App Detective
See what any macOS app is really built with — SwiftUI, AppKit, Electron, and beyond.
What it is
Ever wondered whether a Mac app is a polished native build or an Electron window in disguise? App Detective inspects the applications on your Mac and reports the GUI technology behind each one — so developers, reviewers, and curious users can understand how an app was actually made.
What it detects
- Native macOS — AppKit and SwiftUI
- Apple cross-platform — Mac Catalyst
- Web-based — Electron and other Chromium wrappers
- Cross-platform toolkits — Flutter, Qt, and friends
Why
It's surprisingly hard to tell from the outside whether a Mac app is native or a web view in a window. App Detective makes that visible at a glance — handy when you're benchmarking competitors, auditing your own shipping app, deciding whether to trust a download, or just curious about the macOS ecosystem. It's one of the most popular tools in my open-source lineup.