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Black Bao Studio
§ Apps

Small tools. Engineered tight.

Native-feeling macOS utilities we build for ourselves and ship for everyone. No Electron, no telemetry, no bloat.

Pinned
Projects
blackbao.studio
Personal
Photos
Recipes
Work
Reports
Meeting Notes
Thank you for your email...
Quick Access
Safari.app
#3B82F6
#EF4444
Q4-Summary
Annual-Review
Monthly
Budget-Report.pdf
Revenue.xlsx
Forecast-2026.pdf
Charts
§ Themes

Your clipboard, your look.

Search... ⚙︎
⌘1Thanks for reaching out! I'll get back to you shortly.
⌘218 Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX
⌘3contact@blackbao.studio
⌘4The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
⌘5https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui
⌘6Meeting moved to 3pm, see you in the main room
⌘7GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32
⌘8bun add -d typescript
⌘9Can you review the PR when you get a chance?
⌘0+44 7700 900123
Search... ⚙︎
⌘1Thanks for reaching out! I'll get back to you shortly.
⌘218 Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX
⌘3contact@blackbao.studio
⌘4The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
⌘5https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui
⌘6Meeting moved to 3pm, see you in the main room
⌘7GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32
⌘8bun add -d typescript
⌘9Can you review the PR when you get a chance?
⌘0+44 7700 900123
Search... ⚙︎
⌘1Thanks for reaching out! I'll get back to you shortly.
⌘218 Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX
⌘3contact@blackbao.studio
⌘4The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
⌘5https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui
⌘6Meeting moved to 3pm, see you in the main room
⌘7GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32
⌘8bun add -d typescript
⌘9Can you review the PR when you get a chance?
⌘0+44 7700 900123
§ Color schemes

Ten palettes. Zero config.

Heatmap
Blue Skies
Neon
Obsidian
Melon
Sunrise
Forest
Ocean
Lavender
Matrix
Clipboard History

Never lose
a copy again

Everything you copy is saved silently in the background. Text, links, code snippets: it's all there when you need it. Keep hundreds of clips in your history and search them instantly.

Text
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQAB...
2 min ago
URL
https://api.example.com/v2/users
5 min ago
Code
let config = AppConfig(name: "prod"...
12 min ago
Text
#ffcf4a
1 hr ago
Instant Search

Find anything
in seconds

Type to filter your history in real time. Whether you copied it five minutes ago or five days ago, search brings it back instantly. No scrolling, no guessing.

Keyboard First

Hands stay on the keys

Every action has a shortcut. Open, pin, paste: all without touching the mouse.
+
Space
Open panel
+
1
Paste pinned clip
Paste selected
Alerts

Never miss
a story

Native macOS notifications the moment something new lands. Each notification shows the title and source, so you can decide at a glance whether to read it now or later.

Zero Friction

Search that
keeps up

Filter as you type, across everything the app has ever seen. Results rank by recency and match quality, so the thing you want is almost always the first row.

§ Right-click

Your context menu, supercharged.

Open
Open With
Move to Bin
Get Info
Rename
Compress "screenshot.png"
Quick Actions
Bao Menu
Copy
Share...
Tags...
Move to Folder
Copy to Folder
Create New File
Compress with Password
Convert Image
Resize Image
Copy File Path
Open Terminal Here
Show Hidden Files
Actions

Every action,
one click away

Move, copy, create, open. The actions you repeat a hundred times a day, promoted to first-class citizens of your right-click menu.

Control

You decide
what shows up

Toggle actions on and off, drag to reorder, add your own. The menu shows exactly what you use and nothing you don't.

Scriptable

Bring your
own scripts

Drop a shell script in and it becomes a menu action. Selected files arrive as arguments; whatever your script can do, your right-click can do.

File Tools

Convert, resize,
merge in place

Common file chores handled where the files already are. No opening an editor, no exporting, no round-trips through another app.

§ In action

Hear the whole flow.

Product walkthrough

A guided tour through a single working session.

0:26
0:00 / 0:26 A guided walkthrough, narrated.
Guide Hit ⌘Space and Black Bao is ready before your hands leave the keyboard.
You Open my downloads folder.
Guide Done. The newest files are pinned to the top.
You Rename these three with today's date.
Guide Renamed in one pass, batch rules applied.
You Now compress them with a password.
Guide Zipped with AES-256, and the path is on your clipboard.
You That's it. Nice.
§ And more

Everything you need to work faster.

