This new Mac shortcut is the fastest way to use Google Gemini

Gemini
(Image credit: Future)

Google just released a dedicated Gemini app for Mac. Instead of accessing Gemini through a web browser, Mac users can now download a native app that opens with a keyboard shortcut and works directly with local files.

The app is free and available now for any Mac running macOS 15 or later. It brings Gemini's AI features: image generation, video and music creation, file analysis and the like, into a standalone app that doesn't require switching browser tabs or opening new windows.

Who should download the Gemini Mac app?

Download the app if you use Gemini regularly and want quicker access than opening a browser tab. As a native macOS experience, it’s designed to sit right where you work, and you can bring it up instantly with a keyboard shortcut, so you don’t have to break your flow switching between apps.

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The app is especially useful if you work with local files or on-screen content. You can share your window directly with Gemini to get help based on exactly what you’re looking at, whether that’s summarising a chart, reviewing a document, or working through something more complex.

If you regularly use Gemini’s creative tools, the app also makes it easier to generate images or video without interrupting your workflow, keeping everything in one focused space.

Mac users running macOS 15 or later can download the app now. As Google puts it, "We’re building the foundation for a truly personal, proactive and powerful desktop assistant," with more news to share in the coming months.

To download the Gemini app for Mac, go to gemini.google.com/mac in your web browser and click the download button to get the installer file.

Download for Mac highlighted on Gemini

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Next, open the downloaded file and follow the installation prompts. When prompted to do so, drag the Gemini app to your Applications folder when prompted. Then launch Gemini from your Applications folder or Spotlight search.

To start using the app, sign in with your Google account. Once installed, you can access Gemini anytime by pressing Option + Space on your keyboard. This opens the Gemini window instantly without launching the full app or switching away from what you're doing.


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Kaycee Hill
How-to Editor

Kaycee is Tom's Guide's How-To Editor, known for tutorials that get straight to what works. She writes across phones, homes, TVs and everything in between — because life doesn't stick to categories and neither should good advice. She's spent years in content creation doing one thing really well: making complicated things click. Kaycee is also an award-winning poet and co-editor at Fox and Star Books.

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