BrowserSwitcher

A lightweight macOS menu bar utility to switch your default browser with a global keyboard shortcut.

Features

• Lives in the menu bar -- no Dock icon, no Cmd+Tab clutter
• Global keyboard shortcut to open the browser picker from anywhere
• Shows all installed browsers with their icons
• Highlights the current default browser
• Customizable shortcut via Settings
• Built with SwiftUI and AppKit

Screenshot

Installation

From source

git clone https://github.com/gabrielMalonso/BrowserSwitcher.git
cd BrowserSwitcher
swift build -c release
cp .build/release/BrowserSwitcher /usr/local/bin/

Then run BrowserSwitcher from the terminal. It will appear in your menu bar.

From Xcode

1. Clone the repository
2. Open Package.swift in Xcode
3. Build and run (Cmd+R)

Usage

Action	How
Open browser picker	Cmd + Shift + Option + B (default)
Close picker	ESC or click outside
Switch browser	Click on the desired browser
Change shortcut	Menu bar icon > Settings
Quit	Menu bar icon > Quit

Note: macOS shows a native confirmation dialog when changing the default browser. This is a system-level protection and cannot be bypassed.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• The app must run outside the sandbox (it cannot be distributed via the Mac App Store)

How it works

• Uses NSWorkspace.urlsForApplications(toOpen:) to discover installed browsers by intersecting apps that handle both https: URLs and .html content types
• Uses NSWorkspace.setDefaultApplication(at:toOpenURLsWithScheme:completion:) to change the default browser (setting http is enough -- macOS links http, https, and public.html together)
• Uses KeyboardShortcuts by @sindresorhus for global hotkey registration without requiring Accessibility permissions
• Uses a floating NSPanel for the picker popup

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.