Cove: Save your work. Switch in a second.

How it works

Three actions, infinite reuse.

One primitive, a Session, captures your entire workspace. Once saved, switching is one click.

Capture

Open what you need, then save it all as a named Session: apps, windows, tabs, files, Focus Mode, and linked Reminders or Notes.

Park

Switching contexts? Cove "parks" the current session, capturing its exact state before closing the apps. Like git stash for your whole desktop. Nothing is lost.

Restore

Pick a session from the menu bar, hit ⌘1, or let auto-detect suggest it. In one second every app, window, tab, and file is back exactly where you left it.

Features

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

Windows back on their desktops New

Cove remembers which Mission Control desktop every window was on. At restore it goes through your desktops, reopens each window where it was, adds any missing desktop for you, and brings you back where you started. Browsers, Terminal and Finder keep their tabs, and several displays are supported. Experimental: turn it on in Settings.

Meeting Mode

Start sharing your screen and Cove offers to close your personal apps and private browser tabs. When the meeting ends, everything comes back in one click.

Linked items

Attach Reminders, Notes, docs, or any URL to a session. They open automatically at restore, so the whole context comes back with it.

Auto-detect

Cove watches the apps you open and suggests the matching session before you ask. Weighted scoring ignores ambient apps like Mail or Spotify.

Browser-aware

Native adapters for Safari, Chrome, Brave, Edge, and Arc capture tab order and active state, and reopen every URL exactly as you left it.

Terminal sessions

Terminal and iTerm preserve your working directory per window. Drop straight back into the right project folder.

Templates

Save a Session as a reusable template: the apps without their content. Perfect for recurring rituals.

Focus Mode

Each session can trigger a macOS Focus Mode via Shortcuts: restore "Deep Work" and Slack/Mail go silent automatically.

Pricing

One-time. Lifetime.

No subscription. No data collection. Pay once, own it forever, get every update.

Lifetime License

$19.99

One-time payment. Yours forever, with all future updates included.

Save unlimited sessions
All adapters: Safari, Chrome, Arc, Terminal, VS Code, Xcode, Slack
Auto-detect, templates, linked items, Focus Mode
iCloud sync between your Macs · 2 activations

Buy Cove for Mac Download free trial

Free 14-day trial, no card needed · macOS 15+ · Powered by Lemon Squeezy · 14-day money-back guarantee

FAQ

Honest answers.

Cove runs on macOS 15 (Sequoia) and later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. It works best when you grant it Accessibility and Automation permissions; these are required so Cove can capture window positions and instruct apps like Safari/Chrome/Arc to reopen tabs at restore time. No other special hardware needed.

Cove uses AppleScript and Accessibility APIs to capture and restore the state of other apps (your browsers, your terminals, your Finder windows). Apple's App Store sandbox restricts these capabilities for security reasons. Going direct lets us deliver the full feature set, and means more of your purchase goes to development rather than Apple's 30% commission.

Cove uses Sparkle, the standard auto-update framework for direct-distributed Mac apps. It checks for updates daily in the background and notifies you when a new version is ready. Every update is signed with EdDSA and verified before install, the same mechanism used by Bartender, CleanShot, Hookmark, and most indie Mac apps. All updates are free for the lifetime of your purchase.

100% locally on your Mac, in Cove's app data folder. Sessions are stored in a SwiftData database, never sent to any server, never analyzed, never sold. We don't run any backend. Coming soon: optional iCloud sync between your Macs (encrypted, end-to-end via Apple's CloudKit). You can opt in or stay fully local.

Yes. Download Cove and start a free 14-day trial, no card required. You get the full app, with up to 3 saved sessions during the trial. Buy a license any time to unlock unlimited sessions and keep everything you've set up.

Try the free trial first to be sure Cove fits your workflow. If you buy and still change your mind, there's a 14-day refund, no questions asked. Email me directly with your order number and you get your money back. No forms, no friction.

Yes, that's the point. When you switch sessions, Cove "parks" your current state (saving everything) and closes apps that aren't part of the next session. This is what makes context switches actually clean. You can also configure "essential apps" (Mail, Slack, Spotify) that Cove never closes regardless of session.

Spaces show you windows on different desktops, but they don't save state: your apps are still running, your Mac is still bogged down, and switching just hides one mess to show another. Cove actually closes what you're not using, persists state to disk, and restores it later. It's a save/load system, not a window manager. And since Cove 1.4.0.0, it works with your desktops too: each window can come back on the Mission Control desktop it was on.

Each license includes 2 activations, so you can run Cove on a personal Mac and a work Mac at the same time. Need a third? Contact me, I usually grant additional activations for legitimate cases (replaced Mac, etc.). Once iCloud sync ships, your sessions will follow you between activated Macs automatically.

Yes. There's an Alfred workflow: type a keyword, then switch to a session, park the current one, or save your workspace, all without opening Cove. It needs Alfred's Powerpack.

Save your work. Switch in a second.

Cove in 30 seconds.

Every project switch costs you ~10 minutes.