A currency converter Mac app that lives in the launcher.
Coco is a currency converter Mac app that never opens a window. Type 120 usd to jpy and the answer is there before you finish the line. Underneath it sits every other currency you care about, the rate behind each number, and a 30-day sparkline of that currency against the dollar. Rates are cached on disk, so it answers offline too.
What a currency converter Mac app is actually for
The task is small and it comes back every day. An invoice in dollars, rent in yen, a supplier pricing in renminbi, a flight in won, a receipt to put through expenses. Each one is the same fifteen seconds: open a tab, wait out the ads and the cookie banner, type in one box, read the other. Fifteen seconds is nothing. Forty times a month, each one cutting a sentence in half, it is not.
A currency converter Mac app that lives in a launcher removes the trip. Press the hotkey you already press for everything else, type the amount, and the answer is on screen before you finish the phrase. Return puts the number on the clipboard and the panel closes. No tab, no page load, and nothing about what you were converting left the machine — which matters when the amounts are a client’s rather than your own.
There is a second thing a website gives you that most launcher converters drop, and it is the reason the rate chart exists. A single number tells you what a hundred dollars is worth today. It does not tell you whether today is a bad day to invoice in that currency. A rate you have watched drift for a month reads differently from the same rate seen cold. That is why Coco puts a small chart next to every row, instead of leaving you to open a finance site for the one piece of context that would change your mind.
Coco’s currency converter shares a panel with app launching, the clipboard and the calculator, written in Swift against AppKit rather than a web view in a window. Parsing is local, the rate table sits in memory, and your query is matched against a built-in catalogue of 166 currencies. The rest of Coco — the launcher, the clipboard, the app grid macOS 26 removed — is on the home page, and arrives in the same download.
What this currency converter Mac app actually does
Type it the way you already write it
No separate mode, no from/to fields. 100 usd, $199, 199$, usd100 and 100usd all parse to the same thing. A target is optional, in four shapes: 120 usd to jpy, 120 usd in jpy, plain 120 usd jpy, or usd120-jpy. Symbols work as prefix or suffix — $, €, £, ¥, ₩, ₹, ₽, ฿, ₫, ₱, ₺. The abbreviations people type work too: rmb and yuan for CNY, jp and yen for JPY, uk and gb for GBP, hk, kr, tw and ntd.
Every target at once, in your order
Leave the target off and you get a list, not one guess: your currencies first, then the rest of the catalogue. Out of the box the first eight are CNY, USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, KRW, HKD and CAD. ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ move the selected row, dragging works too, and the order is saved. Each row shows the flag, the amount, the currency’s name in your language, and the rate behind it — 1 USD = 148.7231 JPY.
Arithmetic with currencies in it
$199 + ¥20 is a valid query, and so is JP2000 + KR10000 + $5. Mixed amounts are normalised through USD, then totalled and shown in every target currency at once — the shape of the question when a trip was paid in three of them. Multiplying by a plain number works, parentheses work, and $100 / €50 returns a plain ratio. Money plus a bare number is refused rather than guessed at.
A sparkline rate chart beside every currency
Each row carries a sparkline of that currency’s value against the dollar and a signed percent change — green when it has gained, red when it has not. The chart is deliberately plotted as value rather than as rate, so an appreciating currency slopes up and you never have to work out which way round the line means. The window is 30 points, one per calendar day, appended on every successful refresh; the percent is measured across the whole window rather than day on day. Major currencies fill in at once from a month of public daily rates, so the chart is there on your first afternoon; the rest draw themselves over the days you use the app. Under two days of history it shows a dash, not an invented flat line. The whole series is a small local file — no history API, nothing about which currencies you watch leaving the Mac.
Cached rates, and what that means offline
Rates come from a free public USD-based feed, fetched at launch, hourly after that, and again when you open the panel if the last success is over ten minutes old. Each success is written to one small JSON file, and that file loads at the next cold start. The table is therefore complete before the first request returns, which is what makes a currency converter Mac app usable on a plane. A built-in table answers on the very first launch.
This currency converter Mac app next to Spotlight, Raycast and Alfred
Currency conversion is not a rare feature. Spotlight does basic conversion, is already on your Mac and costs nothing — if you convert dollars to euros twice a month, use Spotlight and keep your money. Raycast has conversion in its free tier, with Pro at $8 a month for other things. Alfred does it through workflows, which is either a strength or an errand depending on how you feel about workflows.
What differs about this currency converter Mac app is the shape of the answer. Every target at once instead of one, in an order you set, each with its rate and a sparkline of the last month, read from a table on disk rather than a request. A dedicated finance app does more — rate alerts, years of history, fees and spreads, portfolios. Coco does none of that. It answers the question you have forty times a month, where you already are.
| Coco | Spotlight | Raycast | Alfred | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Currency conversion in the launcher | Workflow | |||
| Unit conversion in the same field | Workflow | |||
| Every target currency listed at once | ||||
| Reorder the target list yourself | ||||
| 30-day sparkline chart beside each rate | ||||
| Signed percent change over the window | ||||
| Says on screen how old the rate is | ||||
| Menu bar rate ticker | ||||
| Price | $49 once | Included | Free or $8/mo | £34 once |
Converting a currency in Coco
Install it and press the hotkey
Drag Coco into Applications and open it once. Nothing needs configuring: the first fetch runs as the app starts, and a built-in table answers until it returns. macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon.
