I’ve always wanted a personal dashboard that actually stays out of the way. Not another browser tab. Not a full-screen monitoring app. Just the numbers and status I care about — sales, transfer speeds, uptime, whether that long-running script is still chewing — available the moment I look.

For years that meant juggling terminal windows, sticky notes, and half-forgotten browser bookmarks. The data was there. Getting it onto the glass without ceremony was the hard part.

Dashboard nostalgia, modern widgets

macOS Desktop Widgets scratched that itch in a way that felt familiar — a little like the old Dashboard days, when you could keep glanceable stuff floating around your workspace. Except this time it’s first-class: on the desktop on Mac, and on the Home Screen on iPhone and iPad.

So I built TerminalWidget: a universal app that lets you push text, charts, progress, images, and tables into widgets from the tools you already use — the command line, Shortcuts, AppleScript, or a URL scheme.

What it does

You pick named targets (widget1, sales, backup, whatever) and drop widgets on the Mac desktop or iOS Home Screen pointed at those IDs. Then you update them however you like:

terminal-widget --target sales --text "Today: $1,240" --icon "dollarsign.circle"

Or from Shortcuts. Or from a script that already runs on a schedule. Same targets, same payloads — charts included:

terminal-widget --target speeds \
  --chart "12 18 22 19 31 28 40" \
  --chart-format sparkline \
  --title "Download" \
  --caption

Progress and status work the same way — perfect for backups, deploys, sync jobs, or anything that can spit out a percentage or a short status line.

Why this clicked for me

I don’t want a dashboard I have to open. I want one I can see by spreading my fingers on the trackpad (Mission Control / desktop overview — whatever your muscle memory is) or by flipping to the Home Screen widgets on my phone.

TerminalWidget updates instantly on macOS. With iCloud sync there’s a short delay to iOS — and you can update from iOS as well, so the loop isn’t Mac-only. One purchase covers Mac and iPhone/iPad.

That means sales numbers, network transfer speeds, uptime, and script progress can live in the same place: always nearby, never demanding focus until I choose to look.

Who it’s for

If you already live in Terminal, Shortcuts, or launchd, this is basically a display surface for work you’re already doing. Developers watching builds. Sysadmins tracking backups. Anyone who’s tired of digging for status that should be glanceable.

Docs, recipes, and the CLI reference live at terminalwidget.app. Press materials (including the images above) are in the press kit.

I’m shipping the Mac App Store release first. I might add it to Setapp if there’s interest.

By the way, I built a whole “recipe” sharing platform for TerminalWidget. You can see example scripts and Shortcuts for a variety of widgets, and you can share your own. If you build something cool, I’d love to see it!

TerminalWidget is on Product Hunt today, so check it out there and lend your support!