AI Switch

AI Switch is a native macOS app for moving quickly between Codex and Claude Code accounts. Its compact workspace has a provider sidebar, a searchable grid of account cards with five-hour/weekly usage meters, isolated profiles, and one-click activation. The menu-bar panel includes quick account switching.

Native SwiftUI · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon & Intel · Early beta

An independent project, not an official OpenAI or Anthropic app.

Download and install

Download AI Switch 0.2.2 — universal DMG · SHA-256 checksum · Release notes

1. Open the DMG and drag AI Switch to Applications.
2. Eject the image, then launch the installed app.
3. Install the Codex and/or Claude Code CLI separately if needed.
4. Use Import for an existing account or Add account to sign in with your own account.

This beta is ad-hoc signed and is not notarized by Apple. macOS may block a downloaded copy. Only if you trust the source, try opening the app, then use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway and confirm. Managed Macs may restrict this. Do not disable Gatekeeper system-wide. See Apple's guidance.

You do not need Xcode, Swift, or an Apple Developer membership to run the app. The download contains no saved accounts or credentials. Intel is cross-compiled; runtime testing on a physical Intel Mac and every supported macOS version is still needed.

To verify the download, place the DMG and checksum in the same folder and run:

shasum -a 256 -c AI-Switch-0.2.2-macOS-universal-beta.dmg.sha256

What works

• Add Codex or Claude Code accounts through each installed CLI's browser OAuth flow.
• Cancel a pending sign-in with Cancel sign-in, the close button, or Escape. Failed sign-ins can be retried without reopening the app (0.2.3 and later).
• Import the accounts that are already active in your CLIs.
• Keep each Codex auth.json in its own owner-only (0600) profile directory.
• Keep each Claude Code profile as an owner-only .credentials.json in its own profile directory, the same file Claude Code itself reads when CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR points there. No Keychain items, no permission dialogs (0.3.0 and later).
• Activate an account for new CLI sessions with one click.
• Read Codex limits through the local Codex app-server protocol.
• Read Claude Code's five-hour and seven-day limit data from the same authenticated usage surface used by the CLI.
• Refresh automatically every five minutes and on demand.
• See local reset clock times on account cards and in the menu-bar panel; hover a meter for the full date, seconds, and time zone. Missing reset times are explicitly marked as not reported.
• Filter by provider or active accounts, search names and email addresses, and rename accounts from their actions menu.
• Use Command-F to search, Command-N to add an account, and Command-R to refresh usage.

How Claude Code credentials are handled

Claude Code keeps the credential for new sessions in the login Keychain (item Claude Code-credentials), falling back to ~/.claude/.credentials.json when the Keychain refuses a write. AI Switch reads and writes that live item with /usr/bin/security, the same tool Claude Code uses, so macOS never shows the per-app authorization dialog that Security framework access from a third-party app would trigger. Saved profiles never touch the Keychain: each one is a 0600 file inside its own profile directory. When you switch, the outgoing account's current credential (including any token Claude Code refreshed) is saved back into its profile before the incoming profile is written live, and refreshes of the active account keep its profile file in sync.

An access token that has passed its expiry is reported as needing renewal rather than as a sign-out: start a Claude Code session with that account active and it renews itself, then refresh in AI Switch. AI Switch does not call the OAuth token endpoint on your behalf.

Upgrading from 0.2.x: earlier versions stored Claude profiles as Keychain items. The active Claude account migrates itself on the first refresh. Any other saved Claude account shows Attention with a message asking you to remove and re-add it; removing it also deletes the old Keychain item.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or newer
• codex and/or claude installed and available in a common binary location
• Building from source additionally requires Swift 6 (the Apple Command Line Tools are enough). Recipients do not need Swift or Xcode.

Build and run

For development:

swift run AISwitch

To create a launchable app bundle:

./Scripts/build-app.sh
open '.build/AI Switch.app'

The build script also creates .build/AI-Switch-macOS.zip for transfer to another Mac.

Run the regression tests with zsh Scripts/test.sh. This exposes the Command Line Tools' Testing framework to SwiftPM's generated test runner as well as the test target.

The build is ad-hoc signed. For distribution to other Macs, sign and notarize with your Apple Developer identity.

