flash

Flash and Superkey

Superkey, by the author of Rectangle, is “Simple and powerful keyboard enhancement on macOS”: a hyper key, remap presets, and Seek, which finds text anywhere on the screen by OCR and clicks it. It is closed source for macOS 12+, free for 20 days, then a one-time licence for three devices (the price loads from the checkout; third-party listings say about $16). Version 1.66 shipped in June 2026; releases come every one to three months.

	Superkey	Flash
License, price	Closed; one-time licence, 20-day trial	MIT, free
Platforms	macOS 12+	macOS 14+
Permissions	Screen Recording for Seek (it takes a screenshot), Accessibility for keystrokes and clicks	Accessibility; Automation per browser for tab lists; Screen Recording only for :screenshot
Targets	OCR of the whole screen, plus optional Accessibility parsing	Accessibility tree only
Actions	Seek and click, cycle matches with ;	Labels, search, grid, bisect, drag, select, words, path, sticky, multi
Beyond pointing	Hyper key, trackpad gesture for hyper, remap presets	NORMAL mode, flashlight, status bar, widgets, popups, window placement, plugins
Configuration	Preferences window	One TOML file, live reload, CLI
Maintenance	1.66, June 2026	1.0.0, October 2026

Where Superkey is stronger

• Seek finds text that no Accessibility tree exposes: a canvas, a screenshot, a video frame, a remote desktop.
• Hyper key and remaps are built in. Flash does not remap hardware keys.
• Lower macOS floor and a tiny footprint.

Where Flash is stronger

• No Screen Recording. Seek screenshots the screen to run OCR; Flash reads nothing. Superkey’s own FAQ notes that small text and text near lines are hard to pick up; Accessibility labels do not depend on fonts.
• Labels, grid and modes, not only text seek.
• Open source, free, file-configured, with per-app tables.
• Everything after the click.

Flash features you might like

• mouse_target --search is Seek over Accessibility text: type visible text, matches cycle, Return clicks.
• mouse_bigram types one visible character (v/V and 3/# match), then a short label, for terminals and status bars.
• --words puts a label on every visible word.

Moving from Superkey

Superkey	Flash
Seek	["flash", "mouse_target", "--search"]; --scope=screen for every app
Seek on screen text without Accessibility	Not available; use mouse_grid
Hyper key	Keep Superkey or Karabiner-Elements for it; Flash mappings accept hyper chords
Remap presets	Keep Superkey or Karabiner-Elements

Superkey’s hyper key and Flash coexist: Flash sees the hyper chord like any other modifier combination.

[mode.all.mappings]
"cmd+shift+space" = ["flash", "mouse_target", "--search"]

Checked 2026-10-14 against superkey.app and its update feed.

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