Stale

Find the outdated apps on your Mac — privately, with no install.

The free, client-side replacement for MacUpdater (which shut down Jan 1, 2026). Stale checks your installed apps against Homebrew's live version database and shows what's out of date — everything runs on your machine; your app list is never uploaded.

▶ Try the live demo  ·  no install, runs in your browser

Why it exists · Features · How it works · Run it · Architecture

_{Three entities, one engine: a Web app, a double-clickable Local launcher, and a native Mac app that scans directly and updates apps with one click.}

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Why this exists

In January 2026, MacUpdater — the go-to utility for keeping non-App-Store Mac apps current — was discontinued, and "no single app currently replicates everything MacUpdater did" (TidBITS, TheSweetBits). Every alternative (Latest, MacUpdate Desktop, App Cleaner) is a native install. There was no browser-based, zero-install, privacy-first option.

Stale fills that gap. It works because two things are now true:

1. Homebrew publishes an official, public JSON API (formulae.brew.sh/docs/api) listing ~7,600 macOS apps with their current versions — fetchable directly from a browser (CORS-open).
2. macOS Safari 17+ lets any web page be added to the Dock (Apple Support) — so a web app can live alongside native apps.

How it works

your Mac                         your browser (nothing leaves it)
┌───────────────────┐            ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ system_profiler   │  paste →   │ parse → dedupe → match against         │
│ SPApplications…   │            │ Homebrew Cask DB → compare versions →  │
│  -json | pbcopy   │            │ group + score + render                 │
└───────────────────┘            └───────────────────────────────────────┘

1. Step 1 — copy your app list. Run one command (Stale copies it to your clipboard for you):

   system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType -json | pbcopy

2. Step 2 — paste it in (or drop the .json file) and hit Check.
3. Stale matches each app to a Homebrew cask, compares versions, and shows you a grouped report plus a Freshness score.

No account. No upload. No server — there is literally nowhere for your data to go.

Features

• 🍂 Freshness score — one animated number (0–100) summarising how up-to-date your apps are.
• Smart grouping — separates Worth updating (apps that don't self-update — MacUpdater's real value) from Self-updating (Chrome, VS Code, etc. that fix themselves), plus Up to date, Not tracked, and App Store.
• Severity badges — major / minor / patch so you know how far behind you are.
• Batch actions — copy a ready-to-run brew install --cask … command for everything that needs updating.
• Diff since last scan — "↑ 3 updated, ＋2 new" so coming back is rewarding.
• Resume — your last scan is remembered locally; reopen and pick up where you left off.
• Reminders — download a calendar (.ics) nudge to re-check in two weeks.
• Installable to the Dock — it's a PWA; add it to your Dock and it works offline.
• Light & dark, keyboard- and screen-reader-friendly, respects prefers-reduced-motion.

Privacy

Stale is a static site. There is no backend, no analytics, no telemetry, no cookies set by us. The only network request is a GET to Homebrew's public API for the version database. Your pasted app list is processed in memory and cached only on your device (IndexedDB) so you can resume. Read assets/js/app.js — it's all there.

Run it

Stale runs as two separate but equivalent entities — same engine, same speed, independent storage. See docs/ENTITIES.md for the full picture.

Local entity (on your Mac)

Double-click run.command in the stale/ folder. It starts a tiny local server and opens Stale in your browser. It labels itself LOCAL (amber badge) and keeps its own history.

First launch: macOS may warn it's from an unidentified developer — right-click run.command → Open → Open once to trust your own file.

Web entity (deployed)

Host the stale/ folder on any static host (GitHub Pages, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, …). On a real domain it automatically identifies as the WEB entity (blue badge) with its own storage.

Dev server

No build step. Any static file server works:

cd stale
npm run serve        # → http://localhost:4180   (python3 -m http.server)

Serve over http:// or https:// (not file://) to get the Dock/PWA + service worker. Append ?build=web to preview the web entity locally for a side-by-side comparison.

Architecture

A deliberately buildless static app — instant load, easy to host anywhere, trivial to audit.

Path	Responsibility
index.html	Markup + PWA wiring
assets/css/styles.css	All styling (macOS-native aesthetic, light/dark, gauge)
assets/js/app.js	DB loading, normalisation, matching, version compare, scoring, rendering, PWA — organised into 10 numbered sections; exposes window.Stale for tests
service-worker.js	Offline app-shell cache
manifest.webmanifest	PWA / Dock metadata
docs/	Plan, decisions, wins, limitations, testing

Limitations (read before trusting blindly)

Version comparison is a best-effort heuristic and coverage is limited to apps in Homebrew's database. See docs/LIMITATIONS.md for the full, evidence-backed list. Always confirm before updating, and prefer each app's own updater or your package manager.

Roadmap

Next up: a notarized .dmg + GitHub Release so anyone can download and run the native app without building from source (the build/notarize automation is already done in native/notarize.sh). See docs/ROADMAP.md.

Credits & licence

• Version data: the Homebrew Cask project (BSD-2-Clause). Stale is not affiliated with Homebrew.
• Not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple.
• Licensed under MIT.