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Show HN: Oliphaunt – A native Mastodon client for macOS

by anosidium on 5/9/25, 4:21 PM with 39 comments

I’ve been building Oliphaunt, a native Mastodon client for macOS, as a solo project — designed to be fast, lightweight and feel right at home on the Mac. It’s not built with Catalyst or Electron framework.

Key features:

• Native macOS UI using AppKit with some SwiftUI integration (not a web wrapper)

• Core Data for local caching

• Responsive, keyboard-friendly interface

• UX tailored for desktop-class Mac computers

• Supports multiple accounts, cross-instance timelines and search

You can try it via TestFlight (macOS 14+ Sonoma): https://testflight.apple.com/join/Epq1P3Cw

Feedback is welcome here, on GitHub, or via TestFlight: https://github.com/anosidium/Oliphaunt-Feedback-And-Support

  • by whalesalad on 5/10/25, 3:03 AM

    What’s the sense on mastodon lately? I feel like the core concept is also its Achilles heel in that with all these disjointed communities it’s really not a community at all.

  • by thephyber on 5/9/25, 10:02 PM

    New iOS (XCode) developer here.

    Do you have any pro tips for optimizing workflow, reducing toil in XCode, or speeding up UI testing?

  • by grishka on 5/9/25, 8:22 PM

    It does look nice.

    I can't seem to figure out how to open posts and profiles though. Neither single nor double-clicking does anything. Sometimes double-clicking a post that contains a link would open the link in the web browser. The only thing that works is right click -> open in new window. MacOS 14.7.5 (23H527)

  • by _mlbt on 5/9/25, 4:39 PM

    Always great to see native macOS apps! Is there a reason you aren’t using SwiftUI for the whole thing and that you opted for Core Data instead of Swift Data?

  • by noiv on 5/9/25, 6:45 PM

    I like the Mac integration and all the features in the menu. Did I miss bigger fonts somewhere?

  • by mountainriver on 5/9/25, 4:32 PM

    The link goes to testflight?

  • by andrewmcwatters on 5/9/25, 4:49 PM

    Nicely done, looks good!

  • by techlatest_net on 5/9/25, 6:02 PM

    Thanks for the TestFlight invite! I’ll install the iOS build and keep an eye on performance, UI responsiveness, and any crash logs. Happy to send feedback through the TestFlight app if anything comes up.

  • by internetter on 5/9/25, 5:00 PM

    Why isn't it open source? Ice Cubes is pretty good and FOSS

  • by zimpenfish on 5/9/25, 6:23 PM

    Alas, fell at the first hurdle by saying my Akkoma and GotoSocial instances aren't valid.