Alan.app – Add a Border to macOS Active Window

Recorded: Nov. 27, 2025, 1:02 a.m.

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Alan.app – tyler.io

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Alan.app
November 26, 2025

Maybe it’s because my eyes are getting old or maybe it’s because the contrast between windows on macOS keeps getting worse. Either way, I built a tiny Mac app last night that draws a border around the active window. I named it “Alan”.
In Alan’s preferences, you can choose a preferred border width and colors for both light and dark mode.
That’s it. That’s the app.
You can download a notarized copy of Alan here.
Here’s a short demo video.

If you want to hide Alan’s icon from the Dock, you can set a hidden preference by running this Terminal command. Then, relaunch the app.
defaults write studio.retina.Alan hideDock -bool true

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tyler.io is written by Tyler Hall in beautiful Richmond, Virginia. You can subscribe to new posts via RSS or Mastodon.

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