Currency Converter for macOS

A lightweight, native macOS menu bar app that makes live currency conversion effortless.

What It Does

• Live Exchange Rates: Uses the free exchange-rate API (fawazahmed0/exchange-api) for over 200 world currencies.
• Menu Bar Integration: Quick access to live conversions from anywhere without breaking your workflow.
• Offline Resilience: Caches recent successful quotes and gracefully falls back to stale data when offline or experiencing API issues.
• Favorite Pairs: Save your most frequently used currency pairs for quick, one-click access.
• Instant Conversions: Converted amounts are re-calculated locally instantly as you type.

Preview

Distribution

This project is not distributed through the Mac App Store. Apple's publishing process adds more overhead than this small utility needs, so the supported path is to build the app locally from source.

The simplest install path uses Swift Package Manager:

bash scripts/build_spm.sh

The script creates a normal .app bundle at build/CurrencyConverter.app and links it into /Applications.

Installation

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 or later
• Xcode Command Line Tools (minimum for building from source)
• Xcode 15.0 or later (optional — only needed for the Xcode build path)

Quick Install

You only need the Command Line Tools — no full Xcode IDE:

# 1. Install Command Line Tools (if you haven't already)
xcode-select --install

# 2. Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/0franco/currency-converter-macos.git
cd currency-converter-macos
bash scripts/build_spm.sh

This builds the app via Swift Package Manager, assembles a proper .app bundle in build/CurrencyConverter.app, and symlinks it into /Applications.

To install somewhere else:

APP_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/Applications" bash scripts/build_spm.sh

Launching the App

Currency Converter is a menu bar app, so it does not appear in the Dock. After launching it, look for the app icon in the top-right macOS menu bar.

open build/CurrencyConverter.app

Development

The repository contains the AppKit/SwiftUI application target, shared Swift logic in Sources/CurrencyConverterMacOS/, and unit tests in Tests/CurrencyConverterMacOSTests/.

Run from Xcode

1. Double-click CurrencyConverter.xcodeproj to open the project in Xcode.
2. Wait for the project indexer to finish.
3. Ensure the active scheme is set to CurrencyConverter and your Mac is selected as the run destination.
4. Press Cmd + R or select Product > Run.

Build with Swift Package Manager

This is the recommended non-Xcode build path:

bash scripts/build_spm.sh

The script uses swift build under the hood, assembles the .app bundle in build/, and links it into /Applications.

Useful overrides:

CONFIGURATION=debug bash scripts/build_spm.sh
APP_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/Applications" bash scripts/build_spm.sh

Build with xcodebuild

Requires the full Xcode IDE:

bash scripts/build_and_link.sh

If you want the link somewhere else:

APP_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/Applications" bash scripts/build_and_link.sh

Archive with Xcode

If you have the full Xcode IDE installed:

1. Clone or download this repository.
2. Open CurrencyConverter.xcodeproj in Xcode.
3. From the top menu bar, select Product > Archive.
4. In the Organizer window, select your archive and click Distribute App.
5. Select Custom, then Copy App, and save the exported CurrencyConverter.app.
6. Move it into /Applications.

Testing

To run the test suite from the terminal:

swift test

Troubleshooting

xcodebuild fails with "requires Xcode" error: You only have Command Line Tools installed. Either install full Xcode from the App Store, or use the SPM build script (bash scripts/build_spm.sh) which doesn't need Xcode.

If you do have Xcode installed, point the developer tools to it:

sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Swift tools version mismatch: If you see a Swift tools version error, update Swift using the official macOS instructions: swift.org/install/macos