Start here — your first 5 minutes with Swik

Swik is a radial app launcher: hold a hotkey, your menu fans out around your cursor, drag toward the wedge you want, release to launch. This page walks you through everything between "I just installed it" and "I'm using it." If you follow the five steps below in order, you'll be flicking apps open in under five minutes.

Before you start — the five words

Most of the rest of the guides assume you know these. They take ten seconds to learn, and reading them now will save you re-reading half the docs later.

The five-minute setup

1. Install Swik and launch it

   Drag Swik.app from the DMG into /Applications, then open it from there (not from the DMG window). On first launch macOS may show a "downloaded from the internet" warning — click Open.

   The first time Swik runs, an onboarding wizard appears. It picks a starter set of wedges from the apps already installed on your Mac, so the menu has something useful in it from the very first summon.

2. Grant Accessibility permission

   The wizard's last step asks for Accessibility. Click the Open System Settings button. macOS opens Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Toggle Swik on. You may need to enter your Mac password.

   This permission is what lets Swik observe your hotkey globally — without it, the menu cannot be triggered. Swik does not read keystrokes, log them, or send anything off your Mac. The permission is the macOS-level mechanism, not a content grant.

   If the toggle stays off after you click it, quit Swik (Cmd+Q) and relaunch. macOS sometimes needs a fresh process to pick up the grant.

3. Pick a hotkey that won't collide

   Still in onboarding, you'll see a hotkey badge — the default is Right Option. Click it to record any other key. Lonely keys work best:

   • F19, F18, F17 — function keys most apps don't claim.
   • Right Option, Right Cmd, Caps Lock (remapped via Karabiner) — modifier keys you don't otherwise use.
   • A mouse side button — even faster if your mouse has them. Set this later in Settings → Hotkey → Additional Triggers.

   Avoid Cmd-modified combos — they collide with app shortcuts.

4. Summon the menu and try it

   Press and hold your hotkey. The radial menu appears at your cursor. Without releasing, drag in any direction — the wedge nearest your cursor highlights. Let go. That app launches.

   That's the entire interaction model. No clicking. No reading. Press, drag, release.

   Try it three or four times with different wedges. Within a dozen launches, your hand starts to remember which direction is which app, and you stop looking at the menu — you just flick.

5. Cancel without firing — and learn how to dismiss

   Hold your hotkey. The menu appears. Drag back to the small circle in the center — the dead zone — and release. Nothing fires. That's the safe-cancel.

   You can also tap Esc at any time to dismiss the menu without committing. If you switched to Toggle mode (Trigger Mode guide), tap your trigger key again to close, or click outside the menu.

   For a deeper look — including how to step back out of a sub-menu without canceling fully — see the Cancel & dismiss guide.

What's next — and where to find Settings

The menu bar icon (a small radial dot, top-right of your screen) is your home base. Click it for Settings, Pause, and Quit. If you ever close the Settings window, the menu bar icon is how you reopen it.

Once the basics feel natural, here are the four things first-week users tend to do, in order:

If something feels off