Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm is Droppy's own launcher. Press Option-Space, or the shortcut you set on Droppy's Shortcuts page, to search your apps, files and System Settings pages, calculate and convert units, money, dates and time zones, and search the web. Droppy is in it too: its commands, your droplets with their widgets and settings, Droppy's settings, clipboard history and the file tray come up in the same search. Add quicklinks, snippets and commands of your own, move windows and keep workspaces, chat with AI or fix, rewrite and translate the text you select, and give anything it lists an alias, a hotkey or a place in your favorites.

What it does

• Option-Space by default, or any shortcut you set on Droppy's Shortcuts page
• Search apps, files, System Settings pages, clipboard history and Droppy in one panel
• Quicklinks, snippets that expand as you type, and shell and script commands
• Window commands, saved layouts, workspaces and a window switcher
• A calculator for units, currencies, dates and time zones
• An alias, a hotkey or a favorite for anything it lists, and links that run it
• Quit or uninstall apps, control volume and media, lock, sleep or restart
• AI chat and quick actions on this Mac or with your own key, and extensions in Alpha

How to use it

1. Turn it on from the Droplet Store. It opens on Option-Space; record another shortcut on its Open panel row on Droppy's Shortcuts page.
2. Type to search apps, files, System Settings pages, Droppy's settings and commands, your Droplets, clipboard history and the file tray at once.
3. Press Return to open the highlighted row, or ⌘K for everything else it can do. Each action in that menu shows its shortcut, and the shortcut works straight from the list.
4. Choose Expanded or Compact under Window on its page. Expanded lists your favorites and apps under the search bar; Compact is the bar alone, with results once you type.

Search and ranking

• One search covers apps, files and folders, System Settings pages, Droppy's settings and droplets, system commands, your library of quicklinks, snippets, scripts and notes, extensions, the calculator, the web, clipboard history, the file trays and window commands. Each kind has its own switch under Search results.
• A small slip still finds things: one wrong letter in four or more (safri), initials (vsc for Visual Studio Code, gb for GarageBand) and scattered letters in order. Those rank below anything that matches better.
• Apps answer to their English name, their names in other languages, older names like iTunes or System Preferences, and Latin spellings of names in other scripts. A bundle identifier such as com.apple.Safari finds its app too.
• It learns: what you open for a search moves up the next time you type it. ⌘1 to ⌘0, hotkeys and links never teach it. Reset Ranking in ⌘K forgets one row, and Reset learned ranking in its settings forgets everything.
• Type a section's name, such as Quicklinks, Snippets, System Settings, Window management or Extensions, to list the whole section.
• With nothing typed, the expanded launcher shows your favorites, then Suggestions (a few things you often open at this time of day), then your apps. The switches under Before you type add system commands, quicklinks, snippets, window commands, layouts, workspaces and extensions below them.
• A running app has a small dot under its icon.

Aliases, favorites and hiding

• Set Alias… in ⌘K gives any row another name, shown as a small tag after its title. Typing the alias puts that row first. Two rows never share an alias: Thunderstorm asks before it moves one.
• Type an alias and a space to go straight to the fields of a quicklink, snippet or command that needs input.
• ⇧⌘F adds any row to Favorites, System Settings pages and droplet pages included. ⌥⌘↑ and ⌥⌘↓ change their order.
• ⇧⌘H hides a row from search, with Undo in the pill. Its favorite, alias and hotkey keep working, and Hidden from search in its settings brings it back.

The panel and its keys

• ⌘K, or a right-click, opens the actions of a row. The menu has its own search field, and Escape closes only the menu.
• Escape clears what you typed, then goes back a screen, then closes. ⌘Esc goes back to the main search from any screen, and Delete on an empty field goes back one. Escape key can make it close and reset at once instead.
• A quicklink, snippet or command that needs input shows labelled fields after its name. Tab moves between them, and Return runs once every required field is filled.
• With nothing typed, Tab moves on to AI Chat (once AI is on) and Clipboard History, and ⇧Tab goes back. Space opens Search Files.
• The compact bar can end with up to five favorites, opened with ⌘1 to ⌘5. ↓ shows the full list.
• Drag the launcher by its search bar to place it. It snaps to the middle of the screen and its usual height, remembers the spot per display, and Recenter in its footer menu puts it back.
• A pill confirms what an action did: a check when something changed, a dot when there was nothing to do, and a red mark with the reason when it failed.
• The keys are listed under Inside Thunderstorm in the keyboard shortcuts reference.

