FlowState waits at the edge of your screen. Call it and it opens the editor, the terminal, the repository and the pages a project needs — arranged, and gone again before you have finished thinking.
FlowState is a Mac app, and this is not a Mac. Send yourself the link and open it there — or take the disk image anyway.
One keystroke: the editor, the terminal and the project’s pages, arranged.
Rest the pointer against the side of the screen, or press a shortcut you choose. There is no Dock icon and nothing to arrange. It appears when you want it and is gone the moment you look away.
The panel arriving at the screen edge, and leaving again.
Everything a project needs sits in one list — the app, the terminal, the repository, the pages, the files. A switch beside each one says whether it opens with Launch, and a panel reads back exactly what will happen, in the order it will happen.
Setting up a project, with the Launch plan updating as you edit.
Eight palettes or your own colours, with width, spacing, text size, typeface, corners and how see-through the panel is. Every option shows you what it does before you pick it, and a look you like can be saved and handed to someone else.
Appearance Studio, where each option previews itself.
No account, no analytics, no telemetry and no profile of you anywhere. Your projects, paths and preferences are plain files in your own Application Support folder — readable by you, and gone completely when you delete them.
| Accessibility | Optional. Lets FlowState move and resize windows — decline it and everything else still works, it simply stops rearranging anything. |
|---|---|
| Automation | Optional. Requested only if you ask a workspace link to open in a new Safari or Chrome window on your current desktop. |
| Updates | FlowState checks for a new version, and every update is signed with a key only the release machine holds — so an installed copy will not accept a build that did not come from here. Turn the check off in Settings if you would rather update by hand. |
| Network | The update check, and — if you subscribe — a licence renewal about once a month that sends the licence FlowState already holds. Nothing else leaves your Mac: no projects, no paths, no usage. Full detail. |
| Signature | Developer ID, notarized by Apple, opens with a double click. Both permissions revocable at any time in System Settings. |
FlowState is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a double click like anything else. No right-click trick, no warning to dismiss, no Terminal.
Drag FlowState to Applications and open it. It has no Dock icon and no window — it lives at the edge of the screen, so the first launch shows you where.
Point it at a folder and tick what should open with it: the editor, a terminal, the repository, the pages you always have open. It reads the plan back to you.
Grant Accessibility when asked if you want windows arranged, or skip it — everything else works either way, and you can grant it later.
FlowState is in open beta with every feature unlocked, nothing to buy and no card to enter. Here is what it will cost afterwards, so nobody is surprised by it later.
Fourteen-day free trial, no card up front — it starts when you do, and long enough to cover a real work cycle. Cancel whenever you like and it keeps working until the period you have paid for ends. Beta testers keep full access for the whole beta, with plenty of warning before anything changes.
FlowState keeps running with two projects, and without window arrangement, Appearance Studio or AI handoff. Nothing you made is taken away — your projects, shortcuts and themes are files on your Mac and stay readable whether you pay or not.
FlowState is one person's work and macOS changes every year. A subscription is what pays for it to keep working on the next version instead of being abandoned, which is what happens to most small Mac utilities eventually.
These are the ones testers actually asked. If yours is not here, ask it — support@flowstatemac.com reaches one person.
Yes, and completely. During the beta every feature is unlocked, no trial clock is running, there is nothing to buy and no card is asked for. When that changes it will be announced first, not switched off one morning.
Those arrange the windows you have already opened. FlowState opens them. One keystroke starts the editor on the right folder, a terminal already in that directory, the repository and the pages that project needs, and puts them where you want them — from nothing.
It launches whatever is on your Mac, so anything you can open from Finder works — Xcode, VS Code, Cursor, Zed, JetBrains, Terminal, iTerm, Ghostty, Warp. Nothing needs a plugin, because FlowState opens applications rather than integrating with them.
That permission is the only way macOS lets one application move another one’s windows, which is what the arranging is. It reads window positions to put them back and nothing else is recorded or sent.
Declining it is a real option: everything still opens, it just opens wherever macOS would have put it. You can grant it later in System Settings without reinstalling.
Because the App Store requires a sandboxed build, and the sandbox forbids moving other applications’ windows — there is no entitlement that lifts it. An App Store version of FlowState could not arrange anything, which is most of the point of it. Downloading it here gets the whole application, signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple.
FlowState checks for a new version and offers it to you. Every update carries a signature made with a key that only the release machine holds, so an installed copy will refuse a build that did not come from here even if the download itself were tampered with. The check can be turned off in Settings.
It runs, and it is honestly not tested well on multiple displays yet — arrangement is written against the screen the panel is on. If you use several, that is exactly the report worth sending.
They stay. Everything you configure lives in plain files in your own Application Support folder, not in an account and not on a server. The free tier keeps two projects working; the files for the rest are still there and still readable, and come back the moment a subscription does.
FlowState is made by one person in New Zealand and sold through Paddle, who are the merchant of record — they take the payment, handle tax wherever you are, and appear on your statement. Refunds are available within 14 days of any payment, no reason needed. The refund policy has the detail.
FlowState updates itself now. The people who downloaded it before it could cannot be reached at all — there was never anywhere to write an address down. This is that place: one short email when a release is worth your attention, and nothing else.
That is the only real test. If it has not saved you anything by the third day, tell me — that is far more useful than a compliment.