Hand Mirror

What is this?

It's a macOS app that lives in the menu bar, and when you click on it you get a view from your camera.

Yeah but why?

You know when you have to join a Zoom call but want to check your face first, or make sure nothing too embarrassing is in frame? And so you open Photo Booth or something? But that's like 5 keyboard-presses at best? Maybe a one-click thing might save you half a second or something?

Why not just open Photo Booth instead?

Are you even reading this? 🙈
Opening Photo Booth was exactly what I was doing, but I would use Spotlight, and sometimes it would open Photos instead, or I would open Photo Booth so much that if I just typed "Phot" in Spotlight it would default to Photo Booth and not Photos, and that's nice but not what I want — if I type "Phot" and hit return, I would expect to open "Photos" and not "Photo Booth". So that was getting annoying and I decided to build this instead.

Does this app do anything else?

Not much. Sometimes I like to use it as a way to include my video in a screen recording, or screen share (like recording a quick GIF of your screen, or presenting something) — to do that, just detach the Popover from the menu bar and drag it around.

Meh… anything else?

Nope, not really — but now it has a couple of customization options: you can chose one of three menu bar icons, change the size of the popover, and a couple other things.

I'm running an older version of macOS, can you hook me up?

Sure! You can download an older version of the app, that doesn't have the new Preferences screen, it's as simple as it gets, but also super vintage and a collector's item.

It goes back to High Sierra, download it here.

Did anyone help you build this?

Thanks so much for asking — yes, Ryan helped making me use more modern APIs and make the whole thing work better (go download his game ⬛), and my friend Pim made it work on older versions of macOS (also go download his app)! 💯

Who are you again?

I'm Rafa, I design Superlist and other things — follow me on Twitter if you'd like to do a nice thing for me today. Or not, but, you know.

Cool, cool, can I send some money your way?

The app is free for a lot of reasons, and I wouldn't feel comfortable charging you money for it at this point — but if you really want to support my work, consider donating the money instead: we are living in a weird time and a lot of people could use a hand right now.

If you're donating money and still want to send money my way, feel free to use PayPal and I will make sure to help out someone in need. Also, you are a kind person and I love you.