Apps and system commands

• ⌘K on an app adds Get Info and Share…, and for a running app Hide, Hide Others, Restart Application, Quit Application and Force Quit, which asks first.
• Uninstall… lists the app and its leftover files in your Library folders, each with a checkbox and its size. Folders matched only by name start unchecked, and anything that needs Full Disk Access stays where it is. Everything goes to the Trash, and Put Back in the pill undoes it.
• System commands: Lock Screen, Sleep, Log Out, Restart, Shut Down, Quit All Apps, Hide All Apps, Eject All Disks, Start Screen Saver, Show Desktop, Toggle Dark Mode, Toggle Stage Manager, Dismiss Notifications, Play or Pause, Next Track, Previous Track, the volume commands, Open Trash, Empty Trash, Toggle Hidden Files, Toggle Bluetooth, Toggle Wi-Fi and Toggle Microphone.
• Log Out, Restart, Shut Down, Quit All Apps and Empty Trash ask first in a dialog. Quit All Apps leaves Finder and Droppy open.
• Volume commands step by 5 percent and show the level in Droppy's own volume HUD.
• System commands under Search results has a switch for every one of them.

Quicklinks and snippets

• A quicklink opens a website, a search, a file, a folder or an app's link by its name or keyword, in the app you choose. Create Quicklink makes one, and Save as Quicklink… in ⌘K turns a link, a file or a web search into one.
• A snippet is text you paste from Thunderstorm, or expand in any app by typing its keyword once Expand keywords as you type is on. That switch is off until you turn it on, and it needs Input Monitoring. Save as Snippet… in ⌘K makes one from clipboard text.
• Placeholders fill in when it runs: {argument} (with a name, a default or a list of choices), {selection}, {clipboard}, {date}, {time}, {uuid}, {cursor} and {snippet name="…"}. Modifiers such as | trim or | uppercase change a value, and the editor previews the result.
• Search Quicklinks and Search Snippets list everything with a detail pane, to open, copy, edit, duplicate, pin with ⌘. or delete. Both import and export a readable JSON file and skip duplicates.
• Snippets folder keeps each snippet as a Markdown file, to sync with iCloud Drive or Git, and picks up edits made outside Droppy. A Markdown snippet pastes as rich text where the app takes it.

Shell and script commands

• Turn on Allow shell commands under Scripts and notes to add commands of your own: a name, the command, a working folder and up to three values. The values are asked for in the launcher and reach the shell as $1, $2 and $3. The switch is off until you turn it on, and Droppy asks first.
• A command can ask before it runs, and show its output in a window with live colors, Stop, Run Again and Copy All. Otherwise its last line shows in a pill.
• Every script in the scripts folder becomes a command, set up by its header: title, mode, icon, arguments (text, password or dropdown), confirmation and working folder. An inline script shows its first line of output on its row and can refresh on a schedule.
• Import Raycast Scripts copies a folder of script commands into Thunderstorm, icons included.
• Your Apple Shortcuts are commands too. Type a shortcut's name and some text to run it with that text as its input.
• The Shell fallback runs what you typed in your login shell. It is off by default and only offered while shell commands are allowed.

Clipboard

• Clipboard History, also a Tab away on an empty search, shows your history by day with pinned items on top and a preview of text, images, files, colors and links.
• ⌘P steps through All, Text, Images, Files, Colors, Links, Emails and your clipboard tags.
• Return pastes, ⌘Return copies, ⌥Return pastes and keeps the launcher open, and ⇧⌘Return pastes as plain text. ⌘. pins an item and ⌘1 to ⌘0 paste the first ten pinned ones.
• ⌃X deletes an item. ⌃⇧X clears the history but keeps pinned, favorite and tagged items.
• Return copies clipboard items swaps Return and ⌘Return, in the main search too.
• Paste Sequentially pastes your newest clip, then an older one with every press of its hotkey.
• Search text in images and PDFs finds items by the text inside them, read on this Mac. It is off by default.