Type the amount and the currency
120 usd, or $120, or 120usd. Add a target for a single answer — 120 usd to jpy — or leave it off and read down the list. Mixed expressions like $199 + ¥20 work in the same field, as do unit conversions such as 12 inch to cm.
Put your currencies in your own order
Select a row and press ⌘↑ or ⌘↓, or drag it. Coco saves the order. Return copies the amount alone, without the symbol, so it drops into a spreadsheet cell cleanly.
Read the sparkline before you commit to a number
The chart at the right of each row is that currency against the dollar over the last 30 days, with the percent change across the window beside it. Up and green means the currency has gained; down and red means it has not. A dash means Coco has fewer than two days of history for it yet and is not going to draw a line it cannot support.
Look at the age of the rate when it matters
The header above the list reads Updated with the date, or Offline · as of with the date once the cached table is over an hour old. Splitting a dinner bill, ignore it. Sending an invoice, read it first.
Questions people actually ask
- How do I convert currency on a Mac without opening a browser?
- Use a launcher that converts inside its own panel. In Coco you press the hotkey and type an amount with a currency: 120 usd, $120, 120usd, or 120 usd to jpy for one target. Converted figures appear as you type, one row per currency, each with its rate; Return copies the number and closes the panel. No tab opens, no page loads, and the query is parsed on your machine rather than sent to a service. Spotlight also converts basic pairs, free and already installed.
- Which currencies does Coco support?
- There are 166 in the built-in catalogue: the majors, all of East and South East Asia, the Gulf, most of Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans. Each is matched by ISO code, by symbol where it has an unambiguous one, and by the abbreviations people actually type — rmb, yuan, yen, ntd, hk. Names appear in your Mac’s language, from the system’s own locale data. The rate table is based on USD, so a cross-rate such as JPY to KRW is computed through it.
- Does this currency converter Mac app work offline?
- Everyday conversion does. Every successful fetch is written to a small JSON file in Coco’s support folder, and that snapshot loads at the next launch, so the table is full before any request returns. What needs a network is a fresher rate, and Coco says so rather than hiding it: once the cached table is more than an hour old, the header above the results reads Offline, with the date it was fetched. An offline answer is a real conversion at a stated older rate, not a guess dressed as current.
- What is the sparkline chart next to each currency?
- It is a 30-day rate chart, drawn small enough to sit inside the result row. The line plots that currency's value against the dollar — value rather than rate, so a currency that has strengthened slopes upward and you never have to reason about which direction means what. Beside it is the percent change across the whole window, green if the currency gained and red if it lost. The series is one point per calendar day, appended locally each time a rate refresh succeeds, capped at thirty days. Major currencies are backfilled once from a month of public daily reference rates so the chart is populated immediately; less common ones fill in as you use the app, and show a dash until there are at least two days.
- Where do the exchange rates come from, and how often do they update?
- From a free public feed of USD-based reference rates, refreshed roughly daily at source. Coco fetches at launch, then hourly, and again when you open the panel if the last success is over ten minutes old. The 30-day history behind the trend charts accumulates locally, one point per day, with major currencies backfilled once from a month of public daily rates so a curve appears immediately. These are mid-market reference rates: your bank or card gives a different number after its own spread and fees.
- Can I add amounts in different currencies together?
- Yes, and it is the part most converters skip. $199 + ¥20 is valid, as is JP2000 + KR10000 + $5. Every tagged amount is normalised through USD and the total shown in each of your target currencies at once — so totalling a trip paid in three currencies is one line, not three lookups and a calculator. Multiplication by a plain number works (€49 x 3), and parentheses are supported. Dividing money by money gives a ratio, and money plus a bare number is refused, because $50 + 3 has no correct answer.
- Is there a menu bar currency converter in Coco?
- Not in the sense of a permanent ticker. Coco has an optional menu bar icon, but its menu opens the panel, the clipboard, the Launchpad grid and settings. It shows no live rate, and there are no rate alerts. If what you want is a menu bar currency converter displaying one pair at all times, a small dedicated app does it better. Coco’s bet is the opposite: the rate is one hotkey away when you want it, and off your screen when you do not.
- What does it cost?
- Seven days free with no card and no account, then $99 once for one Mac, currently $49 at the launch price. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription: no renewal, no seat that expires under you, no periodic check-in to strand you offline. Updates within this major version are included, there is a 14-day refund with no questions asked, and you can move the licence to a new Mac yourself. For comparison, Raycast Pro is $8 a month. Coco needs macOS 14 or later and Apple Silicon.
Copy the prompt, or send it straight to the AI you already use — it drives Coco through the same commands you would type yourself.
Install the Coco skill (npx skills add butterflydream-ai/Coco --skill coco -g -y), then use coco to help me with A currency converter Mac app that lives in the launcher..