HoldIt

A macOS menu bar utility for drag-and-drop file collection shelves.

Features

• Floating shelves — temporary collection panels that hover above other windows
• Shake-to-summon — shake your cursor while dragging to instantly open a preview shelf
• Global hotkey — press Option-Command-S to create a new shelf anytime
• Drag in, drag out — drop files, folders, text, and URLs onto a shelf, then drag them back out to any app
• Multiple shelves — open several shelves at once with cascade positioning
• Menu bar integration — lives in the menu bar, never clutters your dock
• Configurable dimensions — adjust shelf width and height to your preference
• Launch at login — start HoldIt automatically when you log in
• macOS 13 Ventura and later

Building from Source

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+
• Xcode 15+ (Swift 5)

Setup

git clone git@github.com:Anmolnoor/hold-it.git
cd hold-it
open ShelfKit.xcodeproj

Select the ShelfKit scheme in Xcode, then build and run (Cmd+R).

Note: HoldIt runs as a menu bar utility (no dock icon). After launching, look for the icon in the menu bar.

Usage

• Create a shelf — click the menu bar icon and select "New Shelf", or press Option-Command-S
• Shake gesture — while dragging a file, shake your mouse horizontally to summon a preview shelf
• Collect items — drop files, folders, text snippets, or URLs onto any shelf
• Export items — drag items from a shelf to another app
• Settings — accessible from the menu bar icon

Architecture

HoldIt uses the internal module name ShelfKit. The codebase is organized as:

Directory	Purpose
App/	Application lifecycle, menu bar controller, settings window
Domain/	Core models (Shelf, ShelfItem)
DragDrop/	Global drag monitoring, drop handling, shake detection, hotkeys
Storage/	UserDefaults-based preferences
UI/	SwiftUI views, view model, presentation modes
Windowing/	NSPanel management, screen positioning, window coordination

Built with AppKit + SwiftUI, Combine for reactive state, and Carbon for global hotkey support.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read the Contributing Guide before submitting a pull request.

If you find a bug or have a feature idea, please open an issue.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see the LICENSE file for details.