Release Notes

1.0.1

A reliability release: an independent review of the scanning and stopping core, with every finding fixed.

Stopping the right thing, every time

• "Stop by folder" now stops managed listeners the right way. A Docker container or Homebrew service living under your project folder is stopped via docker stop / brew services stop — not by signalling a helper process that launchd or Docker would immediately respawn.
• Scans no longer lose data when one process is off-limits. A single system process that refused inspection could silently blank out every listener's folder and identity details — which also made "Stop by folder" find nothing. Scans now keep everything the system reports.
• Stricter identity checks before any signal. If a process can't be positively re-identified at the moment you click Stop (PIDs get recycled), Localhost Explorer refuses and asks for a refresh instead of guessing. Docker restarts now target the container's immutable ID, never its reusable name.
• Honest results. The folder-stop summary now distinguishes "stop sent", "failed", and "skipped because the process changed since preview" — and doesn't claim a process exited when it can only know the signal was delivered.

Smarter identification

• Gunicorn, Rails, Puma, and Sidekiq now get their framework badge; a project folder named "mongodb-*" is no longer mistaken for the MongoDB database; instrumentation preloads (--require=./instrument.js) no longer masquerade as the app's entry point; and python-config-style tools are no longer read as Python itself.
• Docker port ranges (8000-8010) are attributed to their container across the whole range.

Window polish

• Fixed a window/popover collision. Clicking the menu bar icon while a standalone window was open used to show the popover and yank the window forward — two copies of the panel at once. Now a live window always wins: the icon focuses the open window (restoring it if it was minimized) instead of stacking a popover over it.
• Detaching to a window sticks. Opening a window from the popover's detach button no longer silently reverted on the next settings change and slammed the window shut.
• Unified "liquid glass" surface. The popover and the standalone window now share one translucent canvas, so a resized window no longer frames a translucent panel with an opaque background band.

1.0.0

The 1.0 release. Localhost Explorer graduates from a listener viewer into a small suite of localhost-aware utilities — now with signed in-app auto-updates, so it keeps itself current.

New: Tools panel

• Added a Tools panel mode alongside Explore, Stats, and Settings.
• Added Keep awake: wraps caffeinate -di, with timed durations or "Until process exits" — pick any listener and the Mac stays awake exactly as long as it lives.
• Added Open when ready: polls lsof for a port and opens http://localhost:PORT/ the moment it starts listening.
• Added Wait for port: sends a macOS notification when a busy port becomes free.
• Added Hold port: binds a sentinel NWListener on 127.0.0.1 so nothing else can grab the port until you release.
• Added Restart listener: bounces Homebrew- or Docker-managed listeners via their real owner — brew services restart or docker restart.
• Added Notify on exit: macOS notification the moment a chosen listener dies.
• Added Kill by folder: picks a directory, lists every listener whose working directory lives under it, sends SIGTERM to all of them.
• Added one-shot wrappers: Flush DNS, Restart Dock, Restart Finder, Sleep display.

Menu bar + status item

• Menu bar icon swaps to a cup glyph while caffeinate is running.
• Right-click the menu bar icon for quick-fire tools: Caffeinate 15 min / 1 hour / Stop, Flush DNS, Restart Finder, Sleep display.

Standalone window + Settings

• Window mode setting (popover, window, both) — switch live without relaunching.
• Real NSToolbar on the standalone window with segmented mode tabs.
• macOS-native Settings: NSVisualEffectView sidebar, Form { Section { … } }.formStyle(.grouped) right pane, native NSSwitch toggles.

Brand + auto-update

→ →

New app icon. Designed in Anthropic's new Claude Design tool — no graphic designer, no Figma, just constraints and iteration. How we made it →

• Monochrome menu bar template glyph that recolors for light and dark menu bars.
• Sparkle auto-update integration with Ed25519 signing. Check for Updates… in Settings → About and the status menu.

Explore + search

• Live free-text search across name, folder, port, command, and PID — promoted to its own toolbar page.
• Smarter empty states: a PID hint that tells "no such process" apart from "that PID exists, it's just not listening."

Website

• Light/dark mode with manual toggle.
• Centered 1080 px reading column.
• New Tools section.
• "The month I got used to the fan" — origin-story blog post.

0.1.3

• Added cached process intelligence so source, profile, risk, and category decisions are computed once per scan.
• Added source badges for Terminal, Homebrew, Container, Framework, IDE, macOS, App, and Unknown listeners.
• Added Free a Port flow to jump straight from a port number to the owning process row.
• Added container lifecycle support for simple Docker-compatible published ports.
• Added Control Sources to the stats dashboard.

0.1.2

• Added Settings mode with live preview.
• Added row display controls and expanded detail controls.
• Added safety settings for stop confirmation and smart scrolling.
• Added popover layout presets.
• Added local-only trust copy, privacy page, and support page.

0.1.1

• Added ProcessProfile v1 intelligence.
• Added detection for Redis, MongoDB, Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, Ollama, Node, Python, MkDocs, editor helpers, Homebrew services, and wildcard listeners.
• Added profile badges, risk, stop strategy, confidence, restart hints, and richer stop confirmations.

0.1.0

• Initial direct-download macOS build.
• Menu bar scanning, filters, stats, folders, endpoints, and stop controls.