devShakib015/helm

What is Helm?

Helm is an all-in-one utility for macOS. One app that replaces a folder full of them — system monitoring, disk cleaning, clipboard history, and a dozen everyday tools.

It's a multi-tool platform: fifteen tools sharing one window, one menu-bar item, and one design language.

📸 A look inside

📦 Install

1. Download the latest DMG

2. Open it and drag Helm into your Applications folder

3. First launch: macOS will say “Helm can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.” Click Done, then:

   System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ scroll down ▸ Open Anyway

   You only do this once. (On older macOS you can also right-click the app ▸ Open.)

4. Grant Full Disk Access when Helm asks, so the Storage tool can measure everything

git clone https://github.com/devShakib015/helm.git && cd helm
flutter build macos --release

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Helm.app

Helm is free and open source. No account, no telemetry, no network calls — nothing ever leaves your Mac.

💚 Free forever

Helm is 100% free, with every feature included, permanently.

No paid tier. No "pro" version. No subscription, no trial, no locked features, no upsell, no ads, no accounts. Every tool described below is in the app you download, and always will be — that is a commitment, not an introductory offer.

It is also fully open source under the MIT licence: if you ever doubt any of the above, the entire thing is right here to read.

Safe by design. Helm never deletes destructively. Everything it removes goes to the Trash, so you can always get it back. The only exception is emptying the Trash itself — which you explicitly confirm.

✨ The Storage tool

🎨 Design

A custom “deep dark + glass” design system: a frameless vibrancy window with the traffic lights overlaid on a translucent sidebar, native SF Pro typography, hand-built charts and treemaps (no chart dependency), and fluid motion throughout. It looks like a paid pro app — because it's meant to.

🏗️ Architecture

Helm is structured so new tools are easy to add and the heavy lifting never blocks the UI.

lib/
├─ app/                  # app shell: tool registry, sidebar, window root
│  └─ shell/
├─ core/                 # cross-tool foundation
│  ├─ models/            # pure-Dart, isolate-safe data models
│  ├─ services/          # native bridge, permissions, deletion, system info
│  ├─ theme/             # colors, typography, spacing
│  └─ widgets/           # reusable widgets
└─ tools/
   └─ storage/           # the Storage tool (self-contained)
      ├─ engine/         # isolate-based scanners (category, junk, large, dup)
      ├─ state/          # ChangeNotifier controllers
      └─ ui/             # views + storage-specific widgets

Key engineering choices

• Background isolates for every scan — the filesystem is walked off the UI thread, streaming live byte/file/path progress, fully cancellable.
• Pure-Dart models (no Flutter imports) so results copy cleanly across the isolate boundary.
• Thin native layer (Swift MethodChannel) for only what Dart can't do well: recoverable Trash removal (FileManager.trashItem) and accurate purgeable capacity (URLResourceValues).
• Symlinks never followed and protected OS paths (/System, /usr, …) are never touched — avoiding loops, double-counting (macOS firmlinks), and dangerous deletions.
• Provider for state, a single dark ThemeData, and macos_window_utils for the vibrancy window.

🚀 Build & run

Requires Flutter (stable) and Xcode.

flutter pub get
flutter run -d macos          # debug
flutter build macos --release # release .app
./scripts/release.sh          # signed + notarized DMG in dist/

Helm ships as a notarized DMG (not the Mac App Store) so it can request Full Disk Access — the app is deliberately not sandboxed. scripts/release.sh handles the whole pipeline: build → sign with the Hardened Runtime → notarize → staple → package. It adapts to the credentials available, so it still produces a local DMG without a Developer ID certificate.

• Bundle ID: com.devshakib.helm
• Minimum macOS: 12.0 (Monterey)+

🧰 The toolkit

Fifteen tools, grouped in one sidebar — plus a live menu-bar item with configurable metrics, and a Dashboard that shows your whole machine at a glance.

Monitor

• 🧠 Memory — live RAM breakdown, pressure gauge, top processes, free inactive memory
• ⚡ CPU — per-core usage and an Activity-Monitor-style process list with quit / force-kill
• 🎮 GPU — live graphics utilization
• 🌡️ Sensors — real CPU/GPU temperatures read straight from the SMC
• 🔋 Battery — health, cycles, power source, plus Bluetooth device batteries (AirPods, Magic Keyboard/Mouse)
• 📡 Network — live throughput, interfaces, Wi-Fi and active connections

Manage

• 📊 Storage — analyze & reclaim disk space (categories, treemap, junk, large files, duplicates)
• 🗑️ Uninstaller — remove an app and every leftover it leaves behind
• 🚀 Startup — manage login items and Launch Agents that run at boot
• 🛡️ Privacy — clear browsing/shell/recent-item traces and flush the DNS cache

Utilities

• 📋 Clipboard — full history for text, images and file copies, with a global ⌃⌘V quick-paste popup at your cursor
• 🎨 Color Picker — sample any pixel on screen; copies as HEX/RGB/HSL/SwiftUI/Flutter
• ☕ Keep Awake — stop your Mac sleeping, indefinitely or on a timer
• ⚡ Quick Actions — hidden files, Dark Mode, Dock autohide, restart Finder/Dock, sleep display

Every monitor page keeps 24 hours of history as a chart, and you can set custom alerts per metric ("tell me when RAM goes over 90%"), plus housekeeping watchers and a login-item watchdog that warns the moment an app installs itself at startup.

🔐 Privacy

Helm runs entirely on your Mac. It has no servers, no analytics, no network calls. Nothing about your files ever leaves the device.

📄 License

MIT © 2026 Shakib. Free to use, modify and share.