AI chat

• Switch on Turn on AI on the AI page. AI is off until you do, and chats use the model on this Mac first: Apple's on-device model, private, free and text only, on macOS 26 or later with Apple Intelligence on.
• Add OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or OpenRouter with your own API key, or a custom server that speaks OpenAI's API, such as one running on your Mac. Keys stay in your Keychain, and nothing leaves your Mac unless you choose a cloud model.
• Under Command-line tools, Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI can answer with the sign-in they already have. Each is off until you turn it on.
• With nothing typed, Tab opens AI Chat. With text typed, Tab sends it to a new chat on your Quick questions model, and the Ask AI fallback does the same at the end of a search. Ask AI About This (⌘J) starts a chat about a file, a clipboard item or text.
• The search field is where you type: Return sends, Return again stops a reply, and ↑ brings back your last question. Escape clears the field, then leaves the chat, which is kept, and a reply keeps coming after the launcher closes. ⌘P picks the model and its reasoning effort.
• AI Chat, New AI Chat, AI Chat Window and AI Chat History are commands, so each can have a hotkey.
• Attach pictures, PDFs and text files by pasting or dropping them, or with Attach File… (⇧⌘A), Attach Shelf Files (⌥⌘S) and Attach Clipboard (⇧⌘V). Delete in an empty field removes the last one, and a file the model cannot read is refused before it is sent.
• Replies show Markdown, tables, code blocks with a Copy button and math, with a model's reasoning folded away until you open it.
• ⌘D moves the chat to its own window, with every chat in a sidebar. ⌘Y opens the chat history, ⌘. pins a chat, ⌃X deletes it and ⌃⇧X deletes every chat but the pinned ones.
• Continue the last chat (within 10 minutes, by default) and Keep chats (forever, by default) decide what comes back. Chats stay on this Mac and never go in a backup. Say when a reply is ready tells you in the notch when a reply finishes off screen.
• Custom instructions go with every chat, and Allow web search lets a chat search the web with ⇧⌘S when its model can.
• Use MCP servers lets chats call tools from local or remote MCP servers, with their secrets and sign-ins in your Keychain. It is off until you turn it on, and each tool asks before it runs: Allow Once, Allow in This Chat, Always Allow or Don't Allow. A server's page sets each tool to Ask, Always allow or Never.

AI quick actions

• Select text in any app, then run Fix Grammar, Rewrite, Summarize or Translate from Thunderstorm or its hotkey. The launcher closes first, so the action works on the app behind it. Like AI chat, they wait until AI is on.
• Fix Grammar replaces the selection at once, with its progress in the notch, and Rewrite shows a preview first; the Result of either can be switched. Summarize and Translate always show a preview.
• In the preview, Return puts the result in place of the selection, ⌘C copies it, ⌘R tries again, ⌘D shows or hides what changed, and Escape closes it. ⌘. stops an action while it works. If the result cannot go back in place, it is copied and a pill says so.
• Droppy reads the selection through Accessibility, which it asks for the first time an action runs. It never reads password fields or text while secure input is on.
• Translate uses Apple's translation on this Mac on macOS 15 and later. On macOS 14, or for a pair of languages it does not know, your AI model translates instead. With nothing selected it opens the translator: two columns, where Return copies the translation, ⌘Return pastes it, ⌘S swaps the languages and ⌘L picks the language to translate into.
• ⌥⌘T in ⌘K translates a clipboard item, recognized text or a transcript.
• Your actions on the AI quick actions page adds actions of your own: a name, an icon, instructions, whether the result replaces the selection or shows a preview, and a model with its reasoning effort. Every action, yours and the built-in ones, can have an alias and a hotkey.

Files

• Search Files, or Space on an empty search, finds files by name in the folders under Searched folders. Every word has to match, in any order, and tag:Red keeps one Finder tag.
• With nothing typed it lists your recent files. ⌘P filters by kind (Folders, Documents, Images, Audio, Video, Archives, Code) or by tag.
• A detail pane previews the file and shows where it is, its kind, size and dates. ⌘Y opens Quick Look.
• ⌘K adds Open With…, Get Info, Share…, Copy File, Paste File, Move To…, Copy To… and Move to Trash, which Undo in the pill puts back.
• Search file contents and Recognize text in images and PDFs look inside files too. Both are off by default, and the text is read on this Mac.
• Left out of search keeps folders and patterns such as node_modules or *.log out of every result.

