Show HN: Oliphaunt – A native Mastodon client for macOS

anosidium · 2025-05-09T16:21:19.000Z

I’ve been building Oliphaunt, a native Mastodon client for macOS, as a solo project — designed to be fast, lightweight and feel right at home on the Mac. It’s not built with Catalyst or Electron framework.Key features:• Native macOS UI using AppKit with some SwiftUI integration (not a web wrapper)• Core Data for local caching• Responsive, keyboard-friendly interface• UX tailored for desktop-class Mac computers• Supports multiple accounts, cross-instance timelines and searchYou can try it via TestFlight (macOS 14+ Sonoma): https://testflight.apple.com/join/Epq1P3CwFeedback is welcome here, on GitHub, or via TestFlight: https://github.com/anosidium/Oliphaunt-Feedback-And-Support

whalesalad 1 year ago |

What’s the sense on mastodon lately? I feel like the core concept is also its Achilles heel in that with all these disjointed communities it’s really not a community at all.

renewedrebecca 1 year ago | |

It's not very community-like out of the box, that's totally true.

OTOH, after you follow both people and hashtags, it feels pretty much like everything else, more or less.

jonquark 1 year ago | |

It's the only social media I still use.

I don't notice "disjointed communities" I just look at the posts from people I follow without knowing which server they are on. I'm aware you can see a list of posts on your local server but I imagine people on most instances (unless the instance has a strong theme like for people from a particular location) never use it.

thephyber 1 year ago |

New iOS (XCode) developer here.

Do you have any pro tips for optimizing workflow, reducing toil in XCode, or speeding up UI testing?

grishka 1 year ago |

It does look nice.

I can't seem to figure out how to open posts and profiles though. Neither single nor double-clicking does anything. Sometimes double-clicking a post that contains a link would open the link in the web browser. The only thing that works is right click -> open in new window. MacOS 14.7.5 (23H527)

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Thanks!

Yes, that’s intentional — to view a thread or profile, use the contextual menu (right-click or control-click). Clicking is reserved for posts that contain a link or preview card, which will open in the browser.

_mlbt 1 year ago |

Always great to see native macOS apps! Is there a reason you aren’t using SwiftUI for the whole thing and that you opted for Core Data instead of Swift Data?

wpm 1 year ago | |

Swift Data is CoreData in a wrapper.

Also, not OP, but I’m glad it’s written in AppKit vs SwiftUI purely; AppKit just feels better on the desktop. I can always “smell” a SwiftUI app just like I can an Electron app.

drcongo 1 year ago | | |

If the Settings app on current macOS is SwiftUI, then I can too. It's horrible.

sgt 1 year ago | | |

Never thought of that. Is that why the Settings app is so slow? If I click on one of the menu items on the left, it takes half a second or more to load the screen.

galad87 1 year ago | | |

SwiftUI doesn't help, but each panel is a separate process. The previous version of System Preferences hid the delay by showing an animation, the new one doesn't.

zerkten 1 year ago | | |

Why is a separate process necessary here?

tough 1 year ago | | |

Search is also broken af raycast saves me from going mad

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Thanks! I’m glad to hear that.

It’s an AppKit-first app — I’ve used SwiftUI in parts where it fits well, but I’ve avoided relying on it entirely because it’s still maturing, especially on macOS. In certain areas, it can compromise the native look and feel, or introduce unexpected behaviour.

As for Core Data, it’s a proven and robust framework that already does everything I need. Swift Data is still relatively new and doesn’t yet offer the same level of flexibility or stability for more advanced use cases.

aegypti 1 year ago | | |

Towards the end of COVID lockdowns I wrote a small, native macOS replacement for Zotero and ended up having to go with AppKit. Bit disappointing to hear the look and feel of a Mac assed mac app still hasn’t been replicated in SwiftUI.

Do you write about your experience with macOS dev at all? I would love to hear about it. I still look back fondly on that experience and toss around the idea of revisiting it, Documentation Archive and all.

noiv 1 year ago |

I like the Mac integration and all the features in the menu. Did I miss bigger fonts somewhere?

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Nope. I will add this feature in future updates.

mountainriver 1 year ago |

The link goes to testflight?

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Yes. It's not on the Mac App Store yet.

andrewmcwatters 1 year ago |

Nicely done, looks good!

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Thank you!

techlatest_net 1 year ago |

Thanks for the TestFlight invite! I’ll install the iOS build and keep an eye on performance, UI responsiveness, and any crash logs. Happy to send feedback through the TestFlight app if anything comes up.

internetter 1 year ago |

Why isn't it open source? Ice Cubes is pretty good and FOSS

renewedrebecca 1 year ago | |

Then use Ice Cubes. Not everything has to be FOSS.

AlexeyBelov 1 year ago | | |

What's the argument against it?

zimpenfish 1 year ago |

Alas, fell at the first hurdle by saying my Akkoma and GotoSocial instances aren't valid.

anosidium 1 year ago | |

Could you please give me some instance URLs so that I can check?

rglullis 1 year ago | | |

You can find out about different servers on https://fedidb.com

stonogo 1 year ago | | |

FediDB doesn't track GoToSocial servers, because of a dispute about scraping/crawling.

rglullis 1 year ago | | |

I guess that's been solved, because you can go to https://fedidb.com/servers and there are ~10 GtS servers being listed, all of them on the newest version.

anosidium 1 year ago | | |

Is there a better source that tracks a broader range of Fediverse servers? At the moment, my app officially supports Mastodon, though I’m aware there are derivative forks and other compatible implementations.

anosidium 1 year ago | | |

Thanks, that's helpful!

zimpenfish 1 year ago | | |

Added a couple of mine to the issue I filed earlier.