A tour of the main window

Mainspring's main window has two parts: a sidebar down the left that takes you to each area, and a content area on the right with a search box across the top. Here's what each piece does.

The sidebar, top to bottom

The Mainspring logo

The spiral beside the name winds tighter as you switch more things on — a quick visual of how much Mainspring is changing right now.

Home

Recipe cards, the Never sleep card, and power-ups suggested for you. See Apply and revert a recipe.

On now

Everything you've switched on, in one place, with a count beside it. See On now.

Favorites

Everything you've starred. The number beside it counts your starred recipes, power-ups and the Never sleep card. See Favorites.

LIBRARY › Browse all

Every power-up and tool, grouped by area — Power, Display, Network, Finder, Dock and more. See Browse all.

SCENES

Your saved setups. The + builds a new one; click a scene to switch to it; right-click for more. Until you've made one, it reads “Build a scene — switch your whole Mac with one click.” See Scenes.

Automations

Rules that switch scenes for you. See Automations.

SUGGESTED

A card near the bottom with one pick for right now, based on the time, your power source and your preferences. See Suggestions.

Your profile

Once you've personalized, “Tuned for you” shows a summary such as “Developer, Writer · Laptop”. Below it, Personalize — or Update preferences — reopens the questions, and hello@trymainspring.com starts an email to us.

The top bar

Search

Type to search every recipe, power-up and tool at once; the box suggests “faster”, “never sleep” and “privacy” to get you started. See Search every power-up.

The “on” counter

Whenever anything is on, a pill at the top right shows how many — 3 on, say. Click it to jump to On now.

Strips across the top

Two strips can appear above everything else:

• Free trial — 1 day left with Unlock — $29, while you're on the trial. See Free trial and licence.
• An orange warning when something couldn't be changed — a cancelled password prompt, say, or a missing permission. It explains what happened and has a Dismiss button. See Troubleshooting.

Finding your way back

When you open a recipe, a back link at the top — ‹ Home, for example — returns you to the screen you opened it from. (From On now, it takes you to Home.) Clicking Home, On now, Favorites, Browse all or Automations in the sidebar also clears the search box.

Closing the window

Closing the window doesn't quit Mainspring — it keeps running in the menu bar, which is what lets automations and the network modes keep working. To quit, choose Quit in the menu-bar panel, or press ⌘Q while the window is in front. See The menu bar panel.