{"id":35817,"date":"2026-04-24T11:25:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=35817"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:25:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:25:33","slug":"apps-quitting-supercharge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/apps-quitting-supercharge\/","title":{"rendered":"Spooky Action at a Distance \u2014 Why Are My Apps Quitting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may have noticed, I love two things: automating things on my Mac and finding cool utilities to make my Mac do my bidding. As fun as this is, sometimes this can cause what Bart likes to call “spooky action at a distance.” Let\u2019s start off with a scary story.<\/p>\n

Story Time<\/h2>\n

One day, a few weeks ago, I was playing around on my MacBook Air pretending to get some writing done, when I noticed that the App Messages had simply disappeared. I don\u2019t mean it crashed, I mean it vaporized. I wasn\u2019t using it, but it was up on screen \u2026 and then it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

A day or so later, the same thing happened with Apple Notes. Again, I wasn\u2019t Notes, but it was running \u2026 and then poof! It was gone. I\u2019m running a fully up-to-date version of macOS Tahoe, and I wondered, since these were both Apple apps, whether they had some kind of bug that transcended both apps.<\/p>\n

And then it happened again. And again. It was driving me bananas.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the same thing happened with a third-party text editor I use called CotEditor from coteditor.com\/\u2026<\/a>. This clearly isn’t an Apple app. Now things are getting interesting. I suppose it could be a macOS Tahoe induced bug, but it seemed less likely with third-party apps having the same behavior.<\/p>\n

I decided to try to catch one of the apps in the act. I launched CotEditor and then brought up the Console app (\/Applications\/Utilities). With my Mac selected in the left sidebar, I tapped on \u201cStart streaming\u201d to collect all log file messages. I then went about my business, keeping a side eye on CotEditor so I\u2019d know right when it vaporized.<\/p>\n

\"Console
Start Streaming Every Log Message with Console App<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was rewarded a few minutes later when CotEditor disappeared. I switched back to the Console app, hit stop, and then filtered the output to any log entries containing the name CotEditor. Even with it filtered to just the app that interested me, it was still a giant<\/em> pile of glop I didn’t understand.<\/p>\n

I copied all of the logged messages that referenced CotEditor and threw them at Perplexity AI. I asked Perplexity to look for crashes or other information that would explain why the application had disappeared. I was pretty surprised when Perplexity came back and said that it could find no reference to crashing whatsoever, just that it simply stopped running.<\/p>\n

I remained baffled over the course of the ensuing weeks as these same three apps would simply stop running.<\/p>\n

Squirrel!<\/h2>\n

Amongst my strong suits, you will not find any reference to the ability to focus. I’m much better at juggling multiple things and doing a 90% job at each of them. This lack of focus ends up being the superpower that helped me discover why these three apps kept vanishing.<\/p>\n

One day during the time the apps were disappearing, I was working on the latest Programming by Stealth challenge. We’re working on this fun project where we are styling a little web calculator with CSS. Bart suggested that I use some colors from my own website. In programming, when you need to define a color, you can use some simple names like red, yellow, or white. If you want a very specific color, you need to sample the color with a little picker to find the hex code that defines the color.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got an image editor of any kind open on your Mac, you can usually find the color picker to sample a color, but there\u2019s also a built-in tool to do this without any image editor running. The tool is called Digital Color Meter (\/Applications\/Utilities).<\/p>\n

\"Digital
Great Icon for Digital Color Meter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With this utility open, you simply drag your cursor around, and you\u2019ll see the codes that define color changing. Under the View menu, you can change whether you see RGB color codes or hex values. Once you\u2019ve found the color you want, if you hit \u2318-\u21e7-C, it will copy the code to the Clipboard. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re all wondering what the hex code is for the Podfeet red buttons \u2014 it\u2019s #C33D36.<\/p>\n

\"Digital
Digital Color Meter Utility<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now here\u2019s where this gets back to the problem at hand \u2014 disappearing apps. When I wanted to pick a color for my Programming By Stealth calculator, I didn\u2019t remember that the built-in utility was called Digital Color Meter. I thought it was Color Picker. So I popped open Spotlight using \u2318-Space and typed \u201ccolor picker\u201d.<\/p>\n

