Ferdium on Mac: install, first setup, and the fixes that matter

Ferdium runs well on a Mac, it is free, and it installs in a few minutes. The one decision that trips people up is the download: Apple Silicon Macs need the file with arm64 in its name, Intel Macs need the x64 file, and the easiest route of all is a single Homebrew command. After that, the choices that shape daily use are whether to use Ferdium with or without an account, and how to add a second account for the same service. This guide walks through each step using the project's own download page, FAQ and release files as they stood on October 18, 2026, then covers the problems Mac users most often hit and what to do about them.

This site is run by the developer of SpaceDeck, an app aggregation browser for macOS. Ferdium is a separate, community-built project, and the facts below are quoted from its official pages.

What Ferdium is and why Mac users pick it

Ferdium is a desktop app that puts web services such as Gmail, Slack, WhatsApp, Discord and Notion into one window, each with its own icon in a sidebar. It is a community fork in the line of Franz and Ferdi, and it is released as open source under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub.

The Ferdium home page lists the main features:

• Services: add any supported service, and add the same service twice or more to sign into multiple accounts
• Workspaces: keep only the relevant services in view, or separate work from personal time
• A built-in Todo panel that can be shown next to other services
• Custom services for sites that are not in the catalog
• Anonymous access: Ferdium can be used without an account, and app data stays on the machine
• Cloud sync across computers for users who do create an account
• Hibernation of services to save resources

The reason many Mac users land on Ferdium is simple: there is no paid tier. Features that other apps in this category hold back for a subscription, such as workspaces and multiple accounts per service, are available to everyone.

One warning from the project itself is worth repeating. The download page states that the only official domain is ferdium.org, and that other sites impersonating Ferdium may distribute malware. Download from ferdium.org, its GitHub releases, or Homebrew, and nowhere else.

Step 1: pick the right download for your Mac

The Ferdium download page points to the GitHub releases list, where every build is stored under "Assets". At the time of writing, the latest stable release is Ferdium 7.2.3, published on September 7, 2026. Its macOS files are:

File	For
Ferdium-mac-7.2.3-arm64.dmg	Apple Silicon (M-series) Macs, disk image
Ferdium-mac-7.2.3-x64.dmg	Intel Macs, disk image
Ferdium-mac-bundle-7.2.3-arm64.zip	Apple Silicon, zipped app
Ferdium-mac-bundle-7.2.3-x64.zip	Intel, zipped app

The project's FAQ explains the naming: check Apple menu, then About This Mac, to see whether the chip is Apple Silicon or Intel. If it is Apple Silicon, take a file with arm64 in the name. Both the .dmg and the .zip work, but the FAQ recommends the .dmg. Open it and drag Ferdium into the Applications folder.

Be careful with the releases list itself. It mixes stable releases with nightly builds, such as 7.2.4-nightly.3. Nightly builds are pre-releases. Unless there is a specific fix to test, choose the release marked as the latest stable one.

Step 2, the shortcut: install with Homebrew

For Mac users who already use Homebrew, one command replaces the whole download step. The Homebrew cask page for Ferdium lists:

brew install --cask ferdium

The cask page shows the current version as 7.2.3, notes that the app updates itself, and lists a requirement of macOS 12 or newer. It covers both Apple Silicon and Intel builds on every macOS release from Monterey through the current one, so Homebrew picks the right architecture automatically.

The Ferdium download page also lists separate casks for pre-release channels:

brew install ferdium-beta
brew install ferdium-nightly

Homebrew's own analytics give a sense of scale: the cask page shows 1,944 installs through Homebrew over the past 365 days. That counts only Homebrew installs, not downloads from GitHub, but it shows the Mac version has a steady user base.

Step 3: the first launch and the Gatekeeper prompt

On first launch, macOS shows a prompt asking to confirm opening an app downloaded from the internet. The Ferdium FAQ addresses this directly. The app is signed and submitted to Apple for notarization as part of the build process, and the prompt notes that Apple checked it for malware and found none. It is safe to confirm and open the app.

The FAQ also explains a detail that surprises some people. When inspecting the signing certificate, the name shown is "Ambroise Grau" rather than "Ferdium". Because Ferdium is not a registered legal entity, its certificates for macOS and Windows were issued in the personal name of one of the project maintainers. Seeing that name is expected.

Step 4: account or no account

On first launch, Ferdium offers a choice between signing in with an account and using it without one. This decision affects sync more than anything else.

