Todaytape

Today's Google Calendar as a slim strip on the edge of your Mac screen, with a red line at now.

Download for Mac · Website · Google setup guide

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Reminders fire once and calendar tabs get buried. Todaytape keeps the shape of your day in view while you work: what's on now, what's next and how long you have, without opening anything.

• A tape that stays put. Always on top, on every Space and over full-screen apps. It never takes focus, so you keep typing.
• Collapsed or expanded. Slim colour blocks while you work. Right-click for titles and times, with the current time riding the red line.
• Sized to your day. Blocks are as long as the events; gaps are free time. The tape runs from your first event to your last.
• One click to join. Click a block to open its Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, Webex or Whereby link.
• Countdown in the menu bar. Minutes left in the current event, or until the next one.
• Your colours. Pick a colour per calendar; text stays readable and finished events fade.
• Private by design. Read-only, and it talks to Google directly with a client you own. There's no Todaytape server, account or analytics.

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later and a Google account.

Install

1. Download Todaytape-x.y.z.zip from the latest release and unzip it.
2. Drag Todaytape.app into Applications.
3. Open it (see the note below the first time).

Opening Todaytape for the first time

Todaytape is free and open source, and isn't notarised by Apple yet, so macOS asks you to confirm once:

1. Double-click Todaytape. macOS says it can't verify the developer. Click Done (or Cancel).
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about Todaytape, and click Open Anyway. Confirm with your password or Touch ID.

Or, in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Todaytape.app

Prefer not to run a downloaded binary? Build it yourself; it takes about a minute.

Connect your Google Calendar

The first time you open Todaytape, a Set up Todaytape window walks you through three steps, with a button for each Google page:

1. Prepare a Google Cloud project: create a project, enable the Calendar API, and add yourself as a test user.
2. Add your Desktop client: create a Desktop app client, download its JSON, and click Import client JSON…
3. Connect Google Calendar: sign in through your browser.

It takes about 5 minutes, once. The Google setup guide has every click and a troubleshooting table.

Why do I need my own Google client? Apps that read Gmail or Calendar data must pass Google's verification before anyone can sign in to a shared client. With your own client, your calendar goes straight from Google to your Mac, and nobody else can use it or see your data. The trade-off: while your client is in Testing, Google signs you out every 7 days, and you click Connect again.

Use

Tape	Right edge of the screen, on top of every app and Space
Right-click the tape	Expand or collapse
Click a block	Join the call, or open the event in Google Calendar
Menu bar icon	Countdown, plus Expand, Hide, Refresh, Settings and Quit
Hide	Tucks the tape into a small tab at the screen edge; click the tab to bring it back
Settings (⌘,)	Calendars and their colours, dark or light, open at login, Google account

Privacy

• Todaytape requests one permission: calendar.readonly. It can't create, edit or delete events.
• Your Mac talks to Google directly. Nothing is sent anywhere else.
• Your client, sign-in and settings live in ~/.todaytape, readable only by your user account.
• Disconnect in Settings signs out and asks Google to revoke access. Remove client also forgets the client ID and secret.

Build from source

You need the Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Xcode is optional.

git clone https://github.com/ProximoBinks/todaytape.git
cd todaytape
./build.sh --install

That builds build/Todaytape.app, copies it to Applications and opens it. Other options:

./build.sh               # build only
./build.sh --release     # Apple silicon + Intel, plus a zip in build/
./scripts/test.sh        # run the tests

Command-line helpers, for debugging:

/Applications/Todaytape.app/Contents/MacOS/Todaytape --dump     # print today's events
/Applications/Todaytape.app/Contents/MacOS/Todaytape --logout   # forget the Google sign-in
/Applications/Todaytape.app/Contents/MacOS/Todaytape --version

Set TODAYTAPE_HOME=/some/folder to run with a separate config folder, for example to try the first-run setup without touching your own.

Project layout

Sources/Todaytape/
  TodaytapeApp.swift         menu bar extra and command-line helpers
  AppState.swift             setup phases, sync, settings
  OverlayController.swift    the always-on-top panel and Settings window
  OverlayView.swift          the tape: layout, expand animation, now line
  SettingsView.swift         first-run setup and Settings
  GoogleAuth.swift           OAuth: loopback redirect, PKCE, state check
  GoogleCalendar.swift       Calendar API
  Config.swift               ~/.todaytape files
  CalendarColor.swift        palette, past-event fade, text contrast
Tests/TodaytapeTests/        self-checking tests (scripts/test.sh)
docs/google-setup.md         the step-by-step Google guide
site/                        the website (static HTML)

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run ./scripts/test.sh before you open a PR, and never commit a client secret, credentials.json or tokens.json.

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License

MIT © 2026 Elliot Koh