Imagine my surprise when the first option said “Pick color” and “Supercharge” under it. The logo for the app was a colorful lightning bolt. A couple of hits down, it said “Pick a color as CSS hex” with the same “Supercharge” logo.<\/p>\n

\"Searching
Ooh! What’s This?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even though this isn’t what I expected, it sounded like what I needed. I chose Pick a color as CSS Hex from Supercharge, and I was rewarded with a little floating circle that was clearly sampling the colors. I hovered over one of the red buttons on podfeet and clicked. The sampling circle disappeared, and Spotlight closed itself, making me think nothing had happened. I reopened Spotlight, and instead of the last thing I\u2019d chosen, it showed the hex color code for the red button!<\/p>\n

\"Supercharge
It Says Paste But Dragging Works Better<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re looking at the shownotes, and you\u2019re a sharp observer, you\u2019ll notice that the red this app found was different; it was #c72727. That\u2019s because the red buttons are actually a gradient red. Anyway<\/em>, with this color picker tool from Supercharge, you have two ways to grab the hex code from Spotlight. If you double-click on the hex code, it will automatically paste into whatever text editor you’re using at the time. Or, if you want to be fancy, you can drag<\/em> the value into your editor. I found that cool Spotlight option by accident! Try using Spotlight to do a calculation for you, and when it shows the answer, just drag it into your text editor. Ok, people, focus<\/em>. Let’s get back to the main subject.<\/p>\n

You might think that I would have gone back to working on my Programming By Stealth homework, but you would be wrong. I got curious about Supercharge, the tool behind this color picker. I remembered installing it ages ago, but I\u2019d not really played with it much. Supercharge is from the awesome developer (Sindre Sorhus<\/a>). Supercharge installs as a menu bar app with a GAZILLION items in the dropdown. I\u2019m not exaggerating \u2014 there are 34 items in this dropdown before<\/em> you even get to Settings!<\/p>\n

\"Gazillion
Told Ya There Were a Gazillion Options<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I want to do a deep dive into Supercharge, hopefully sometime in the near future, but on that particular day, I just started to poke around at the different features. I used it to do things like show and hide desktop icons, and change the color mode of my display. I don’t remember all of what I played with, but after doing some experimentation, I thought it might also be interesting to look at Settings.<\/p>\n

I thought the capabilities in the dropdown were vast, but opening Settings showed me an incredibly deep and rich list of things you can do. To give you an idea of how much there is, just the Tweaks tab alone takes eight page scrolls to get from the top to the bottom.<\/p>\n

I started poking around in these different settings, and almost to the bottom of the Tweaks tab, I found one tiny line that said, \u201cAutomatically quit or hide inactive apps\u201d. The toggle was on, and it said, \u201c3 apps\u201d. Uh oh.<\/p>\n

I tapped on the Configure button, and as you probably suspected, CotEditor, Messages, and Notes were all in the list set to quit automatically after 3 minutes of inactivity!<\/p>\n

\"CotEditor
I Think I Found the Problem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I thought this was hilarious. What are the chances that I\u2019d just happen to type the wrong search term into Spotlight, and like the dog in the movie \u201cUp\u201d when he sees a squirrel, follow that unexpected app to its interface, and<\/em> open Settings, and<\/em> scroll down through the 12 gazillion options under Tweaks and find this? How long could this mysterious behavior have gone on before these chance circumstances aligned?<\/p>\n

I’d like to say that I’ll never do anything like this again. That I’ll begin following a rigorous process of documenting any automation I do. That I’ll note the app I use to automate, and what hooks it has into other apps. But you know that’s not going to happen. What fun would that be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may have noticed, I love two things: automating things on my Mac and finding cool utilities to make my Mac do my bidding. As fun as this is, sometimes this can cause what Bart likes to call “spooky action at a distance.” Let\u2019s start off with a scary story. Story Time One day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[8138,8139,1821,8140,8137],"class_list":["post-35817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-app-quit","tag-apps-quitting","tag-automation","tag-supercharge","tag-too-much-automation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Console-app-highlighting-my-Mac-and-the-start-streaming-button-1040x520-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35821,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35817\/revisions\/35821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}