Beam Start here
Get started
Open Beam, grant the permissions you want, and take the tour. About five minutes.
Open Beam
Press ⌥Space from anywhere. That is the default. Beam runs as a menu bar app, so there is no Dock icon.
To use ⌘Space instead, go to Settings → General and turn on Use ⌘Space like Spotlight. Beam reads keys before macOS does, so Spotlight's own shortcut ends up in Beam. The setting walks you through the System Settings change.
Coming from Raycast or Spotlight?
If either app already uses your shortcut, turn theirs off first. The welcome screen says the same.
Grant permissions
Beam asks only for what a feature needs. Everything works without them except the feature listed.
| Permission | Needed for |
|---|---|
| Accessibility | Snippet expansion, reading selected text for AI commands and Quick Fix, pasting dictation and clipboard items into other apps, window snapping. |
| Input Monitoring | Global hotkeys, the double-tap Right Shift trigger, the Fn or Right Command dictation triggers, the Command-Tab replacement. |
| Screen Recording | Window thumbnails in the switcher and the AI screenshot tool. |
| Microphone and Speech Recognition | Dictation. |
| Calendars | My Schedule, the up-next banner, meeting links, menu bar meeting. |
| Contacts | Contact search in the launcher. |
| Automation (Apple Events) | System commands such as Lock Screen, Empty Trash, Toggle Dark Mode and Show Desktop. |
Open Beam Permissions & Setup from the launcher or the menu bar to see what is granted and jump to the right System Settings pane. After you grant Accessibility or Screen Recording you may need to restart Beam. Beam says so on that screen.
Take the hands-on tour
Click the Beam icon in the menu bar and choose Feature Tour. You can also press the Feature tour button in Settings → General → About, or open beam://tour. The tour also starts after the welcome screen the first time you run Beam. Each task is a real action with a live checkmark, and your progress is remembered. There are seven chapters. Play them in order or jump to any one.
| Chapter | What you do |
|---|---|
| Core | Open Beam, launch an app, run a calculation, search files with the f prefix, open a System Settings pane by name, record a hotkey. |
| AI | Ask AI with Tab, run an AI command on selected text, try Quick Fix, chat with an agent, optionally make an automation. |
| Voice | Dictate with Fn, choose where dictated text goes. |
| Text | Create a snippet, expand it in another app, paste from clipboard history. |
| Windows | Snap a window with left half, use Command-Tab, search switch windows. |
| Extras | Emoji picker, colour picker, a 5 second timer, a dictionary lookup and a system command. |
| Personalise | Try a theme, then open the in-app manual (search help). |
First five minutes
- Press ⌥Space and type
24*18. The answer shows as you type. ↵ copies it. - Clear the box and type
100 usd in eur. - Type
f, a space, then part of a file name. - Type
keyboardand press ↵. Beam opens that System Settings pane. - Press ⌥⇧⌘V to see your clipboard history.
System requirements
macOS 14 or later. Liquid Glass styling needs macOS 26. On earlier systems Beam uses a frosted material instead. Apple Intelligence needs macOS 26 and an eligible Mac with Apple Intelligence turned on.