Changelog

Updates and new features as they ship. Subscribe to releases by reaching out at pipzhelp@gmail.com.

1.4.3 June 2026 Menu bar, Launch at Login, auto-hide

Match the menu bar to macOS, launch at login, and auto-hide PiPs on hover.

  • System-matched menu bar icon. A new Auto mode — now the default — renders the menu bar icon as a template, so macOS tints it like every other icon: black in Light mode, white in Dark mode. Prefer a fixed look? Pick Blue, White, or Black from the new visual color picker in Settings.
  • Launch at Login. A new Startup option in Settings starts Pipz automatically when you log in to your Mac.
  • Auto-hide on hover. A new toolbar toggle fades a PiP to near-transparent while your pointer is over it, so you can see what's behind, then restores it when you move away. Combine it with click-through to fully get a PiP out of the way.
1.4.2 May 2026 Firefox & Opera hotkeys

⌘⌥U works in Firefox and Opera, with a clearer picker error.

  • ⌘⌥U in Firefox and Opera. Both browsers claim that combo as a built-in menu shortcut and silently ate the keypress before PipZ could see it. PipZ now installs a head-of-queue event tap so its hotkeys win, and the tap self-repairs when Accessibility is granted after launch.
  • Input Monitoring prompt. Recent macOS requires Input Monitoring in addition to Accessibility for the new tap. PipZ now surfaces that prompt the first time it's needed, instead of failing silently.
  • Opera tab reads. Opera advertises the Chromium AppleScript suite but rejects the JS hop other Chromium browsers use, so reading the front tab quietly failed. PipZ now takes an Opera-specific path that fetches URL and title directly.
  • Friendlier errors. Firefox URL-read failures point at the actual cause (new tab page, private window, missing Accessibility), and the "this browser can't pick page elements" alert now names Firefox and Opera as unsupported instead of misleadingly listing them as supported.
1.4.1 May 2026 Arc picker fix

Pick Element as PiP works on Arc again.

  • ⌘⌥E on Arc. Arc returns execute javascript values JSON-stringified one extra time, so the picker poll silently failed to parse the click payload and no PiP appeared. The bridge now peels that wrap so Arc behaves the same as Chrome/Edge/Brave.
  • More reliable picker clicks. Capture-phase event listeners moved from document to window, so page-level handlers (Twitter, Notion, Arc Boost overlays) can no longer preempt the pick.
  • No more stray navigation. The picker swallows the trailing mousedown/click events after a successful pick, so clicking a link to pip it no longer races a page navigation that wiped the payload before it could be read.
1.4.0 May 2026 Streaming regions

Crop any streamed window region, resize PiPs with a trackpad pinch, and keep debug builds unlocked.

  • Stream Region mode. Stream a Window now offers a region picker so you can crop a chart, meeting tile, player, or app panel instead of mirroring the full source window.
  • Better streaming controls. Streaming PiPs keep the source aspect ratio, reveal the title and close control on hover, and support smooth trackpad pinch resizing.
  • Debug builds stay license-free. Local debug builds now define the expected DEBUG condition, so ⌘⌥P and other PiP entry points do not ask for a license key during development. Release builds still enforce activation.
  • Quieter permissions and smaller UI fixes. PipZ asks for Accessibility and Screen Recording only when a feature needs them, and long Settings toasts no longer push the window wider.
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1.3.2 May 2026 Picker + permissions

More reliable element PiP and quieter window streaming permissions.

  • Pick Element as PiP is more stable. PipZ no longer falls back to the whole page body or loses the selected element after it appears, so charts, videos, and panels stay visible more reliably.
  • Stream a Window shows only the macOS permission prompt. The duplicate PipZ permission dialog is gone, and cancelling Screen Recording access no longer produces extra popups.
  • Browser session reuse works across more profiles. PipZ can reuse cookies from additional browser profiles and handles Arc/Chromium windows more consistently.
1.3.1 May 2026 DMG installer + paste fix

Drag-to-Applications installer, paste in every text field.

