FinderHover

The missing "Data HUD" for macOS. Inspect file metadata instantly. No Cmd+I required.

🇺🇸 English | 🇹🇼 繁體中文 | 🇯🇵 日本語

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📝 What's New

v1.9.0 - Notes

• Notes: Attach a personal note to any file, right in the hover popup — stored with the file (so it persists and travels with the file when copied/moved)
• Auto-sizing field: 3-line minimum that grows as you type, with a focused text-field style while editing
• More stable: Accessibility lookups moved off the main thread (no more UI freezes when Finder is slow), plus leaner/safer reading of large files and many fixes
• Fixed: Black edge behind the Liquid Glass popup when focused
• 🙏 Huge thanks to @zmlim for designing and contributing the Notes feature (#14) — this release is built on their work

v1.8.0 - Official Code Signing & Liquid Glass

• Signed & Notarized: No more Gatekeeper bypass — app opens immediately
• Liquid Glass: New visual effect option for macOS 26 (Tahoe)
• Universal Binary: arm64 + x86_64 with Hardened Runtime

v1.8.1 - Bug Fix

• Fixed: Shortened English download metadata labels for better alignment

View Full Changelog

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⚡️ Why FinderHover?

The Problem: Want to check image resolution? Video codec? Zip contents? You have to:

1. Right-click → Get Info (or press Cmd+I)
2. Wait for the window to open
3. Close it manually
4. Repeat for every file

The Solution: FinderHover acts as an X-ray layer over Finder. Just hover your mouse over any file, and see the data that matters—instantly.

Comparison: Get Info vs FinderHover

	macOS Get Info (Cmd+I)	FinderHover
Trigger	Right-click → Get Info (or Cmd+I)	Hover mouse
Speed	Slow, window stacks up	Instant, auto-hides
Depth	Basic (size, kind, dates)	Deep metadata (EXIF, codecs, archive contents, Git info)
Workflow	Interrupts your flow	Non-intrusive overlay

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✨ Features

🔍 Beyond Finder

FinderHover reveals metadata that Finder never shows:

📦 X-Ray for Archives

Peek inside zip, rar, 7z, tar.gz, and iso files without extracting them.

• 📋 Instantly see file lists & file counts
• 🔐 Detect encryption status (know if it's password-protected before opening)
• 📊 Check compression ratios and real uncompressed sizes

💻 Developer Centric

Built by a developer, for developers.

• Code Insights: Instant line counts and syntax detection for 38+ languages
• Git Aware: See current branch, commit count, remote URL, and uncommitted changes on repo folders
• Binary Analysis: Inspect Mach-O headers, architectures (arm64/x86_64/Universal), code signing status, and SDK versions for executables
• Xcode Projects: View targets, build configurations, Swift version, and deployment targets

📸 Photography & Media

• Photos: Camera model, lens info, focal length, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, GPS coordinates, IPTC/XMP metadata (author, copyright, keywords, rating)
• Videos: Codec (H.264, HEVC, etc.), resolution, bitrate, frame rate, HDR format (Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG), chapters, subtitle tracks
• Audio: Track name, artist, album, genre, duration, bitrate, sample rate, channels

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🎨 Smart & Customizable

🧠 Intelligent Context Awareness

• Instant Preview: Adjustable hover delay (0.1s - 2.0s)
• Auto-Hide: Disappears when renaming files, dragging items, or using context menus
• QuickLook Integration: Native thumbnails for PDFs, images, and documents

🌈 Dual Personalities

• macOS Style: Rich visual presentation with thumbnails, icons, and full metadata
• Windows Style: Minimal tooltip-style display with essential info only

🎛️ Full Control

• Adjustable window size, opacity (70-100%), and font scaling
• Layout Editor: Drag-to-reorder metadata fields and toggle visibility per category
• Localization: Native support for English, Traditional Chinese (繁體中文), and Japanese (日本語)

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📊 Rich Metadata Support (120+ File Formats)

