A macOS search tool

This tool is a GUI for a simplified version of grep with all of its most useful features alongside a YARA rule editor.

The core principles of this tool are simplicity, clarity, and intuitiveness.

There are some qualities that are served better by one type of search than the other. This chart offers some advice about which search type to use for a given need.

Advanced macOS users often have a set of files that they need to search in and a set of terms that they need to search within those files. Command line tools and the Finder app can both be great for conducting these searches - up to a point. Commands can grow unweildly and the Finder app can grow awkward with complex searches or even not support them at all. gary allows users to conduct these complex searches within a simple interface.

System administrators, researchers, and developers alike frequently need to determine which file or files contain a specified search term. It is common for the search to be complex to the degree of requiring regular expressions or logical expressions. Insight into the lines above or below the matched line is often useful as is the ability to invert a search. All of these qualities and more are offered by this search tool. Any macOS user who would use this functionality is the target audience of this application.

I'm releasing this tool at MacSysAdmin Conference 2025, the 20th anniversary of the conference! You can download the app's installer on the "Releases" page of this repo.