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Mac OS X Software

MultiXFinder 0.5 – Now available for Apple Silicon

Mark Sokolovsky - 2026.10.03

From the same maker of MultiXFinder who took over the x-asm project in Early 2009; introducing MultiXFinder v0.5 – now on Apple Silicon! This latest version is available for Intel and Apple Silicon Macs running OS X 10.11 El Capitan and later.

 

 

Rewritten for modern macOS and no longer based on ASM, this classic utility continues to bring the classic Mac OS Menu Bar app switcher to Low and High End Macs.

 

On Your Mac

  1. Download: Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan or later (Universal, Intel + Apple Silicon, 1.1 MB)
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Prior versions of MultiXFinder

2. After downloading, simply drag-‘n’drop to your Applications folder, double click to launch, and you’re set. On earlier versions of this utility, you would install it.

 

Key Features

  • A menu of open apps (switch between them, change icon size, etc;)
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  • Classic window behavior: clicking a window brings all the other windows of the same application to the front.
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  • Pause and resume an application’s execution (SIGSTOP and SIGCONT).
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  • Control both visible and invisible processes.

 

 

I like how by default the icon is persistent only on the active screen, making it easier to tell which screen has the active window, versus when there are a bunch of windows piled up and you have to look amongst them on multiple large screens.

 

 

This is useful since my main monitor is used for both the M4 Mini and 2,1 Mac Pro, so when switching between display inputs it’s like a reminder of which monitor I last used on the M4 mini (as it has multiple monitors).

 

(Above: Side effect of using a large VA (Vertical Alignment) LED-backlit LCD display at an angle)

 

Since I’m using a Hisense 43R6 4K 60 Hz LED-backlit VA (Vertical Alignment) LCD display rather than a typical IPS or other display type.. one unique quirk is how things look on the edges of the screen further away from you. Good news is there’s an option to “highlight” the area dark or light – helping with visibility on my setup. It does overlap the Date + Time, but it does increase clickable area for MultiXFinder.

 

Works the same as before

If you’ve used this app before on a PowerPC or Intel Mac, it replicates nearly 1:1 functionality, just with a difference in some menu options and the placement of app preferences – depending on the OS.

 

(Above: The same app which can work on a Mac Pro 2,1 can work on an M4 Mac mini!)

 

For those who disabled Spotlight in Mac OS X Tiger to increase performance on G3 Macs, MultiXFinder provides a nice drop-in replacement for the spotlight icon, providing utility and visual continuity.

 

 

On a 1024 x 768 resolution iMac G3 CRT screen, screen real-estate is a premium. With MultiXFinder, you can keep the dock hidden and rely more on the Menu Bar app for app switching. Plus, you won’t have to invoke hiding/unhiding the dock every time to switch an app, nor the graphical effect rendered when you reach for the row of icons hidden below screen.

 

 

While running Mac OS X Tiger on a 400 MHz Indigo FireWire Summer 200 iMac G3 isn’t the fastest, it’s impressive how Google Maps runs with the latest version of PowerFox with this 8 MB ATI Rage 128 Pro, and 512 MB PC-100 SDRAM. It isn’t fast at all.. but it loads and somehow.. works. It can eventually hang sometimes, but zooming in & dragging around the map doesn’t crash the browser and it picks back up after a few seconds.

 

 

In conclusion

Thank you Jack for keeping this app alive into the Apple Silicon era, while keeping the current version of the app compatible all the way back to OS X El Capitan. It’s a useful tool in the belt of long term Mac value!

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