A GeekTool alternative for modern macOS

Updated 2026-10-16

If you used GeekTool to put a clock, a log, a radar map or your own script on the desktop, Quint does the same job on current macOS, and adds the things the old days never had: ready-made snippets, snapping, scenes, safe sharing and sync between Macs. It is free, signed and notarized, and runs on macOS 14 or later.

What carries over from GeekTool

Quint calls its desktop panels quintlets. They work the way you remember, and GeekTool's types map straight across:

• Shell: runs a Terminal command on a timer and shows what it prints, with ANSI colors kept. It stops after 30 seconds and shows at most 64 KB.
• File: shows the last lines of a text file, such as a log, with an optional regular-expression filter.
• Image: a web picture, a file, or a folder slideshow, scaled to any size. Animated GIFs play, and web pictures reload on a timer for traffic cameras and radar.
• Web: a live web page on your desktop.
• AppleScript: runs a script and shows what it returns.

Quintlets sit on the desktop between your wallpaper and your icons, exactly where GeekTool users want them.

Moving your scripts over

1. Click +, then Shell Quintlet (or AppleScript Quintlet).
2. Paste the script into the box on the Content tab and click outside it to run it.
3. If it shows an error or nothing at all, the Live Output box underneath explains why.

Scripts from the early GeekTool days often depend on things that have gone: programs like lynx are not installed on modern Macs, old weather pages and web services have changed or vanished, and iTunes is now the Music app. Some classics are already built in as snippets: date and time formats, now playing, battery, disk space, CPU, network and headlines. Read the full migration notes.

What is new in Quint

• 106 ready-made snippets in 13 categories, so nobody starts from a blank box: see the full list.
• Arrange mode with snapping: drag and resize on the desktop, snap to other quintlets, screen edges and a grid, move several at once, and undo with ⌘Z. Tidy Up lays everything out in a grid in one click.
• Scenes and groups: whole desktop layouts, one showing at a time, switched from the menu bar or ⌥⌘1 to ⌥⌘9.
• Styling: a searchable font picker, color, shadow, glow, outline, background panel, transparency and a Pulse effect, with copy-and-paste of a quintlet's look.
• Safe sharing: share a quintlet, a group or your whole desktop as a small .quintlet file. A review screen shows what each one runs, and code quintlets start switched off.
• Sync between Macs through a folder in iCloud Drive, Google Drive or Dropbox. Positions stay per Mac; commands that arrive from another Mac wait for your approval.
• A real AppleScript dictionary: refresh all, add a snippet, read a quintlet's output, switch scenes.
• Your location, once: save a place and local radar, weather, sunrise, tides and planes overhead fill in for you.
• Automatic updates through Sparkle, and a built-in searchable Help.

About the name

Quint was called Geeklet until version 1.4.0. It is an independent homage to GeekTool and is not affiliated with it. Your existing .geeklet files still open.

Questions