Settings

Open Settings with ⌘ , or from the menu FinderGit → Settings.

General

Startup

• Launch FinderGit at login — automatically start FinderGit when you log in to your Mac
• Show the support window at launch — show the About & Support window (sponsors and the developer’s other apps) each time FinderGit starts. Off by default; you can also toggle it from that window.

Updates

• Check for updates on launch — run a background check every time FinderGit starts. Silent unless a newer version is available.
• Automatically check for updates — scheduled background check (every 24h by default). Toggle this if you want to freeze on your current version.
• Check for Updates Now… — trigger a check on demand. Disabled in development builds so the Xcode-run binary can’t accidentally offer to replace itself with the release DMG.

File Browser

• Show hidden files — display dotfiles (files starting with .) in the tree view
• Show labels under compact action buttons — show text labels beneath the toolbar’s compact action buttons instead of icons alone
• Scan depth — maximum folder depth when scanning root folders for .git directories (1–10, default 5)
• Discover nested repositories — when a scanned folder is itself a Git repository, also look inside it for more repositories. Useful when a “container” repo holds independent clones (for example a folder of related projects that is also under version control). Off by default: scanning otherwise stops at the outermost repository on each path, so repositories nested inside another repository aren’t counted. Still bounded by the scan depth and excluded folders; submodules are not counted. Also toggleable from the View menu (⌘ ⇧ N) and as a toolbar toggle next to Refresh — the Overview subtitle then notes “including nested”.
• Tree font size — tree view font size in points (10–20, default 13). Also adjustable via ⌘ + / ⌘ − / ⌘ 0

Excluded Folders

Comma-separated list of directory names to skip during scanning. Default:

node_modules, .build, Pods, Carthage, DerivedData,
.Trash, Library, Applications, .cache, .npm,
vendor, bower_components

Git

Git Executable

Path to the git binary. Default: /usr/bin/git (the macOS Xcode toolchain stub). Change this if you use a Homebrew or custom git installation.

Fetch on launch

When enabled (default), FinderGit runs git fetch on every watched repository once, right after the initial discovery scan completes. This ensures ahead/behind counts reflect the true remote state from the first moment the UI is visible — without it, a newly launched app would only start showing BEHIND after you manually triggered Fetch or the periodic auto-fetch fired.

Network errors during the launch fetch are silent (no per-repo error banners). Disable this if you’re on a metered connection.

Auto Fetch

Periodically fetch from all remotes in the background. Options: Disabled (default), every 5/15/30/60 minutes.

Keeps ahead/behind counts and remote branches up-to-date without modifying your working tree.

Pull strategy

How Pull reconciles the current branch with its upstream. FinderGit always passes this on the command line, so pulling behaves identically on every machine regardless of what pull.rebase happens to be set to in your git config.

• Fast-forward only (default) — git pull --ff-only. Advances the branch when there’s nothing to merge and never writes a commit you didn’t ask for. If the branch has diverged it stops and asks instead of guessing.
• Merge — git pull --no-rebase. Brings the remote in, writing a merge commit when the histories diverged.
• Rebase — git pull --rebase --autostash. Replays your commits on top of the remote for a linear history, stashing and restoring uncommitted work around it. Flattens local merge commits.

When a branch has diverged, the Pull button offers Merge and Rebase for that repository directly — a one-off choice that doesn’t change this default.

Commit Template

A default message pre-filled in the commit text field. Leave empty for no template.

GitHub Token

A Personal Access Token used as a fallback when the gh CLI isn’t installed or authenticated. Paste the token into the field and click Save & Validate — FinderGit round-trips a single call to GitHub before saving, so a typo or rejected token never enters the Keychain.

Click Remove to delete the stored token. The token lives in the macOS Keychain under github.com; FinderGit never writes it to disk in its own files.

See GitHub Integration for the full setup and scope guidance.

Star Notifications

• Notify me when a repo gains a star — show a desktop notification the moment one of your repositories earns a star, naming the repository. Off by default.
• Check interval — how often FinderGit polls for new stars: every 10 / 30 / 60 minutes.

The in-app (+) badge on the Account view’s Stars tile works regardless of this setting — turning notifications off doesn’t hide your new stars, it only silences the desktop banner. See Account → New-star notifications for the full picture.

Detail View

Options for the repository Detail Panel — the tabbed right-hand pane. Currently focused on the Commits tab.

Commit history count

How many recent commits the Commits tab lists. Default: 4 — keeps the tab skim-friendly. Range: 1 to 50. Takes effect on next refresh or repo selection.

Show author avatars

Show each commit author’s avatar to the left of the row. Avatars are resolved from the author’s GitHub account (via their commit email), with a Gravatar fallback; when neither is available, a colored monogram of the author’s initials is shown instead. On by default.

Show tag and branch badges

Mark commits that a tag or branch points at with a badge — tags in gold, branches and remote-tracking refs (origin/main, …) in grey. On by default.

AI

Configures the ✨ AI commit-message generator added in 0.5.0. See the dedicated AI Commit Messages page for the full feature guide and examples.

Commit Messages

• Enable ✨ AI button in the commit field — master switch. Disable to hide the button entirely
• Use Conventional Commits format — wraps the subject as type(scope): subject (default on)
• Prefix with a relevant emoji — let the model pick one matching emoji (default off)
• Tone — Professional / Casual / Friendly
• Length — Short (subject only) / Normal (subject + brief body) / Long (subject + bulleted body)

Custom Instructions

Free-form textarea (max 2 KB) appended to the AI prompt as authoritative house style. Use to enforce conventions the defaults can’t express — ban specific words, always reference an issue number, sign with your initials, force a specific scope vocabulary.

Privacy

Your staged diff is sent to the AI in-flight only — diffs are not logged or stored, and no personal credentials are required. Capped at 100 KB per request, with an additional 2 KB cap on custom instructions.

Terminal

Choose which terminal application to use for the “Open in Terminal” action:

• Terminal (default) — the built-in macOS Terminal
• iTerm2 — if installed
• Warp — if installed

Advanced

File System Watcher

FSEvents latency slider (0.1s–2.0s, default 0.3s). Lower values make the UI more responsive to file changes; higher values reduce CPU usage.

About

Shows the current app version and build number.