What changed

1.6.2 · 16 September 2026

Polish for the MacBook with a notch: the label keeps up with your swipes and meets the glass.

• New: the label goes ghost while you swipe. The moment three fingers start moving the desktop, the label beside the notch fades out, and it is back with the new name the instant the desktop lands. A pause mid-swipe keeps it out of the way; a swipe you let go of brings it back a second later. Scrolling, taps and pointer use never touch it.
• Improved: the label meets the glass. macOS keeps a clear margin beside the camera; the label now reaches across it, so nothing floats short of the notch.
• Fixed: the tile and the label no longer trail a switch. Both redraw the frame macOS reports the landing.

1.6.1 · 16 September 2026

For the MacBook whose menu bar is full: the name never just disappears, and the label beside the notch is a door.

• New: the notch label is a door. Whenever the tile is off the menu bar, click the label for your desktops and right-click it for the menu, Quit included. While the tile is in the bar the label still lets clicks through to the menu bar under it.
• New: the label stands in for the tile. A full menu bar drops the items nearest the notch first, and macOS starts every new item there, so on a busy MacBook the tile could vanish on the desktops where the front app has many menus. Now the name shows beside the notch until there is room again, even with the label otherwise off. Settings › General › Camera notch has the switch, and a tip: ⌘-drag the tile to the right for a spot that lasts.
• Fixed: the tile on macOS 27. It sat a touch low beside the name in the menu bar. macOS 14, 15 and 26 are untouched.
• Fixed: the menu bar is checked for room at launch, not only after a display change.

1.6.0 · 16 September 2026

macOS 27 Golden Gate moved Mission Control into a new system process, and the names went with it. They are back.

• New: names in Mission Control on macOS 27. Apple’s WindowManager draws the Spaces bar now; Doorplate reads it from whichever process draws it, chosen once by the macOS version. Nothing changes on macOS 14, 15 or 26.
• Changed: every desktop gets a pill. Desktops without a custom name show “Desktop N” in their automatic color. Settings › Mission Control › “Also label desktops without a custom name” turns that off.

1.5.0 · 10 September 2026

For the MacBook whose notch already carries the name: the menu bar tile can go.

• Notch label instead of the tile. Under Settings › General › Camera notch, “Hide the menu bar tile while the label shows” takes the tile out of the bar whenever a label is on screen. It is back the moment there is none: lid closed, Mission Control open, a display without a notch. The menu then opens from the label, and opening Doorplate again from Applications brings up Settings.

1.4.1 · 10 September 2026

A fix from a tester who ran Doorplate straight out of the disk image, and the license now says what it covers.

• Fixed: updating a copy that runs from the disk image. Install and Relaunch tried to replace the app inside the read-only image and stopped with “no permission”. It now installs into Applications and relaunches from there.
• New: a move to Applications when the app opens from the disk image. One question, one click, and the copy outlives the image being ejected.
• Changed: one key covers up to three Macs. Remove From This Mac under Settings › License frees a seat.

1.4.0 · 9 September 2026

Two things you asked for: a way to see which desktop wants you, and a way to hide every name for a recording.

• Attention. The red counts on the Dock’s icons now ride on the app icons Doorplate shows: Mail’s 3 sits on Mail in the hover strip and the menu, and the desktop it lives on is outlined in red. When that app lives on a desktop other than the one you are on, the count sits on the menu bar tile, so you know from anywhere that something is waiting and where. On the desktop the app is on, the tile stays quiet, because the Dock is already telling you. Doorplate reads the counts the way VoiceOver does, from the Dock’s accessibility tree, every few seconds while you are active. One toggle in Settings › General.
• Presentation mode. Control + Option + P shows every desktop as “Desktop N” with the plain tile, on the tile, the strip, the popover, the notch, the switcher and Mission Control, where macOS’ own labels take over. Your names, icons and colors are untouched underneath and shortcuts keep working. Press it again and everything is back. It also lives in the tile’s right-click menu, in Settings, and behind doorplate://presentation for a Shortcut or a Stream Deck key.