Category	Supported Metadata
📷 Photography	Camera model, lens, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, GPS, IPTC/XMP data, color profiles, HDR gain maps
🎬 Video	Codec, resolution, bitrate, frame rate, HDR formats (Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG), chapters, subtitle tracks
🎵 Audio	Track name, artist, album, genre, duration, bitrate, sample rate, channels
💻 Code	Line counts for 38+ languages, file encoding, syntax detection
📝 Markdown	Title, frontmatter (YAML/TOML/JSON), heading/image/link/code block counts
🌐 HTML/Web	Title, meta description, keywords, author, language, Open Graph tags
⚙️ Config	JSON/YAML/TOML key counts, nesting depth, syntax validity
🎨 Design	PSD layers/color mode/bit depth, SVG/AI dimensions, font glyphs
📦 Archives	Format type, file count, compression ratio, encryption status
📚 eBooks	Title, author, publisher, ISBN, language
🖼️ Vector	SVG viewBox, EPS color mode, element counts
📱 App Bundles	Bundle ID, version, minimum macOS, code signing, entitlements, architectures
⚡ Executables	Architecture (arm64/x86_64), code signing, minimum OS, SDK version
🗄️ SQLite	Table/index/trigger/view counts, total rows, schema version, encoding
📂 Git Repos	Current branch, commit count, remote URL, uncommitted changes, tags
💿 Disk Images	Format (DMG, ISO), compression ratio, encryption status, partition scheme
🧊 3D Models	Vertex/face counts, mesh/material counts, animations, bounding box
🛠️ Xcode	Project name, targets, build configs, Swift version, deployment target
🏷️ System	Finder tags, download source, quarantine info, iCloud status, symlink targets

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🛡️ Privacy First

100% Local Processing. FinderHover uses the macOS Accessibility API to detect the file under your cursor. All metadata extraction happens on your machine—no network requests, no analytics, no tracking.

• ✅ Zero Network Access: All processing happens locally
• ✅ Open Source: Inspect the code yourself on GitHub
• ✅ Apple Native: Built with Swift, AVFoundation, PDFKit, and other native frameworks

Why Accessibility API? Unlike legacy tools that rely on slow AppleScript polling, FinderHover listens to the system's accessibility event stream for high performance and minimal overhead.

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📦 Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

brew install koukeneko/tap/finderhover

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Direct Download

1. Download FinderHover.app.zip from Releases
2. Extract and move to Applications folder
3. Grant Accessibility permission when prompted

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Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/KoukeNeko/FinderHover.git
cd FinderHover
xcodebuild -scheme FinderHover -configuration Release

Requirements: Xcode 15+ and macOS Sonoma 14.0+

Note: macOS 26.4 Beta 1 is not supported. Please update to Beta 2 or later.

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⚙️ Setup & Usage

First Launch

1. Launch FinderHover from Launchpad or Applications
2. The app appears in your Menu Bar
3. Grant Accessibility permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility)
4. Hover over any file in Finder to see metadata

Settings

Click the menu bar icon to access the settings panel.

Tip: Enable "Launch at Login" to start FinderHover automatically when you boot your Mac.

Known issue (macOS 27 beta): On macOS 27 beta, the Settings interface may render incorrectly. This is cosmetic — all core hover features work normally.

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🚀 Technical Highlights

⚡️ High-Performance Architecture

• Reactive UI Updates: Leverages Combine framework with debounce operators to ensure fluid UI updates while keeping CPU usage negligible
• Native Frameworks: Built on Apple's AVFoundation, PDFKit, QuickLookThumbnailing, SQLite3, and CoreGraphics—no external dependencies
• Smart Caching: Thumbnail and metadata caching reduces redundant processing

🛠️ Robust Metadata Engine

Supports 120+ file formats with deep inspection capabilities:

• Archives: Reads zip/rar/7z/iso structure without extraction (using libarchive and native APIs)
• Media: Extracts video codecs, HDR metadata, and audio specs using AVFoundation
• Code: Detects 38+ programming languages with accurate line counting
• Git: Parses .git directory for branch, commit, and remote info
• Binaries: Analyzes Mach-O headers for architecture and code signing

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🛠️ Project Structure

FinderHover/
├── App/          # Application lifecycle (FinderHoverApp, HoverManager)
├── Core/         # MouseTracker, FinderInteraction, FileInfo
├── Extractors/   # Metadata extraction logic (ArchiveExtractor, DeveloperExtractor, etc.)
├── UI/
│   ├── Windows/  # Floating hover window, settings container
│   └── Settings/ # Modular settings pages
└── Utilities/    # Localization, logging, formatting helpers

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📸 Screenshots

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

• Add Extractors: Check out Core/FileInfo.swift for metadata extraction logic
• UI Improvements: Explore UI/Windows/ for visual enhancements
• Localization: Add translations in Localizable.strings

Feature Requests & Bug Reports: Open an issue on GitHub Issues.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Thanks to everyone who has contributed — especially @zmlim, who designed and contributed the Notes feature (#14) that headlines v1.9.0.

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📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

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Made with ❤️ and Swift
Built for Power Users, Developers, and File Hoarders