RetroMac

Turn your Mac into a retro computer. RetroMac is a macOS menu-bar app that lays a real-time CRT/retro shader over your screen and dresses the desktop up as the machines we grew up with, from Mac OS 9 to Windows XP to BeOS.

Screenshots and demo videos live at myretromac.app.

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What it does

RetroMac has two core ideas:

1. Real-time CRT/retro shader over the whole screen (or a single window). Using ScreenCaptureKit + Metal it draws a click-through overlay and renders it with shaders: CRT curvature, scanlines, NTSC dot-crawl, VHS, bloom, vignette and more. Dozens of presets (CRT GDV Mini Ultra, Joel GDV NTSC v4, LCD/PVM/Trinitron looks) with sliders for intensity, vignette and bloom.

2. Retro desktop themes via .retromactheme bundles: a floating dock, wallpaper, icon set and, per era, its own desktop (Program Manager, Toolchest, WindowShade and the rest).

Features

• Retro Dock — floats over the system Dock; bottom/left/right; magnifier or hover-zoom; per-theme icons, trash and running-app indicators.
• Themes — Mac OS System 6 (true 1-bit black & white), Mac OS System 9 (Platinum), Mac OS X Aqua & Cheetah, Snow Leopard, Windows 3.1 / 98 / 98 Plus! / XP / 7 (Aero), BeOS, OS/2 Warp, SGI IRIX, AmigaOS Workbench, and more.
• Themed cursors — each theme can replace the system cursor (classic Mac watch/spinner, Aqua beach ball, Windows XP), captured and restored exactly when the theme goes off.
• Virtual Camera — a CMIO system extension applies the shader to your webcam feed for video calls, as a "RetroMac Cam" device.
• Television — web and stream content inside a retro-shaded window, with fullscreen.
• Retro Games — built-in Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem engines, Warcraft I + II natively on the bundled Stratagus engine with your own game data, plus an emulator installer + ROM library.
• Retro Mode — one click hides the Dock, menu bar and desktop icons, sets your favourite theme + shader, and restores everything on exit, quit or after a crash.
• Timer — run the shader or Retro Mode during a daily time window or for X minutes.
• Screenshot with shader via a global hotkey.
• Widgets — clock, CPU monitor, calculator, and era-specific toys (Nyanochrome cat, Tic-Tac-Toe) on the classic Mac desktops.

For the full history see the Changelog.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel (the release build is a universal binary)

Install

Download the signed, notarized DMG from the Releases page or from myretromac.app, then drag RetroMac into /Applications.

RetroMac is free to use. An optional Pro unlock supports development and lifts the limits on premium themes and effects. No tracking, ad-free, entirely optional.

On first launch, grant Screen Recording (for the shader) and, if you want the virtual camera, Camera access in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security.

Build from source

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/klotzbrocken/RetroMac.git
cd RetroMac
./build.sh debug      # local dev build, signed with a standard Apple Development identity
open "/Applications/RetroMac Dev.app"

• Requires the Xcode command-line toolchain (Swift 6, macOS 14 SDK).
• ./build.sh debug uses reduced entitlements (no system-extension install) so it launches without a provisioning profile; the virtual camera is release-only.
• ./build.sh release and ./package.sh produce the signed, notarized DMG and need the maintainer's Developer ID certificate — contributors normally use the debug build.
• The Warcraft engine lives in the vendor/peonpad submodule and is built on demand.

Custom shaders

RetroMac can load your own Metal shader presets. See docs/CUSTOM-SHADERS.md.

Updates

Automatic updates are delivered via Sparkle from the GitHub Releases feed.

A note on sandboxing

RetroMac runs unsandboxed — this is required to control the Dock, menu bar and system UI. It ships with the Hardened Runtime and is Developer-ID signed and notarized as mitigation. See SECURITY.md for the security policy and how to report a vulnerability.

License

RetroMac is released under the GNU GPL v3.0. The paid Pro unlock is an optional way to support the project; the source remains free software.

Support & links

• Website: myretromac.app
• Buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/N4N11K1NC
• Sister app (skinnable email client): Reframe
• Maintainer: klotzbrocken.de