1.3.2 · 9 September 2026

• Install and Relaunch. Finder refuses to replace an app that is running, so “drag it over the old copy” ended in “Doorplate is in use” unless you quit first. Now the verified download installs itself: Doorplate mounts the image, checks the app inside against the same signing rule, swaps it in for the running copy and restarts. Names, shortcuts, tracked time, the license and the Accessibility permission stay. Show Image is still there for anyone who prefers to quit and drag.

1.3.1 · 9 September 2026

• “Last check in 0 seconds.” The Updates section in About described a check that had just finished in the date formatter’s words. Anything under a minute now reads “a moment ago”.

1.3.0 · 9 September 2026

Doorplate can now tell you when a newer version is out. Nothing is installed by itself, and nothing about you leaves the Mac.

• Update offers. Once a day Doorplate fetches a small version file from doorplate.app, a plain request that carries nothing about you or your Mac. When a newer version exists, the menu bar popover says so and Settings › About has the download, the notes and a Skip button. Turn the check off there if you would rather not.
• A verified download. The disk image is checked three ways before it opens: its size, its SHA-256 hash, and a Developer ID signature from Doorplate itself. A file that fails any of them is discarded and named in the log. (1.3.0 and 1.3.1 then left the drag to you, which needs Doorplate quit first; 1.3.2 installs it.)
• No new permission. The download lands in Doorplate’s own support folder rather than Downloads, and there is no system notification, so macOS has nothing new to ask.

1.2.3 · 9 September 2026

One fix, for everyone who ran Doorplate before 1.2.0 and updated.

• Mission Control had no names after updating from 1.1.2 or older. macOS files the Accessibility permission under the app’s signature, and 1.2.0 changed the signature when Doorplate became a notarized app. The old checkmark stayed in System Settings but no longer counted, and macOS never asked again because the entry was still there. Doorplate now notices at launch, clears the stale entry and asks once more: tick it and Doorplate restarts by itself. On 1.2.2 the same thing is done by hand, turning Doorplate off and on under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility.

1.2.2 · 8 September 2026

Replaces 1.2.1, which was pulled within the hour when the welcome window turned out to clip on a fresh install; everything it carried is here. A new face: the icon is now three glossy name tags on a sky tile, the pills that sit under your Mission Control thumbnails, and Settings picks up its colors.

• New icon. Coral, amber and mint tags on a sky-to-lavender tile. It reads at every size, from the menu bar to the Dock.
• Settings wears the icon’s colors. The header glows sky and lavender; tabs, buttons, toggles and pickers follow. Every other surface keeps its look.
• The welcome window fits again. Since 1.2.0 the trial line had pushed the Done button below the window’s edge.

1.2.0 · 8 September 2026

The first paid release: a fourteen-day trial, one key for up to three Macs, and an app that opens like any other because Apple has notarized it.

• Fourteen days with everything on, then $7.99 once. The trial starts the first time Doorplate opens on a Mac and runs its full fourteen days whatever you do in between; deleting and reinstalling the app does not restart it. When it ends nothing is deleted: the names, colors and shortcuts stay, and the menu bar tile and the popover show the two ways forward, buy or enter a key.
• Settings › License. Paste the key from your receipt and the page shows who it is licensed to. One key covers up to three Macs; Remove From This Mac frees a seat, and Find My Key opens the shop’s order page if the email is gone.
• Signed and notarized by Apple. Doorplate opens on first launch like any other app. The old Privacy & Security detour is history.
• Two network requests, and nothing else. One when a key is entered, one about a month later to confirm it still stands. If the shop cannot be reached, the app stays unlocked. There is still no account, no analytics and no update check.
• ⌘V works in every text field. Menu bar apps get no Edit menu from macOS, so paste, copy, cut and select-all did nothing in Doorplate’s fields. They do now, and ⌘W closes Settings.

1.1.2 · 7 September 2026

• The tile lost its name after a desktop switch or a docking change. Doorplate judged “the menu bar has no room” from a visibility flag that also blinks off for an instant on every desktop switch and while a display comes up, so the tile shrank to its icon and stayed that way. It now watches for the one sure sign, macOS parking the tile off screen, looks twice before shrinking, tries the full name again after a display change, and drops the icon-only fallback the moment you change the menu bar style.