Windows, layouts and workspaces

• Window commands move the window in front, with or without the Window Snap droplet: halves, quarters, thirds, two thirds, three quarters, Maximize, Almost Maximize, Reasonable Size, Center, Make Larger, Make Smaller, Nudge, Restore, Toggle Full Screen and moving to another display. They need Accessibility, which Droppy asks for the first time one runs.
• On repeat sets what running a command again does (Cycle sizes, by default), and Gap between windows leaves up to 64 pt between them.
• Previous and next Space commands are off until you turn them on. They press your Mission Control shortcuts.
• Save Window Layout keeps where your windows are. Running the layout puts them back and opens the apps that are missing.
• Create Workspace picks a project's windows and apps. Entering it arranges them (Tab picks Auto, Focus, Stack, Columns, Grid, Custom or As arranged) and hides every other app. Leave Workspace puts every window back. Nothing is ever closed.

Window switcher, menus and words

• Switch Windows lists every open window, the app you used last first and minimized windows last. Give it a hotkey: press it again for the next window, or hold the modifiers and keep pressing to cycle.
• Search Menu Items lists every menu item of the app in front, with its path and shortcut, and runs the one you pick. Include the Apple menu and Apps left out of menu search are under Window switcher and menus.
• Next Input Source, and one command per keyboard input source, switch your keyboard.
• Type define and a word for its meaning. Return shows the whole entry, and ⌘Return opens the Dictionary app.

Calculator and conversions

• Type a sum and the answer shows as you type, labelled with what it is. Return copies it and keeps it in Calculator History.
• It reads everyday maths: 4(2+3), 2pi, 5x3, 1e5, 3k, 2.5 million, square root of 25, half of 80, 10 mod 3, functions such as sqrt, log and gcd, and hex, binary and octal written with 0x, 0b and 0o. Numbers follow your Mac's format, and a single word never calculates.
• Units convert across length, mass, time, temperature, volume, area, speed, energy, power, electricity, data and more: 5 ft 3 in, 1h 30min, 100 Mbps to MB/s, 10kg + 20%.
• Money converts by currency code, symbol or name, and common cryptocurrencies by ticker. A lone amount converts to your Mac's own currency. Rates are kept on your Mac, so conversions still work offline with the last ones.
• Dates: days till 9 apr, today + 3 weeks, 10 workdays from today, next friday, Unix timestamps and ISO 8601.
• Time zones, worked out on your Mac: time in tokyo, 3pm london in nyc, 10:00 cet to pst, with (tomorrow) or (yesterday) when the day changes.
• 15% tip on 80, 20% off 95 and 20 is what % of 80 come back labelled Tip, Discount and Ratio.
• ⌘Return (Keep Calculating), or an operator typed right after you copy an answer, carries on from it. ⇧⌘Return copies the expression.
• Calculator History lists every answer you copied. Return copies it again, ⌃X deletes one and ⌃⇧X clears them all. Type = alone for the latest.
• A color in hex, rgb(), hsl() or oklch() shows a swatch, and ⌘K copies it as hex, rgba(), hsl(), oklch(), SwiftUI Color or NSColor.

Notes and emoji

• Show Notes opens a floating Markdown editor over every app, for the notes folder you choose under Scripts and notes. It keeps its size and place, and a double-click on its top edge snaps it to the top-right corner.
• Notes are plain Markdown files named by their title. Text formats as you type, task boxes toggle with a click, Return continues a list, and a note saves about a third of a second after you stop. Edits made outside Droppy show up.
• In the window, ⌘N starts a note, ⌘P switches notes, ⌘F finds, ⌘O shows the note in Finder and ⌘⌫ moves it to the Trash.
• The launcher searches everything your notes say, with Rename Note… and Move to Trash… in ⌘K. Type note and a title to start one.
• With the Emoji Picker droplet on, type its trigger, ; unless you changed it, for the emoji grid. Return pastes into the app behind and ⌘Return copies, the other way round when Emoji Picker is set to copy. ⌥Return pastes and keeps the grid open. It searches in your Mac's languages.

Meetings and camera

• Turn on Meetings in Thunderstorm under Meetings and camera to see your next meetings. It is off until you do, and Droppy says why it wants your calendars before macOS asks.
• A join card sits above everything from a few minutes before a meeting (5 by default) until it ends. Return joins the call, ⌘Return copies its link and ⌘I shows the details.
• It finds call links for Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Jitsi Meet, Whereby, Amazon Chime, GoTo Meeting, BlueJeans, Skype, FaceTime and Slack huddles. Zoom, Teams, Chime and FaceTime open in their apps when installed; the rest open in the browser you choose.
• Choose which calendars count and how far ahead to look. Declined, cancelled, all-day and finished events stay out.
• Join automatically opens each meeting as it starts, after a question unless Ask before joining is off. Camera check shows your camera first instead. Both are off by default.
• Join Next Meeting and Show Today's Meetings work from anywhere, and Next meeting in the notch shows a short card in the notch as each join card appears.
• Open Camera shows a live preview. Space takes a photo to the clipboard and clipboard history, ⌘M mirrors it, and the camera turns off the moment it closes.