  • Ships as a .dmg now. Downloads open the familiar installer window with the PipZ icon on the left and an Applications shortcut on the right - drag once and you're done. Apps in /Applications can self-update; apps elsewhere can't (macOS path translocation), so this fixes the most common "Check for Updates does nothing" report at the source.
  • Settings warns when PipZ isn't in /Applications. Small banner under the version label in About, plus a "Show" button to reveal the current bundle in Finder so it's one drag to fix.
  • ⌘V / ⌘C / ⌘X / ⌘A / ⌘Z now work in every text field. Previous builds had no Edit menu, so macOS silently dropped Command-key text shortcuts - which meant the only way to enter a license key was character-by-character typing. Activation is a single paste now.
1.3.0 May 2026 Pick element

Pick a single element off the page and float just that.

  • Pick element as PiP (⌘⌥E, Beta). Instead of pipping the whole tab, point at any single element on the active page - a video player, a chart, a chat panel, a live ticker - and PipZ floats only that piece. The PiP is sized from the element's actual on-page geometry with one uniform scale, so it lands at the same aspect ratio you saw in the page.
  • Settings no longer pops up after every shortcut. Hotkey-triggered activations were leaving PipZ active with no visible window for a moment, which macOS interpreted as a Dock-icon reopen and surfaced Settings. Every hotkey path now suppresses that reopen, so ⌘⌥U / ⌘⌥E / preset shortcuts stay quiet. Clicking the Dock icon still opens Settings as before.
1.2.0 May 2026 CLI + MCP

Drive PipZ from the command line and from any LLM.

  • Expanded CLI surface. The pipz binary now covers the full panel lifecycle: list (JSON snapshot of every open PiP), close --index N / --title <substr>, arrange <edge>, opacity, move, preset save, pip-active-tab, clickthrough, and volume. Every panel-touching subcommand respects the license gate.
  • Pipz MCP server. A bundled Model Context Protocol server lets Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, and other MCP-aware clients open, arrange, and tweak PiPs with natural-language requests - including Korean phrases like "화면에 띄워줘" and "정렬해줘". Eleven tools, one for each CLI verb.
  • License gate now blocks "Install Command Line Tool" too. The Settings → Automation → Install/Uninstall buttons used to bypass activation. They now route through the same gate as the rest of the Settings actions, so the symlink can't be installed before a key is entered.
1.1.2 May 2026 Comet + papercuts

Perplexity Comet support and quieter keychain prompts.

  • Comet browser support. ⌘⌥U works on Comet's active tab the same as Chrome, and "Reuse browser logins" imports cookies from Comet's session store.
  • Keychain prompts now scope to the browser you're using. Triggering a PiP from Chrome no longer fans out into "Pipz wants to access <Vendor> Safe Storage" prompts for every other Chromium variant installed on your Mac. Each browser asks once, the first time you actually source a PiP from it.
  • Clearer feedback on the new-tab page. Triggering ⌘⌥U on a blank new tab now shows a "Switch to a regular webpage" alert immediately, instead of starting a drag that quietly fails - and the Settings window no longer pops up as a side effect.
1.1.1 May 2026 License gate

Settings buttons now respect license activation.

  • "Show Presets…" and "Pick Window…" go through the activation gate. The ⌘⌥-style hotkeys already required an active license, but the two General-tab buttons bypassed the check and let unlicensed users trigger PiP creation straight from Settings. Both handlers now route through the same gate as the hotkey path.
1.1.0 May 2026 Streaming + auto-updates

Stream any window as PiP, plus automatic updates.

  • Stream a Window mode (⌘⌥P). Mirror any open window - Zoom, Slack, a Netflix tab in your real browser, anything - into a non-interactive PiP. Different from the regular tab-as-PiP path: it captures pixels instead of rendering the page in Pipz's webview, so DRM sites, native apps, and pages you're already signed into all just work. Grant Screen Recording permission once when prompted.
  • Auto-updates. Pipz now checks for new releases in the background and prompts you when one's available. Manual check anytime in Settings → About → Updates. Powered by Sparkle with EdDSA-signed feeds.
  • Settings polish. Each card has a small section header (DEFAULTS / STREAMING / SESSIONS / AUTOMATION) so the page is easier to scan. Hotkeys split into Browser / Streaming / Presets / Arrangement groups instead of one long list.
1.0.0 May 2026 Public release

Trim, fix, and a friendlier default.