1.1.1 · 7 September 2026

• The transparent color was hard to hit. The color row in the Edit space panel ran past the panel’s edge, so the last dot only responded to clicks beside it. Every dot now has its own full click target, the row spreads across the panel, and the panel has even margins and the same width as the desktop list, so the popover no longer resizes when you open it.
• Notch label, your way. Icon and name, name only, or icon only, in Settings › General. And the setting is respected: off means off. When the menu bar is too full, the tile shrinks to its icon and nothing appears beside the notch.
• Settings pages show when there is more below. The scroll bar is back, and the bottom edge fades until you reach the end of a page.

1.1.0 · 7 September 2026

The apps on each desktop within reach, the name beside the camera notch, and switching past the tenth desktop as smooth as the rest.

• Open an app where it lives. The app icons under each desktop in the menu bar popover are buttons now: click one and Doorplate switches to that desktop and brings the app to the front once you have arrived. The small icons on the hover strip’s tiles do the same and show up to five apps.
• Find a desktop by the app on it, and open it. Press Control Option Space, type the first letters of an app’s name, and the Quick Switcher lists the desktop where that app lives with an “Opens …” tag. Return switches there and brings the app forward on arrival. Typing a desktop’s name works as before.
• Your desktop’s name beside the notch. On a MacBook with a camera notch, Settings › General can put the current desktop’s name in the menu bar band, flush against the notch, as if the notch had grown a label. Choose the side and whether the icon comes along, and preview the look on any display. It steps aside for Mission Control and full-screen apps.
• A full menu bar keeps the tile. On a notched MacBook, macOS hides menu bar items that do not fit. When that happens to Doorplate, the tile shrinks to its icon so it stays clickable, and the full name returns when your displays change. (1.1.0 also put the name beside the notch by itself in that case; 1.1.1 leaves that to the notch setting.)
• Desktops beyond the tenth switch with the normal slide. macOS has shortcuts for Desktops 1 to 10 only, so Desktop 11 and beyond used to go through Mission Control, which opened briefly and sometimes did not switch. Doorplate now uses macOS’s own “Move right a space” for those, once per space, and the Dock slides through as one motion. Jump back still returns to the desktop you came from.
• A desktop full of windows no longer flashes Mission Control. A slow switch on a busy Mac used to be given up on too early, which opened Mission Control while the switch was still in flight. Every step of a switch now waits for the display to actually arrive, up to a sensible limit.
• Names in Mission Control keep up with a hovered thumbnail. Where Mission Control zooms the thumbnail under the pointer, the name pill follows the zoom instead of trailing it.
• Smaller things. Moving a window to another desktop and following it brings the app forward the moment the display has arrived, and a second click on the desktop you are already switching to joins that switch instead of restarting it.

1.0.1 · 7 September 2026

• Switching after granting Accessibility. If the permission was turned on while Doorplate was already running, macOS kept ignoring the keystrokes Doorplate sends for its own Switch to Desktop shortcuts until the app was reopened, so every switch went through a visible Mission Control blink. Doorplate now restarts itself once, right after the permission lands, and says so.
• Updating over a running copy. Opening a new Doorplate while an older one runs quits the older one; names, colors, shortcuts and the permission stay.
• The welcome window and the menu bar notice now say what the permission is for: names inside Mission Control and instant switching.

1.0.0 · 7 September 2026

The first release under the name Doorplate. Same app, new door.

• Names in Mission Control on Apple Silicon and Intel with System Integrity Protection on. The pills follow the Dock’s own animation: they slide in with the bar, glide down when the previews expand, and ride out when Mission Control closes, including when it closes by switching desktops.
• Menu bar tile and popover, Quick Switcher, jump back, direct and per-desktop shortcuts, the hover strip, the switch tag, send-window, time per desktop with CSV export, icons from SF Symbols, emoji or your own pictures.
• Automation: Shortcuts, Raycast, Alfred and any launcher can switch desktops by number or name, jump back, step, and open the Quick Switcher or Settings.
• Moving over from SpaceTags: the first launch imports names, icons, colors, shortcuts, tracked time and settings from the old bundle.
• Measured: idle ≈0.1 % of one core, active ≈1 %, Mission Control ≈3 % (9 % bursts), 22 MB.
• Requires macOS 14 or later. Signed, not yet notarized: on first open use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.