Hotkeys and deeplinks

• Anything Thunderstorm lists can have a global hotkey of its own: apps, System Settings pages, commands, quicklinks, snippets, scripts, window commands, layouts, workspaces and extension commands. Set Hotkey… in ⌘K opens its row on Droppy's Shortcuts page.
• A hotkey can be a key combination, a mouse button, or a modifier tapped twice, such as the right ⌘.
• An app's hotkey opens the app, and hides it when it is already in front. An entry that needs input opens on its fields.
• Copy Deeplink in ⌘K copies a droppy://thunderstorm/run link that runs the entry from Shortcuts, a script or a web page. A link from outside Droppy asks once per command before it runs it.
• droppy://thunderstorm opens the launcher, and droppy://thunderstorm/search?query=… opens it searching.

Extensions

Extensions are in Alpha: many commands work, some cannot run yet, and some look rough.

• Turn on Run extensions on the Extensions page. It is off until you do, and Droppy asks first, because extensions are other people's code. They run on Node.js, installed only when you ask for it.
• Browse and search the store on the same page, by category, with screenshots and every command on an extension's page. Import Raycast Extensions brings in the extensions you already installed in Raycast; their sign-ins and preferences stay behind.
• A command that needs input shows its fields in the launcher. Menu bar commands get an item in the menu bar, and interval commands can run quietly in the background.
• An extension can sign in to an account through your browser, and Droppy keeps what it gets in the Keychain. Sign out is on its page. An extension that signs in through a page only Raycast can answer cannot sign in from Droppy.
• Each command can be turned off, hidden from search, or given an alias and a hotkey, and each extension can get a custom icon. Update extensions automatically installs new versions from the store.
• Developer mode adds extension folders from your Mac, reloaded when they change, and source registries built here.
• Uninstalling removes its commands with their hotkeys and aliases, and its preferences, sign-ins and stored data.
• An extension that uses AI gets its answers from the models you set up in Thunderstorm AI, after asking you once. Your answer shows on its page, where Remove makes it ask again. A command running in the background never asks; it can use AI only if you allowed its extension before.

Backup

• Export Thunderstorm Backup, or Export… on the Backup page, saves your library, what the launcher learned and its settings to one readable JSON file. The switches under In a backup choose the parts; clipboard history stays out unless you switch it on.
• Import Thunderstorm Backup shows what a file holds and lets you pick the parts to bring in. An import adds to what you have and removes nothing: an item that is already here is skipped, one whose name is taken gets a number, and one that points at a file or app this Mac lacks is left out. A summary then says what each part did.
• Learned ranking is the one part that replaces this Mac's own, so it starts unticked when this Mac has learned something already.
• A file with shell commands or scripts asks first, and you can leave them out.
• A backup never holds passwords, API keys, sign-ins, extensions or AI chats, and never carries a switch only you turn on: shell commands, extensions, snippet expansion, text recognition, AI, MCP servers, meeting auto-join and the camera check.
• Keep a readable copy writes a JSON file of your library and settings to a folder you choose, and rewrites it when they change. Import it like any backup on another Mac.
• Import Raycast Settings reads a Raycast 2.x export with the passphrase you chose when you made it. You type the passphrase; Droppy uses it once and never looks in the Keychain for it. Quicklinks ({Query} becomes {argument}), snippets, aliases, hotkeys, favorites, clipboard history and the launcher's look come in through the same review and summary, and snippet expansion stays off.

Its settings

Thunderstorm's own page holds the Window choice and a link to its shortcuts, then a page for each of these.

Where it shows up

• Global shortcut
• Action Ring button
• Menu bar

Workflows

Tips

• An alias lets you call anything what you actually call it, rather than what its developer named it.
• ⌘1 to ⌘0 open the first ten rows of the list. Hold ⌘ to see the numbers.
• Its own settings pages choose what shows up: whole kinds of results, single System Settings pages, single system commands, the fallbacks at the end of a search, and files left out of search.

Getting it