  • Removed the VS Code window helper. The "Open VS Code Window in Selection" hotkey and menu item are gone - out of scope for a PiP tool, and rarely the right shortcut.
  • Show Presets hint now lands on the screen you're actually using. On multi-monitor setups the centered "no presets saved yet" pill used to fall in the gap between displays; it now anchors to whichever screen has the cursor.
  • Default tab mode is now "Open Full Page". Focus Main Content was too aggressive on a page Pipz hadn't seen before. The per-domain rules introduced in 0.11.0 already cover the cases where focusing genuinely helps, so the safe default is to just show the page. Existing users keep whatever they set.
0.12.0 May 2026 Browsers

Now talks to every Chromium browser, not just Chrome.

  • ⌘⌥space supports more browsers. Microsoft Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi, Opera, and Naver Whale all join Chrome and Safari as supported front-tab sources. Bring any of them to the front and the "open as PiP" hotkey works the same way.
  • Reuse browser logins works across all installed Chromium browsers. Settings → Sessions checkbox now imports cookies from every Chromium-family browser on your Mac, not just Chrome. macOS asks once per browser for keychain access. Safari is still excluded - Apple sandboxes Safari's cookie store so no third-party app can read it.
  • Friendlier "unsupported browser" notification. If your frontmost app isn't a recognized browser, the alert now lists which ones are.
0.11.0 May 2026 Smart focus

Pin the right content on charts, players, and articles.

  • Per-domain focus rules. Focus Main Content and Auto modes now use hand-tuned CSS selectors on 10 sites - Loom, Wistia, TradingView, Yahoo Finance, Investing.com, Naver Finance, Substack, Medium, NYT/WaPo/Guardian/BBC, and Naver News - to pin the chart, player, or article body and hide the surrounding noise.
  • Within-content cleanup. After isolation succeeds, Pipz removes recommended-video rails, comment threads, share bars, subscribe popups, and ad slots from inside the focused region. Conservative on unknown sites; aggressive on listed ones.
  • Auto stays cautious. A domain rule supplies the candidate, but Auto's 4× dominance check still applies - pages where the chart and a sidebar are similar size still fall through to Open Full Page instead of guessing.
0.10.1 May 2026 Sessions

Open PiPs already signed in.

  • Reuse browser logins. Opt-in setting that imports your Chrome cookie store into PiP web views, so Gmail, Notion, Atlassian and friends land on the logged-in screen instead of a sign-in wall. Toggle in Settings → General → Sessions; macOS asks once for keychain access. Handles the Chrome 130+ value format with the new SHA-256 integrity tag.
  • ⌘W closes the Settings window. Added a Window menu so the standard Close / Minimize keystrokes route through AppKit's responder chain instead of being swallowed by the menubar-only app shell.
0.10.0 May 2026 Automation

Trigger PipZ from anywhere - Raycast, Shortcuts, Terminal.

  • URL scheme. Open and close panels from any tool that can open a URL - Raycast, Alfred, Shortcuts.app, Hammerspoon, or a plain browser bookmark: pipz://open?url=…&rect=x,y,w,h&preset=N&mode=auto|passthrough|focus|isolate and pipz://close?all=1. Routed through the same content transformer used by the in-app shortcuts, so YouTube / Twitch / Vimeo links get the embed treatment automatically.
  • Command-line tool. New pipz binary: pipz open <url>, pipz close --all, pipz --help. One-click installer in Settings → General → Automation drops it into /usr/local/bin with a sudo fallback that copies the install command to the clipboard.
  • Mission Control for PiPs. ⌘⌥B animates every active panel into a compact grid; one click on the X on each tile closes it. ESC restores the original positions - and the overlay now grabs keyboard focus reliably when ⌘⌥B is triggered from another frontmost app.
  • Refined app icon. Redrawn against the macOS Big Sur+ icon grid - squircle corners and balanced inset so PipZ matches first-party apps in the Dock instead of overpowering them.
0.9.0 Apr 2026 Initial release

First public release

  • Picture-in-Picture for any browser tab on macOS, with content-focused isolation for video players and article pages.
  • Per-window controls - opacity slider, click-through toggle, and auto-refresh interval (Off, 5s, 10s, 30s, 1m, 5m, 15m).
  • Compact popover toolbar - close, info, opacity, click-through, and refresh icons that drop down their controls on click.
  • Layout presets and one-shortcut smart arrangements (left / right / top / bottom edge).
  • Customizable global shortcuts with an in-app key recorder.
  • Native Settings window with sidebar tabs (General, Hotkeys, About).
  • Apple Silicon and Intel builds.