guide to all twenty tools
updated
every module, what it is for and how it works. open the one you need, or read it end to end.
- soundSet each app’s output and volume.
- timer & cyclesA dot-matrix countdown you set in one gesture: drag the digits, type the time like on a microwave, or pick a preset.
- time tracker & to-dosTasks can be grouped into projects, each carrying the sum of its own, and one switch above the list shows today, this week or all of it.
- no sleepKeep the Mac awake for 15 minutes, 8 hours or forever – one click, no password.
- system monitorCPU and GPU load and temperature, memory and swap, network, disk, battery health and power draw – live values with sparkline charts, color thresholds you set yourself, °C/°F, and…
- clipboard historyThe last 100 (up to 300) things you copied – text, images and files – one click to copy back or paste straight into the previous app.
- file converterDrop a batch of images, PDFs, videos or audio onto the panel: JPEG, PNG, HEIC, AVIF and WebP out; PDF compression; HEVC video shrinking with a live, honest size estimate before…
- window managerSnap windows to halves, quarters, thirds and center with a click on a zone glyph or a ⌃⌥ hotkey – no extra app needed.
- torrentsA lite BitTorrent client in the same panel: drop a .torrent file or paste a magnet link, pick exactly which files to download – before or even during the download – pause, resume…
- file archivesThe module's row opens a window, and that window is where you drop things – ⌘V works too, several files at once.
- color pickerPick any color on screen with the system loupe and it stays in a list, each row carrying hex, rgb and hsl in its own column – click one of the three and that notation is copied.
- text recognitionFrame an area of the screen, or drop a picture into the window and paste one with ⌘V: the text and any QR codes inside come out in a window you can read, edit and copy from, and…
- screenshotsFrame an area, take the window under the pointer or a whole screen, and the editor opens with the picture already in it.
- draw over the screenDraw straight on the screen during a call, a recording or a review: a pencil, a wide marker that leaves the text under it readable, arrows, shapes and numbered steps.
- keyboard lockTap 1, 5 or 15 minutes – or ∞ – and the whole keyboard stops responding, so it can be wiped without shutting the Mac down or closing the lid.
- speed testOne tap measures your connection through macOS's own networkQuality, against Apple's servers – down, up and responsiveness, with the last result kept in the row.
- VPNEvery VPN your Mac knows about, with a switch each – whatever the brand.
- traffic blockingSee which programs on your Mac go online, and where – and block any of them.
- appsA grid of the programs you open all day, one click away without a trip to the Applications folder.
- uninstall appsDrop an app on the row, or pick it from the list of everything installed, and it goes together with what it left in about thirty places – application support, caches, preferences,…
the panel itself
spaces
The icon holds up to four tabs, and you drag each module into whichever tab you like – the timer on one, the monitor on another, the things you rarely open tucked away. The power button beside a module turns it off: it keeps its place and stops running – no key, no badge, nothing collected in the background.
documents
The converter learned documents: markdown to PDF laid out by Hop itself, Word files (.docx, .doc, .rtf) to PDF or markdown, and a PDF's text pulled out as markdown – a scanned page is read with Apple's Vision. Native and offline, with no office suite bundled and nothing to download.
the menu bar icon
The icon carries small badges: the running time, keep-awake, a reminder that fired, a dot while a VPN is up (orange if it stops passing anything) and arrows while torrents move – colored or monochrome, each switchable. Hop's own windows appear in the Dock while they are open, so a click brings one back instead of opening the panel first, and the icon leaves with the last window.
themes, hotkeys and safe mode
Dark and light themes with a film-grain texture, global hotkeys, launch at login, and a safe mode that recovers the app from a crash loop – everything lives in one settings window.
frequently asked questions
- where is hop after i install it?
- in the menu bar, at the top right of the screen. hop has no Dock icon and no window of its own — click the asterisk and the panel opens under it. if the menu bar is crowded, macOS may hide the icon: hold command and drag the icons to reorder them.
- how do i turn off modules i don't use?
- open settings from the panel and switch off whatever you do not need. a module that is off leaves the panel and stops running entirely, so the list stays as short as you want it.
- why does a module ask for a permission?
- because the job needs it, and only then. screen recording is asked by text recognition when you frame an area, by screenshots and by the loupe and the blur on the drawing layer, accessibility by pasting, window moving and the keyboard lock, notifications by the timer and finished torrents. the info window has a tab listing every permission with its current state.
- where does hop keep my data, and how do i remove it?
- everything stays in your own user folder on the Mac: timers, tasks, clipboard history, converted files. nothing is sent anywhere. dragging the app to the trash removes it; the settings and history live in ~/Library and can be deleted alongside.
- can i drive hop from a script or an ai assistant?
- yes. hop reads commands from one plain file in its own folder and writes its state into another, and the same commands work as hop:// links. a shortcut, a script, claude code or codex can start a timer, add a to-do or open the panel without any server or api key.