🔒
Secure Delete
Permanently remove files beyond recovery. Requires confirmation to prevent accidents.
✏️
Batch Rename
Replace text, add prefixes and suffixes, or format with counters and dates.
💻
Open Terminal
Open a terminal at the current folder location. New tab or new window.
📋
Copy File Path
Copy the full file path to your clipboard instantly.
👁
Hidden Files
Show or hide hidden files with one click.
🔗
Create Symlink
Create symbolic links for files and folders without touching a terminal.
🔏
Compress with Password
Password-protected ZIP archives with AES-256 encryption, straight from the menu.
📄
File Templates
New files from built-in templates: HTML, CSS, Python, Shell, XML, SVG, and more.
§ The CLI

Same actions, from the terminal.

Every menu item has a command. Script the boring parts, keep the right-click for everything else.

bao — zsh — 80×24
$
bao — zsh
$
§ At a glance

Built to disappear into the Finder.

Native

A context menu, not another window

Everything lives where you already right-click. No launcher, no dock icon, no second app to remember.

Idle cost

18 MB, no fan

Sits quiet until you open a menu.

Privacy

Nothing leaves the Mac

No accounts, no telemetry, no network calls.

Keyboard

Every action has a shortcut

Rebind anything. The mouse is optional from the first launch.

Updates

Signed & notarized

Shipped through Sparkle, verified by Apple.

§ Install

Three ways in. All of them one line.

~
$brew install --cask blackbao/tap/bao
==> Downloading bao-1.2.0.dmg
==> Verifying notarization
🍺 bao was successfully installed
$
§ Requirements

No surprises at install time.

macOS Sonoma 14 or later Apple silicon universal supported
macOS Ventura 13 Intel + Apple silicon universal supported
macOS Monterey 12 Intel 1.0.x only legacy
Disk footprint including templates and archives 42 MB fixed

Written about in

18MB
resident memory while idle
0%
CPU when no menu is open
40+
actions in the context menu
0
network requests, ever
§ Under the hood

Right-click to done in four hops.

01
Right-click
Finder extension
02
Resolve
selection + scope
03
Run
sandboxed helper
04
Undo
every action reversible
§ Shortcuts

The ones people actually rebind.

⌘⇧C

Copy the full POSIX path of everything selected.

⌘⇧T

Open a terminal at the current folder, new tab.

⌘⇧.

Toggle hidden files without restarting Finder.

⌘⇧R

Batch rename with counters, dates and find/replace.

⌘⇧Z

Undo the last action, including moves and renames.

§ Batch mode

Queue the work. Read the receipt.

Formats

Every archive format, one menu.

  • No size ceiling and no per-file limits
  • Picks the engine by content, not by extension
  • Reads what macOS refuses to open natively
zip · deflatearchiveread + write71% smaller
7z · lzma2archiveread + write78% smaller
tar.zstarchiveread + write74% smaller
Finder's built-in Compress 58% smaller
Run

Every step reports what it touched

Batch actions run one phase at a time and print the count as they go, so a rename across 1,200 files is never a black box.

batch rename · ~/Screenshots dry run off
Scan folder tree0.2s
Match pattern · 1,204 files0.4s
• Apply counters and datesrunning…
• Write undo journalqueued
Phase 3/4 · 1,204 files · undo window: 30 days
Dry run

See the damage before you do it

Every destructive action can run once without touching disk and hand back a report.

files matched 1,204
name collisions 0
outside the selected folder 2 flagged
reversible all
✓ safe to run · undo journal will be written
Engines

Right tool per file

Archives route by content: text compresses, media gets stored.

auto-profile
TEXT / CODE
deflate
compressed71%
MEDIA
store
copied as-is29%
§ Also from the studio

Two more things we actually use.

Coming soon
Bao Shelf

A clipboard history that lives in the menu bar and forgets on a timer you set. Pin what matters, let the rest expire.

Live
Quick Look Plus

Preview the formats macOS refuses to: archives, notebooks, subtitle tracks, and anything with a sensible plain-text fallback.

See it

Try it on the folder you have been avoiding.

Free for 14 days, no account. If it does not earn its place in your right-click menu, delete it and nothing phones home.

Signed, notarized, Sparkle updates
Universal binary, Intel and Apple silicon
Every destructive action is undoable
No accounts, no telemetry, no network