appears at most once a day.

Shiny keeps a note of what happened, and the next time it opens you'll see a small report window with the details laid out for you to read. If you'd like us to look into it, one click opens a pre-addressed email to support@theodorehq.com in your own mail app - you can read exactly what's in it before sending, and a real person replies. Nothing is ever transmitted automatically or behind the scenes; if you dismiss the window, the report simply stays on your Mac.

Open Shiny's Settings, choose About, and click Diagnostics Log - Finder opens with the file selected, ready to attach to an email to support@theodorehq.com. The log is a small text file of timestamped events that lives only on your Mac (in your Library's Logs folder) and is kept trimmed to about 1 MB, so it never grows large. Nothing in it is ever sent anywhere unless you choose to send it yourself, and including it helps us give you a precise answer first time.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Lost your licence key? Email from the address you bought with and we will resend it. You can also report bugs, request features, leave a testimonial, and follow the roadmap from the Support tab in Shiny's settings, or right here in the Support Centre.

No analytics, no telemetry, no ads, no account, no tracking of any kind. Exactly two things ever leave your Mac, and you can verify both with a tool like Little Snitch. One: a check with theodorehq.com about once an hour to see if a new version exists. Two: a brief exchange with Polar, the payment provider, to activate your license and occasionally confirm it's still valid - Shiny runs happily offline for up to a week between checks. That's the complete list. Even crash reports only leave your Mac if you press send yourself.

Never. Shiny looks at exactly three kinds of information, all on your Mac: the list of running apps (the same one Activity Monitor shows), your Mac's own memory, processor, and temperature readings, and the list of startup items for the Sneaky Apps tab. Your files, photos, messages, and browsing are never opened, read, or changed - the polish itself only asks macOS to let go of memory the system has already marked as reclaimable. Everything Shiny observes stays on the machine and is forgotten as it refreshes.

The helper is a tiny, single-purpose tool that ships inside Shiny and does nothing until Shiny asks. Its whole job list: run the built-in macOS memory-release command, refresh stale network name lookups, politely ask an app to quit when you choose to, set aside the startup entries you pause or remove in Sneaky Apps (reversibly, never deleted outright), and read the startup-items list for that tab. It checks that requests genuinely come from Shiny before acting, never touches the network, never reads your files, and is removed automatically when you move Shiny to the Trash.