Getting started

Install and first launch

Brink needs macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, on a Mac with Apple silicon or Intel. On the Mac App Store it’s called Brink Bar; once installed, it’s Brink in your Applications folder.

1. Get Brink Bar from the Mac App Store. It’s free.
2. Open Brink from Applications (or Spotlight).

Brink has no Dock icon and no window. It lives in the menu bar, as a B. The first time it opens, it asks to watch for the double-tap (next section).

Allow double-tap

By default you open Brink by double-tapping ⌘. macOS only lets an app notice a double tap of a modifier key with Input Monitoring permission, so the first launch shows Let Brink detect the double-tap, with three choices:

• Open System Settings adds Brink to System Settings › Privacy & Security › Input Monitoring and opens that page. Turn on Brink. It starts listening within a second or so. If macOS offers Quit & Reopen, accept. If Brink still can’t listen, it says so and offers Relaunch Now.
• Use ⇧⌘N Instead turns off double-tap and turns on the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘N, which needs no permission.
• Not Now leaves things as they are. Until you decide, the menu bar icon’s menu starts with Allow Double-Tap…, which shows the same choices again.

Brink only watches whether a modifier key goes down or up, and whether another key was pressed in between. It never records or stores what you type. See the privacy policy.

How a double-tap works

Press and release the key on its own, twice, quickly. Either ⌘ key works. A key combination (such as ⌘C or ⌘Tab), a ⌘-click or another modifier held down at the same time doesn’t count. In Settings › Activation you can pick another key (⇧, ⌥ or ⌃) and allow more or less time between the taps.

Show and hide the panel

The panel slides in from the edge of the screen your pointer is on (the right edge, unless you choose another). To show it:

• double-tap ⌘;
• press the keyboard shortcut, once it’s on in Settings › Activation (⇧⌘N unless you record another);
• choose Show Brink in the menu bar icon’s menu, or open Brink again from Applications;
• rest the pointer at the screen edge, if you turn that on (below);
• choose a note in Recent in the menu, or a Brink result in Spotlight.

To hide it, press Escape, double-tap again (or press the shortcut again), or click outside the panel. ⌘↩ saves and hides. Hiding gives the keyboard back to the app you were using.

The menu bar icon

Click the B in the menu bar for:

• Allow Double-Tap… or Relaunch to Enable Double-Tap, only while double-tap is waiting for permission or a relaunch;
• Show Brink;
• Recent: the 10 notes and task lists you changed most recently;
• About Brink: the version you have;
• Settings… (⌘,);
• Acknowledgements: the licenses of the open-source code Brink uses;
• Privacy Policy, which opens it on this site;
• Quit Brink (⌘Q).

Pin the panel

Normally a click outside the panel hides it. To keep it open while you work in another app, pin it: press ⇧⌘P, or click the pin at the right end of the status line at the bottom of the panel. Hiding the panel unpins it.

While a pinned panel is showing but another app has the keyboard, double-tap (or the shortcut) first brings the keyboard back to the panel; do it again to hide the panel.

Prefer the panel never to hide on an outside click? Turn off Hide when clicking outside the panel in Settings › Panel. The pin then shows as always on.

Choose the edge, and resize

• Edge: Settings › Panel › Slide in from: Right (the default), Left, Top or Bottom. The panel opens on whichever display your pointer is on.
• Size: drag the panel’s inner edge, the side facing into the screen. Double-click that edge to go back to 40% of the screen. The Width (or Height) slider in Settings › Panel does the same, from 20% to 90%. Side panels and top or bottom panels each remember their own size.

Open from the screen edge

Turn on Open from the screen edge in Settings › Activation (it’s off at first). Then rest the pointer against the edge the panel slides in from, like a hot corner, and the panel opens. It needs no permission.

• Where another display sits beyond that edge, rest the pointer near the edge for a moment, so passing over to the other display doesn’t open the panel.
• Nothing opens where the Dock is showing on that edge, while you’re dragging something, or while the panel is already open.
• A panel opened this way hides again when the pointer moves off it, until you click or type in it. From then on it stays, as if you had double-tapped.

Saving and quitting

You never need to save. Brink saves half a second after you stop typing, whenever the panel hides, and when you quit. ⌘S saves at once, if you like. Your tabs, panes and workspaces come back as you left them after a relaunch.

To have Brink start when you log in, turn on Launch Brink at login in Settings › General.

To quit, choose Quit Brink in the menu, or press ⌘Q in the panel or in Settings. If a terminal tab is running something, Brink asks first.