system.run.
Use Quick Chat for a Spotlight-style main-session composer without opening a full window. Press Option-Space (⌥Space) by default, choose it from the menu bar menu, or record another shortcut in Settings → General.
The full native chat accepts image attachments through its picker, paste, and
drag and drop. Assistant-generated images render inline through short-lived
Gateway artifact URLs and open in a larger preview; iOS and macOS share the same
bounded image model and renderer.
Only need the CLI and Gateway? Start with Getting started.
Download
Get macOS app builds from OpenClaw GitHub releases. When a release ships macOS app assets, look for:OpenClaw-<version>.dmg(preferred)OpenClaw-<version>.zip
First run
- Install and launch OpenClaw.app.
- Pick This Mac for a local Gateway, or connect to a remote Gateway.
- Wait while the app installs the matching CLI runtime. In local mode it also installs and starts the Gateway.
- Establish inference with a live model check. If the app reused a login you did not want, Choose a different AI on the success banner reopens the picker, including the API-key option.
- Finish. The app opens the dashboard, where OpenClaw guides the rest of the setup (memory import, channels, permissions) in one conversation. Grant macOS permissions any time from Settings → Permissions.
Updates
The dashboard update card names what the app will update:- Update Mac app + Gateway means the signed app owns the local launchd Gateway. Sparkle updates the app first; after relaunch, the app automatically updates and restarts its Gateway at the matching version, then verifies the connection.
- Update Gateway means the app is connected to a remote Gateway, a manually managed local Gateway, or another install the app does not own. The button runs that Gateway’s normal update flow instead of changing the Mac app.
extended-stable channel pin.
After a successful update, the app finds the most recently human-used,
top-level direct session and gives that agent a one-time update event. Heartbeat
and cron activity do not affect this choice. The agent can then welcome you back
from the conversation you were most likely using. In remote mode, the app
updates only the local Mac node runtime and skips the notification when the
remote Gateway is older than the app.
Sparkle follows the Gateway’s update.channel setting. beta and dev opt in
to beta app builds; stable, extended-stable, and missing or unknown values
stay on stable app builds.
Open dashboard links
In the macOS app’s embedded dashboard, clicking an external web link opens it in a resizable browser sidebar at half the window width while keeping the dashboard navigation visible. Drag the divider to choose another width; the app remembers it. Each link opens in its own tab, the tab strip appears when multiple pages are open, and clicking the same link again reuses its existing tab. Drag tabs to reorder them, close them with the tab close button or a middle-click, and right-click a tab for Open in Default Browser, Copy Link, Reload, Close Tab, and Close Other Tabs. The window’s titlebar back/forward controls and trackpad swipes navigate dashboard history; the sidebar’s own back/forward controls navigate the active tab’s history. The sidebar also has reload, open-in-default-browser, and close controls. The titlebar controls follow the app sidebar: while it is expanded, back/forward sit at its right edge next to the sidebar toggle; while it is collapsed, they make way for a search button (opens the command palette) and a new-session button. Right-click an external link to choose Open in Sidebar, Open in Default Browser, or Copy Link. Modified clicks and user-activated new-window links from the dashboard continue to open in the default browser; new-window links inside the sidebar open as new sidebar tabs. Regular browser-hosted Control UI pages keep the browser’s normal link and context-menu behavior.Import browser logins
The first time the browser sidebar opens while the app runs against a local Gateway, the dashboard shows a dismissible banner when a Chrome-family profile with cookies exists on the Mac. The banner offers to copy those cookies into an isolated managed profile that agents use for browsing. Choose a profile from its Import control (Touch ID may be required); progress and the imported-cookie count appear inline, and only cookies are copied — passwords never leave the source browser. Dismissing the banner records the choice; Settings → General → Browser login → Import… re-offers it at any time. See Browser for the underlying import flow and thebrowser.allowSystemProfileImport gate.
Choose a Gateway mode
Both modes need an installed
openclaw CLI because the app reuses its node-host
runtime. On a fresh Mac, the app installs the matching CLI automatically; local
mode then starts the Gateway wizard, while remote mode connects to the selected
Gateway without starting a second local Gateway.
See Gateway on macOS for manual recovery.
What the app owns
- Menu bar status, notifications, health, WebChat, and the floating Quick Chat bar.
- macOS permission prompts for screen, microphone, speech, automation, and accessibility.
- One Mac node that combines native Canvas, camera/screen capture, notifications, location, and computer control with the CLI node host’s system, browser, plugin, skill, and MCP commands.
- Exec approval prompts for Mac-hosted commands.
- App-context execution for approved shell commands, preserving the app’s macOS permission attribution while the CLI runtime owns shared node policy.
- Remote-mode SSH tunnels or direct Gateway connections.