Launching today
DropK
The tray that doesn't pretend
57 followers
The tray that doesn't pretend
57 followers
Text, files, images, folders - all in a single drop zone you drag into and pull out of naturally. It's the landing spot for "the messy middle of Mac work." and it can still keep tracking your clipboard. When on a project, clear your slate, work through everything, and DropK will have all related copied files/text ready and neatly arranged. It doesn't duplicate your files, opening files, text, all happen through saved paths, not duplicates. That's a genuinely missing link from all apps out there.
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DropK
Reference-by-path instead of copying bytes is the design choice I like most here, and also the one I'd stress-test hardest. When we built a paste buffer that held file paths rather than the files, the thing that bit us was the source moving or getting renamed after you'd dropped it in, so the tray entry quietly pointed at nothing. Do you watch the original paths and re-link on move, or does a dropped item go stale once the file relocates?
DropK
@dipankar_sarkar Watching the movement of the apps beyond what was made already accessible at the time of the move is beyond the scope of the permissions this app can attain.
Same volume move (e.g. you rename a folder, or drag a file to a subfolder, all on your Mac's main drive) — macOS bookmarks track by inode, not path. The file resolves correctly regardless of where it moved. The location of the app/certain recorded properties do not change but this only cosmetic. The app uses various markers at the time of drop to identify/reference a file and on move the app retains what file it is tracking not what a path is pointing to.
DropK being listed across Menu Bar Apps, Developer Tools, and AI Workflow Automation makes me wonder where the main daily use case sits. Is it primarily meant for developers triggering quick actions from the tray, or more of a general productivity layer for AI dictation / workflow shortcuts? The tagline suggests restraint, so I’d be interested in how you decide what belongs in the tray and what deliberately doesn’t.
DropK
@mia_qiao Everything does belong in the tray, the tagline refers to our capacity at including features that are Useful rather than features to sweep you off your feet, we want users to be blown away by the increase in their workflow our app brings, and the convenience our app makes it to arrange projects/your session's copy history
Your first question is a Marketing challenge for DropK so we made the decision purely to "associate" DropK to a community. Developer Tools wasn't to show my apps development capacities but a nudge to developers to try this app and boost their productivity like me and many of my friends.
Inode-based bookmarks are the right call, and that handles the rename and move case cleanly. The one that bit us with security-scoped bookmarks was atomic saves: an editor that writes a temp file and renames it over the original creates a new inode, so the path is unchanged but the bookmark now points at the old, deleted inode and the entry silently orphans. Do you re-resolve and refresh the bookmark on access, or would a safe-save app break the reference?
DropK
@dipankar_sarkar I think this would answer your question, every access event has a fallback to trying the file path if the bookmark finds a dead innode. In case this file has also been moved from its original path the app now has no way to access the file again.
Aakashdhruv, the messy middle of a project is exactly where my desktop falls apart, so one tidy spot for all the loose bits really speaks to me. Pointing back to the real files and never cloning them is a thoughtful touch.
Congrats on the launch, seems like this could be really useful on those messy projects.
DropK
@tedavis It definitely will! Please leave your suggestions as reviews are our greatest input since we do not collect usage data.