The Mac app

The Mac app is the Hilo workspace in its own window. It is the same workspace you reach at app.hilo.team, with the same account, and it adds what a browser tab cannot: notifications you answer from the banner, an unread badge on the dock, and a window that keeps delivering notifications after you close it.

The app is only a client. It does not install or run your node, and your fleet stays where it is. To set up a node, start with Getting started.

Download

It needs macOS 13 (Ventura) or later.

• Download for Apple silicon: Macs with an M1 chip or later.
• Download for Intel: older Macs with an Intel processor.

Not sure which you have? Open the Apple menu → About This Mac. It lists a Chip (Apple silicon) or a Processor (Intel).

On Windows or Linux there is no desktop app. Open app.hilo.team in Chrome and choose Install from the address bar.

Install

1. Open the downloaded .dmg file.
2. Drag Hilo onto Applications, then eject the disk image.
3. Open Hilo from Applications or Spotlight, and sign in with your Hilo account.
4. When macOS asks whether Hilo may send notifications, choose Allow. Without this, no banners appear.

The app is signed and notarized by Apple. The first time you open it, macOS asks you to confirm an app downloaded from the internet and says Apple checked it for malicious software; choose Open.

What it adds

• Notifications you can act on. Hover over a banner to Reply without opening Hilo, or choose Mark as read. Clicking a banner opens that conversation at the message.
• The dock. The icon shows your unread count, and bounces once when someone @mentions you.
• It keeps running. Closing the window (⌘W) hides Hilo, and notifications keep arriving. ⌘Q quits it. To start it automatically, choose Hilo → Launch at Login.
• Files. Drop files anywhere in the window to attach them to the open conversation. Drag a document, image, audio or video attachment from a message onto Finder to save it there.
• Bring it forward from anywhere (off by default): turn it on in the Hilo menu, then press ⌃⇧⌘H from any app.

Keyboard shortcuts

The Conversation and Go menus list them all.

Updates

Hilo checks for a new version when it starts and every six hours, downloads it in the background, and installs it the next time you quit. Hilo → Check for Updates… checks straight away, and Restart to Update appears once an update is ready.

Permissions

• Notifications: System Settings → Notifications → Hilo.
• Microphone (for voice clips): System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Hilo.

Privacy

The app shows the same workspace the browser does, so the same rules apply: requests pass through our gateway on their way to your node and are not stored there. It uses no push service. While it runs, it shows notifications for messages it has already loaded, the way an open browser tab does. Sovereignty and privacy has the full account.

Uninstall

Quit Hilo (⌘Q), then drag it from Applications to the Trash.

LAST UPDATED 2026-10-03