Pluck

Hold-click to copy, anywhere on macOS 26.

Select text in any app, press down on the selection, keep the mouse still for ~150 ms, release. The text is now on your clipboard. A Liquid Glass "✓ Copied" pill morphs in at the bottom-center of the screen. The click's native behavior (deselect, caret move) proceeds unchanged.

No modifier key. No floating UI. Just a gesture.

Why

Terminals and several Linux desktops let you "select, click, copied". macOS has never shipped an equivalent. Existing tools are either floating action bars (PopClip), copy-on-every-select (macpaste), or clipboard history managers. Pluck is neither.

Install

Requires macOS 26+ (the HUD uses Apple's Liquid Glass, which is macOS 26 only). Built with Xcode 26.

Users

Download Pluck-<version>.dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Pluck into Applications. The DMG is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple — no Gatekeeper warning.

Developers

make install              # build, adhoc-sign, copy to /Applications, launch
make run                  # build and open from the build dir
make full-reset           # wipe TCC + UserDefaults + bundles, reinstall
make dmg                  # signed + notarized DMG release

The first launch walks you through two system permissions:

• Accessibility — so Pluck can read the selected text from the window you click in.
• Input Monitoring — so Pluck can observe (not intercept) your mouse events.

How it decides to fire

1. You mouse-down somewhere.
2. If you drag, Pluck stays out of the way — you're selecting.
3. If you release in under 150 ms, Pluck stays out of the way — you were clicking normally.
4. If you hold still for 150 ms+, Pluck reads the selected text via the Accessibility API, writes it to the clipboard, and morphs a Liquid Glass pill in at the bottom-center of the active screen.
5. Your click finishes naturally: selection clears, caret moves.

If the app doesn't expose its selection via the Accessibility API (many Electron apps, some Chromium embeds), Pluck transparently synthesizes a Cmd+C, keeps the result if the clipboard changed, and restores the previous clipboard otherwise.

Configure

Menu bar → Preferences…

• Hold delay — 100–400 ms, default 150 ms.
• Launch at login — via SMAppService.
• Blocklist — apps where Pluck stays silent. Ships with sane defaults (Figma, Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, Unity, Unreal, Excel, Numbers, Finder, Xcode Interface Builder).

Develop

swift build           # compile
swift test            # unit tests
make bundle           # assemble Pluck.app (adhoc signed)
make run              # build, sign, launch
make clean            # wipe build artifacts

Layout:

Sources/Pluck/
  PluckApp.swift            # @main, MenuBarExtra + Settings scenes
  AppShell.swift            # wires engine → reader → HUD
  Engine/
    GestureStateMachine.swift   # pure state machine (testable)
    GestureEngine.swift         # CGEventTap wrapper
    AXSelectionSource.swift     # reads kAXSelectedTextAttribute
    Pasteboard.swift            # NSPasteboard abstraction
    KeystrokeSender.swift       # Cmd+C synthesis
    SelectionReader.swift       # AX → Cmd+C fallback orchestration
  HUD/
    CopiedPill.swift            # SwiftUI pill
    HUDGeometry.swift           # pure positioning math
    HUDPresenter.swift          # NSPanel lifecycle
  Prefs/
    PrefsView.swift
    Blocklist.swift
  Onboarding/
    PermissionChecks.swift
    OnboardingWindow.swift
  Resources/
    Info.plist
    entitlements.plist
Tests/PluckTests/
  GestureStateMachineTests.swift
  SelectionReaderTests.swift
  HUDGeometryTests.swift
  BlocklistTests.swift

Design

DESIGN.md is generated from npx getdesign@latest add apple and drives the look of the HUD pill, preferences window, and onboarding. It's a spec for AI coding agents — it has no runtime role.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.