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Hover on macOS

The Mac app: how to install it (a .dmg for Apple silicon or Intel), what differs on a Mac (notch, menu bar, Apple's speech), the Mac-only features, and the permissions it asks for.

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Hover 3.4 runs on a Mac. The app is written in Swift (the notch, the menu bar, Settings and voice) around the same web office and the same Rust backend as Windows and Linux. It builds on the work of Arz (@Entourage397), whose macOS v1.0 did the same job for Hover 2.x.

Install

  1. Download Hover-4.0.0-macos-arm64.dmg (Apple silicon) or Hover-4.0.0-macos-x64.dmg (Intel) from the release page.
  2. Open it and drag Hover to Applications.
  3. The app is signed ad hoc and not notarized yet, so the first time, open it with right-click → Open (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway).

Build it yourself

You need macOS 14 or later, Xcode’s command line tools, Rust and Node. From a clone of 4regab/Hover:

xcode-select --install
scripts/build-macos.sh          # dist/macos-osx-arm64/Hover.app (HOVER_ARCH=x64 for Intel)
open dist/macos-osx-arm64/Hover.app

The bundle is signed ad hoc and not notarized. It has no Dock icon: Hover is the notch and its menu bar item. Only Apple silicon is checked in CI.

What is different on a Mac

  • The notch wraps the camera housing. A Mac without a notch gets a notch-sized pill at the top centre. Hover it, click it or press Option-N to open the office.
  • Quotas are in the menu bar, not the island: each reader you switch on shows the tool’s logo in a ring of its used share, then the percentage.
  • Shortcuts are fixed: Option-N opens the office and Control-Option-Space is the voice shortcut.
  • Voice uses Apple’s recognizer on the Mac, on device where the language allows. There is no Phonon, Groq or cleanup on a Mac.
  • Your data is in ~/Library/Application Support/Hover, and the key that encrypts your history is in the login Keychain.
  • Agents are found through your login shell’s PATH, so Homebrew, ~/.local/bin and npm’s folders work.

Only on a Mac

FeatureWhat it does
Agent setupA Set up row on each agent’s page installs what is missing with the maker’s own installer and opens its sign-in. Hover never sees the credentials.
Agent browserEvery agent gets a browser it can open pages in, read, click and type in. You watch it in the desk card’s Browser tab.
Computer useOff until you switch it on. Agents operate other apps in the background through Cua Driver.
Agent desktopsOff until you switch it on; needs macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon. Each project gets its own macOS virtual machine (a Cua Space) that its agents work in instead of your screen. Drag an app or files onto the notch to send them there.

Computer use

Switch it on in Settings. Hover then gives every agent Cua Driver, and Settings installs it and asks for its two permissions, which go to CuaDriver, not to Hover.

  • It works in the background: input goes to the app the agent names, without moving your pointer or taking focus.
  • Hover’s guard refuses what would get in your way: input to the whole desktop, raising or moving windows, the clipboard, and quitting apps.
  • Under Ask first, Ask always and Read only its calls are treated like any other tool call: asked about, or refused.
  • The desk card’s Screen tab shows the agent’s apps live.

Permissions

PermissionAsked byFor
Microphone and Speech RecognitionHoverVoice, the first time you use the shortcut
Screen RecordingHoverThe desk card’s Screen tab (Hover must be restarted after the grant)
Accessibility and Screen RecordingCuaDriverComputer use
KeychainHoverIts history key, and Claude Code’s own sign-in for the quota if that reader is on

The sandbox

On a Mac the sandbox needs srt and rg: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/sandbox-runtime@0.0.78 and brew install ripgrep. Without them agents start unsandboxed.