LiveCollab early access

Open a folder. Your teammate is already in it.

A code editor for macOS where two people edit the same file at the same time — cursors, file tree and all. No Git, no pull requests, no sending files back and forth.

Download for Apple Silicon Download for Intel How to install it

345 MB · macOS · Intel and Apple Silicon

parser.ts you ada
12 function tokenize(src) {
13 const out = []you
14 let i = 0
15 while (i < src.length) {ada
16 // same file, same second, nothing to merge

which file do i need

Apple Silicon, or Intel

Apple menu → About This Mac. The chip line tells you which build to take.

Apple Silicon

The chip line says Apple M1, M2, M3 or M4. That's most Macs sold from 2020 onwards.

Download this one

Intel

The chip line says Intel. Older Macs, roughly 2019 and before.

Download this one

installing

The first launch takes a minute

LiveCollab isn't signed by Apple yet, so macOS will stop you the first time. You only do this once.

  1. Unzip the file you downloaded Your browser may have done it already. If not, double-click the .zip in Downloads.
  2. Drag LiveCollab into Applications Do this before you open it. Run it straight from Downloads and macOS copies it somewhere temporary, where it misbehaves.
  3. Open it from Applications macOS checks it first, which can take a minute. Then you'll see one of two messages, depending on your macOS. If it has an Open button: LiveCollab can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software. Click Open. That's it, skip the next step. If it has no Open button: LiveCollab Not Opened. Apple could not verify LiveCollab is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy. Click Done. Not Move to Trash. Then do the next step.
  4. Allow it in System Settings (only if there was no Open button) Apple menu → System Settings → Privacy & Security. Scroll to the bottom. There's a line saying LiveCollab was blocked, with an Open Anyway button. Click it, confirm with your password or Touch ID.
  5. Let it use your keychain macOS asks whether LiveCollab can use “LiveCollab Safe Storage” — that's where your sign-in is kept. The app may already have opened behind the dialog, which is normal. Enter your Mac password and choose Always Allow.

On macOS 15 Sequoia, right-click → Open no longer works. System Settings is the only route there. Both paths were followed: the System Settings one on 15.7.3, the Open button on 13.7.8 Ventura.

where your files live

What leaves your Mac, plainly

No guessing, no small print. This is all of it.

Your folder

Hosting a room reads and writes the folder you opened. Nothing else on your disk is touched.

Your edits

Edits travel through a LiveCollab server. Not peer-to-peer, so an open room's contents pass through a machine I run.

Crashes

If it crashes, a report goes to Sentry, an error-tracking service, so I can see what broke.

Your email

Signing in is handled by Clerk, which stores your email address.

For a first try, use a scratch folder rather than anything confidential.

honest limits

This is an early test build

macOS only. No Windows or Linux build exists.
Not signed or notarised by Apple — hence the warnings above.
Cursors are all labelled “User”. Real names aren't landing yet.
Some menu bar items don't work yet.
Things will change under you. Accounts and rooms from this build may not survive the move to production sign-in.

first testers

You're early, and that counts

There are no other users yet. If you try this, you're the first, and what you tell me decides what gets fixed next. That isn't a nice sentence — it's how the work actually goes right now.

A direct line

Tell me what broke and you'll get the build where it's fixed, rather than filing something into a void.

Report something broken

Worth doing: keep a dictation app running while you test and talk through what you're clicking. It's far more useful to me than trying to remember it afterwards.

Your name on it

If you want it, you go in the credits as one of the first people who tested this.

Leave your email and I'll send you the next build and what changed in it. Nothing else, and no other list.

Join the waitlist

Or write to me yourself

hello@livecollab.dev