Omarchy on a Mac
Based doesn't replace macOS. What a Mac can run is Based's Omarchy: the menu, the themes, the terminal setup and Omarchy's shortcuts, installed into your account. To run Based itself on an Apple Silicon Mac, see Installing Based.
Installing
You need Homebrew first. Then:
git clone https://git.corp.bitspur.com/basedlinux.com/omarchy.git
cd omarchy
make prepare stage install
The install is per user. It adds the tools Omarchy's scripts need from Homebrew (a newer Bash, GNU
sed and coreutils, gum, fastfetch) and the JetBrainsMono Nerd Font, puts Omarchy's commands on your
PATH through one line in ~/.zprofile, and fetches desktop-sync, which keeps macOS in step with
the theme. The first time desktop-sync runs, macOS asks whether it may control System Events. Allow
it, or the light or dark setting won't follow the theme.
What you get
The Omarchy menu opens as a card, from Option+Space, Cmd+Shift+Space or the Omarchy icon in
the menu bar. Omarchy's own shortcuts that make sense without a tiling manager come with it, using
Cmd for Super, or Option where Cmd would clash with macOS:
| keys | does |
|---|---|
Option+Space, Cmd+Shift+Space |
the menu |
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+Space |
pick a theme |
Option+Ctrl+Space |
pick a background |
Cmd+K |
the list of shortcuts |
Cmd+Return |
a Ghostty window, else Terminal |
Cmd+Shift+Return, Cmd+Shift+B |
a browser window |
Cmd+Shift+F |
Finder |
Cmd+Shift+N |
your editor |
Cmd+Ctrl+T |
btop |
These hold in every app while the menu bar icon runs, so Cmd+K and the others no longer reach an
app that uses them. ~/.config/omarchy/darwin-bindings.json replaces the table if you want your
own.
A theme switch reaches the terminal and what runs in it: Ghostty, tmux, Neovim, the prompt, btop, lazygit and the rest. macOS's light or dark appearance, accent and desktop picture follow too. Other apps, LibreOffice, browsers and editors among them, keep macOS's own look.
Updating
make update
from the clone. It pulls the fork, restages it, then runs Homebrew's upgrade and Omarchy's own update steps. It refuses a clone with uncommitted changes.
What a Mac doesn't get
No tiling, bar or lock screen, since those need Omarchy's Linux shell. No onboarding, no Work or School Account and no AI Tools. AI agents has how to add agentctl yourself.