Create a DMG for beta testers

zsh Scripts/build-dmg.sh

This runs the regression tests, builds both Apple Silicon and Intel executables, and creates dist/AI-Switch-<version>-macOS-universal-beta.dmg plus a .sha256 checksum. The image contains only the app, an Applications shortcut, and installation notes. The script builds a fresh bundle from an explicit file list; it never packages profile data, account backups, the source tree, or the installed app. It refuses to overwrite an existing release of the same version. Move that artifact aside or increment the version to rebuild. Temporary staging remains under .build for inspection.

Recipients open the DMG, drag the app to Applications, eject the image, and launch the installed copy. They must install their preferred CLIs separately. Share the release files or this public repository, not an unfiltered copy of your local workspace: .build may contain backups of this Mac's profile metadata. Build outputs and local credentials are excluded from source control.

Distribution readiness

The default DMG is an early beta, not a notarized release. An ad-hoc signature verifies package integrity but does not establish a trusted developer identity, and Gatekeeper rejects this build by default. Before a normal public release, obtain a Developer ID Application certificate, sign the app with hardened runtime and a secure timestamp, submit the distribution to Apple's notary service, and staple and validate the accepted ticket. A DMG by itself does not bypass these requirements. See Apple's notarization requirements.

Also test installation and account flows on a clean Mac, including physical Intel hardware and the oldest supported macOS version. The universal executable is cross-compiled; this is not evidence of runtime testing on every supported machine. Codex app-server and Claude's usage integration remain experimental, as noted below.

First use

Use Import to bring in the account currently active in Codex or Claude Code. Use Add account for every additional login. After activation, start a new CLI session; an already-running Codex or Claude Code process may keep credentials cached until it exits.

AI Switch sets Codex's documented cli_auth_credentials_store to file, because deterministic auth.json switching is required. Before the first change it preserves the prior file as ~/.codex/config.toml.ai-switch-backup. Live Codex credentials are backed up under ~/Library/Application Support/AI Switch/Backups before each switch.

Profile metadata is stored at ~/Library/Application Support/AI Switch/profiles.json. This file contains labels and cached percentages, never access tokens. Profile directories contain sensitive auth.json and .credentials.json files and must not be synced or shared.

See usage on your phone (optional)

Server/ is a small self-hosted sync server (Bun, SQLite, no dependencies) plus a web app you install from Chrome on Android with Add to Home screen. It works even while the Mac is off, and it reflects usage from other devices, because the server reads the same usage endpoints the CLIs use:

• Codex: GET https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/wham/usage with the profile's access token and ChatGPT-Account-Id.
• Claude Code: GET https://api.anthropic.com/api/oauth/usage with the profile's OAuth access token.

What leaves the Mac: account names, emails, plans, cached usage, and each account's current access token with its expiry. Refresh tokens never leave the Mac. Both providers rotate refresh tokens, so a second refresher would log the Mac out; the server therefore only reads usage until a token expires (about 10 days for Codex, 8 hours for Claude Code) and then shows the last known numbers with "token expired" until the Mac checks in again. Reset countdowns keep working offline.

Setup:

1. Deploy: zsh Scripts/deploy-server.sh <ssh-host> builds the Docker image, starts it on the host's shared_ingress network, adds a Caddy site block (aiswitch.<ip>.nip.io by default; pass a domain as the second argument), and prints the server address and push secret. Any host that can run bun run src/server.ts behind HTTPS works; AISWITCH_PUSH_SECRET and AISWITCH_PUBLIC_ORIGIN are the only required settings.
2. On the Mac, open Phone in the toolbar, enter the address and push secret, and choose Connect and push. The Mac then pushes after every usage refresh and account change. The connection is stored owner-only at ~/Library/Application Support/AI Switch/sync.json.
3. Choose Show QR code and scan it with your phone's camera. Each code is a separate read-only pairing; Unpair all phones revokes them. The pairing token travels in the URL fragment, which browsers never send to the server.

Run the server's tests with cd Server && bun test.

Current integration boundary

Codex app-server is marked experimental, and Claude's OAuth usage path is not a public third-party API. Both are isolated behind UsageService, fail without changing the active account, and can be updated independently if a provider changes its CLI contract.

Feedback

Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue. Include your macOS version, Mac architecture, CLI version, and steps to reproduce. Remove account emails and other personal information from screenshots or logs. Never attach auth files, tokens, Keychain exports, or your Application Support folder.

The app icon is generated artwork created for this project with OpenAI's built-in image generation tool. Its source PNG and bundled ICNS are in Resources/.

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