A native app for macOS
Find what you copied this morning. Grab a file out of the app next door. Paste a saved line, translate a phrase. IMPULS opens above the current window, helps for a couple of seconds, then gets out of the way. You never leave the document, so you never have to find your way back into it.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
The Impuls panel on a working Mac. The data in it is demo data.
Why bother
Find the address someone sent this morning. Move a file from mail into an editor. Then dig up the wording you already wrote once and cannot quite remember. Each errand costs seconds, and each one makes you leave the document, hunt for a window and come back.
Impuls keeps those things on one surface above the window you are in: clipboard history, a shelf for files, snippets and notes. Instead of switching applications, you pull the panel down, take what you need and carry on from the same place.
Actions
Clipboard history, snippets and notes answer the same query. You do not have to remember which one you put it in.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
With the global shortcut from any application, or by moving the pointer to the top edge of the screen.
Search ignores case and diacritics and ranks exact matches higher. Impuls builds the index from the live local stores and never keeps it as a database of its own.
Copy, save as a snippet, start a note, translate, open a link, or reveal a file in Finder.
↑↓move through results,Entercopies,Esccloses the panel.
Modules
The rails either side of the cutout hold nine module icons, and all nine are there for the same reason: a small job not worth leaving the window for. Anything that fails that test stays out of the rail. You can switch any module off or reorder it in Settings. Actions and Battery have their own sections above and below; the rest are here.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
Drop a file on the panel, switch to another application and pick it up there. The original never moves: the shelf holds a reference, not a copy.
The local Apple Vision tools live here too — recognise text, remove a background, change format, scale down, build a PDF from several images. Every result is a new file beside the original, and the last operation can be undone.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
What you copied an hour ago is still there. Impuls tells text, links, addresses, phone numbers, colours, JSON, code, files and images apart, and labels the type of every entry.
Pin what matters and it outlives the retention limit. Monitoring pauses, chosen applications are excluded, and concealed password-manager entries never enter the history at all.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
The text you write over and over: an address, account details, a command, a standing call link. Give each one a short name and find it by that.
Snippets also answer searches in Actions, so remembering where a particular piece of text lives is optional.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
Somewhere to put a thought that matters for an hour: a number from a call, half a link, an idea. A note is created empty and instantly, and empty ones clear themselves away.
It is not a text editor: no folders, no formatting, no search inside the module. It holds the draft that would otherwise live in an unsaved tab.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
The macOS translator inside the panel. The language is chosen in each column's heading, and the direction is read from the script of the text you typed.
Every language the system translator knows is available. When a language pack is missing or a pair is impossible, the menu says so in advance — that option is greyed out rather than hidden.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
The source is chosen explicitly. Apple Music and Spotify are read natively through each application's own scripting interface; Yandex Music, VK Music and YouTube Music open their own official sites in a system WebKit window.
For the native sources Impuls asks for no account and no sign-in of its own, and adds no network connection. Choosing a source makes no request either — the connection appears only after Open Web Player. Instead of a blanket “nothing is playing”, the panel names the reason: the application is not installed, not open, no track is running, or permission is needed.
That leaves Calendar: the next meeting, how long until it starts, and a join button when the invitation carries a link. Calendar access is requested by the standard macOS dialog and is needed by this module alone.
Devices
The charge of your Mac and everything attached to it.
Mac, AirPods, iPhone and iPad in one tab, without a separate utility. Impuls shows what the system reports and nothing more: a value it cannot read stays unavailable rather than turning into a zero or a guess.
Swipe the capture to see the whole panel
Behaviour
The built-in display, an external monitor, an iPad running as a Sidecar display. The panel opens wherever the pointer is, and folds back into the edge when it is no longer wanted.
The built-in display with a cutout, an external monitor, an iPad running as a Sidecar display. The panel opens on whichever screen the pointer is on, and only ever one is expanded — carrying the same data.
On a MacBook the panel uses the cutout's own geometry. On a screen without one, Impuls draws a compact black anchor of 120 × 12 pt at the top edge; the menu bar either side of it behaves exactly as before.
The activation mode, the hover delay and the key combination are all set in Settings. The global shortcut opens the panel on the display under the pointer.
Impuls does not become another permanent window: the panel folds back into the edge of the screen and takes no place in application switching.
You can drive the panel from the keyboard, and VoiceOver reads it: every row carries a name, a value and its actions, and every rail icon carries its module's name. Impuls follows the system settings for Reduce Motion, Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency.
Privacy
Impuls has no account, advertising, remote configuration or device fingerprinting. Clipboard, notes, snippets, files and calendar go nowhere. The app has three separate network boundaries, and each requires its own action or consent.
Verify
The source, the change history and the security model are public. Every build has a checksum, and Impuls checks the signature of an update before unpacking any of it.
The implementation, the tests and every release note are on GitHub under GPL-3.0-or-later.
CI runs the test suite, enforces the privacy boundaries and confirms that launching the app opens no socket.
The checksum is published beside the DMG and can be compared before you install.
Every version is written up separately, in Russian and English.
Install
Impuls is ad-hoc signed and not yet notarized by Apple, so the first launch needs your approval. Later updates install from inside the app through the signed channel.
Open Impuls-1.4.15.dmg and drag Impuls into Applications.
If macOS refuses to open it, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway. This is needed once.
Pick your shortcut, the panel size, and which modules you want and in what order. Update checks and Apple device discovery are switched on separately.
071cd6362dd6b9c42f76d59c462926ec2fee7244ae05cadf836971b82ec64da5
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Impuls-1.4.15.dmg
Free, no account, no commitment. If it does not suit you, drag it to the Trash and it is gone.