• With an account, services and workspaces sync between computers through a Ferdium server.
• Without an account, everything stays on the Mac. There is no sync, and backups are manual.
• For sync without relying on someone else's server, the FAQ points to Ferdium Server, which can be self-hosted.

Users who start with an account and later want to go accountless can do so. The FAQ describes the route: back up settings from the current server, sign out, choose the accountless option on the login page, then import the configuration, services and workspaces.

It also helps to know where the data lives. According to the FAQ, the Mac profile folder is ~/Library/Application Support/Ferdium. Copying that folder is the simplest form of manual backup before an upgrade or a move to a new Mac.

Step 5: add services, a second account, and workspaces

Once inside, services are added from the catalog. For anything missing, the FAQ points to the "Custom Website" service, which accepts any URL and a chosen icon.

To sign into two accounts on the same service, add that service a second time. The home page states that the same service can be added twice or more for multiple logins. Each copy keeps its own session.

The FAQ is explicit about the opposite case. Several services cannot be set to share one profile so that their logins are shared, and the project does not plan to add that, citing the risk of session hijacking. Every service is its own island, which is what makes the multi-account setup reliable.

Workspaces then group services by context. A common Mac setup is one workspace for the day job and one for a side project, so that only the relevant set of icons shows in the sidebar.

Common Ferdium problems on Mac, and the fixes

The FAQ answers the issues that come up most often.

Discord shows the mobile layout. Discord reads the user agent and decides it is talking to a mobile site. Right-click the Discord service in the sidebar, choose Edit, scroll down and change the User Agent field to a desktop browser string.

The menu bar has disappeared. On Windows and Linux the menu can auto-hide, and pressing Alt brings it back. Unticking "auto-hide menu bar" under View stops it from hiding again.

Beta and stable cannot be installed together. All channels share the same app name and install location, so installing one replaces the other. This also means switching channels, upgrading or downgrading is just a matter of installing the version wanted.

Worried about losing settings when switching versions. The FAQ states that installing a release does not modify the configuration folder, so services and settings carry over between stable, beta and nightly.

Memory use climbs with many services. Each service is a live web page. Ferdium's hibernation puts idle services to sleep, which is the main lever available. Keeping rarely used services hibernated, or removed, does more than any other setting.

Moving from Franz or Ferdi, and keeping Ferdium updated

Many Mac users arrive at Ferdium from one of its predecessors. The Ferdium FAQ confirms that data can be moved from Ferdi to Ferdium and links to a migration guide. The practical order is to back up first, install Ferdium, then import, rather than uninstalling the old app before the new one is working.

For updates, the Homebrew cask is marked as auto-updating, so the app replaces itself when a new stable release ships. Users who installed from a .dmg get the same in-app updates. When an update does misbehave, the FAQ's note about the configuration folder is the safety net: installing an older release over a newer one keeps the services and settings, so rolling back to the previous version from the GitHub releases list is a reasonable first step.

It is also worth confirming that the right build is installed after any manual download. On an Apple Silicon Mac, open Activity Monitor while Ferdium is running and look at the Kind column. A native build shows Apple. If it shows Intel, the x64 file was installed by mistake and runs through Rosetta translation, which costs battery and memory. Replacing it with the arm64 file fixes that, and the settings stay in place because they live in the profile folder rather than inside the app.

Finally, a note on scale. Because every service is a separate web page, a sidebar of twenty services behaves much like twenty browser tabs that never close. Starting with a short list and adding services only when they are needed keeps Ferdium responsive on older Macs and on machines with 8 GB of memory.

Where Ferdium fits, and when to look elsewhere

Ferdium is a strong fit for Mac users who want everything free, are comfortable with a community project, and value the option of running without an account. It is cross-platform, so the same setup also works on Windows and Linux.

The trade-offs follow from the same facts. Support comes from the community on Discord, GitHub and Reddit rather than a vendor. Release timing depends on volunteers. Sync requires either an account on a Ferdium server or a self-hosted server.

For readers who want a Mac-only alternative, the closest option is an app aggregation browser that keeps each app in its own cookie container and syncs through the user's own iCloud Drive or Google Drive, with no account to create. The browser run by this site works that way. Its free plan covers 1 workspace and up to 3 apps with no time limit, and multiple accounts per service are part of Pro. A side-by-side breakdown is on the comparison with Ferdium, and the limits and prices are on the pricing page.

What to change first

Install Ferdium with brew install --cask ferdium, choose the accountless option if sync is not needed, and add only the services opened every day. After a week, check whether any service needed a second account or a fix such as the Discord user agent, and decide from that whether Ferdium stays as the main tool.