Coming soon · optional · £9.99 a year
Your apps keep updating without the Tide. It is an optional extra.
Your Floodtide licence is yours for good. If you never buy the Tide, every app Floodtide updates for you today keeps updating, and apps you install later are covered the same way whenever their own update feed, Homebrew or the App Store can answer for them. The Tide adds the apps I research by hand from the day it opens.
Included with every licence, for good
- Every app Floodtide updates for you today.
- The 1,983 apps I have researched by hand. I keep them working; this list stops growing when the Tide opens.
- New apps with their own Sparkle or Electron feed, a Homebrew cask and the GitHub releases it points to, or an App Store listing. None of these need me to add anything, so they keep growing without the Tide.
- Update All, backups and undo, and every 1.x update.
What the Tide adds, £9.99 a year
- The apps I research by hand from the day it opens, about 50 a week.
- For apps with no update source at all, a note when other Macs report a newer version. It never installs anything.
- Your coverage requests, researched first.
Already bought Floodtide? When the Tide opens you get it free for three months, then £4.99 a year if you keep it. If you let it go, nothing you have changes.
Below the line is included. Above it is the Tide.
The line is my hand-researched catalogue: 1,983 apps today, included with every licence for good, and none of them will ever move above it. It sits on top of everything Floodtide reads by itself from Sparkle feeds, Homebrew, GitHub and the App Store, which never needs the Tide either. From the day the Tide opens, every app I research goes above the line.
How that fits the coverage list: it counts 4,795 apps, 3,263 through Homebrew and 1,532 through this catalogue alone. The catalogue’s other 451 are 60 apps the list already has under the same name and 391 it names as kept up to date by another app or no longer updated. Apps with their own Sparkle or Electron feed are found on your Mac on top of that. Search the list
What £9.99 a year gets you
New apps, every week
I find the developer’s own update feed, GitHub releases or release page for the apps people request, and add the ones that pass. They update in one click, with the same checks as every other update.
Your requests go first
Ask for an app from inside Floodtide with Request Coverage and it jumps the research queue. If it cannot be done safely, the app tells you why instead of guessing.
A heads-up for apps nobody can check
Some developers publish no update source at all. For those, anonymous reports from other Macs say when a newer version exists: “Newer version reported: 8.2”, with a link to the developer’s page. It never installs anything.
How an app gets in
About 1 in 12 requested apps has an official source I can verify. For the other 11 I say so rather than guess, and Floodtide tells you why.
- Someone asks. Requests from inside Floodtide decide what gets researched first. 6,361 different apps were requested in Floodtide’s first month.
- I find the official source. The developer’s update feed, GitHub releases or release page. Homebrew’s and the Mac admin community’s own rules find most of them, and AI research helps with the rest. It suggests; it never decides.
- Three nights of proof. Floodtide’s own checking code has to read a real version from the source three nights running.
- I approve it. It is published in a signed catalogue that your copy of Floodtide verifies before trusting a word of it.
- It is watched from then on. Every entry is checked again every night, so a developer changing their website is noticed by the morning.
Why a yearly fee
Most apps Floodtide updates come from sources their developers already run: Sparkle feeds, Homebrew, GitHub, the App Store. Keeping that going costs nothing, and it is included with the licence you paid for once.
The rest have no such source until someone finds one, tests it and keeps checking it. That work happens every week and never finishes. MacUpdater did it for years; its developer wrote that “around 80% of the work that goes into MacUpdater is actually for the daily maintenance”, and that one-time sales could not pay for it. Its update database is turned off after 2026.
The Tide is how that work gets paid for, without taking anything away from what you already bought.
“I wish they had charged $1 a month or $10 a year sub. I would’ve subscribed easily for the amount of time this app saves me.”
A MacUpdater user, when it was put up for sale. Source · MacUpdater FAQ
What the Tide never does
- Change what you already have. Every update source, every app in the hand-researched catalogue and every 1.x update stay exactly as they are. The Tide adds; it never takes.
- Install something because other Macs say it exists. Version reports show a number and a link. The Tide never installs from them.
- Download from a third-party download site. Only the developer’s own server, GitHub project or feed.
- Skip the checks. Every update has to match the installed app’s Apple Team ID, a published checksum or the feed’s own signature, and pass Gatekeeper, exactly like every other Floodtide update.
Two prices, one of them optional
Floodtide licence
£10.99€12.99$14.99once, yours to keep
- Every update source Floodtide reads
- All 1,983 apps in the hand-researched catalogue
- One-click Update All, backups and undo
- 3 Macs, every 1.x update included
- Nothing changes when the Tide opens
The Tide · optional
£9.99a year, on top of the licence
- About 50 new apps every week
- Your requests researched first
- Newer-version alerts for apps with no source
- The same safety checks as every update
- Bought before it opens? Three months free, then half price
Nothing to pay today. Existing licences: three months free, then £4.99 a year. Everyone else: £9.99 stays your price.
Questions about the Tide
If I never buy the Tide, will apps I install later be updated?
Yes, whenever the app has an update source Floodtide reads by itself: its own Sparkle or Electron feed, a Homebrew cask and the GitHub releases it points to, or the App Store, or a Sparkle address or GitHub repository you set for it yourself. None of those need me to add anything, so they keep covering new apps without the Tide, and the Floodtide update that brings the Tide adds more of them for every licence. What stops growing when the Tide opens is my hand-researched catalogue: its 1,983 apps stay included with every licence and I keep them working, but apps I research after that go into the Tide.
Is Floodtide becoming a subscription?
No. The licence is still £10.99€12.99$14.99 once, and it is yours for good. Nothing about it stops working: every update source, all 1,983 apps in the hand-researched catalogue and every 1.x update stay included with every licence. The Tide is optional and purely additional. Skip it and nothing changes.
What happens if I stop paying?
Apps the Tide added go back to "not covered" on your Mac, and you can still update them from the developer’s site as you would anyway. Everything else keeps working exactly as before.
Why £9.99 a year and not a one-off price?
Because the work is weekly and never finishes: finding official sources, testing them, and noticing when a developer changes their website. A one-off price is what MacUpdater tried, and its developer wrote that it could not pay for the upkeep.
Will the price go up?
If you join when the Tide opens, £9.99 a year stays your price for as long as you stay subscribed. If you bought Floodtide before it opened, £4.99 stays yours the same way.
What does my Mac share, and can I turn it off?
Version reports need Macs to say which apps and versions they run, and that is the coverage switch in Settings, Privacy. Today it is off unless you turn it on, and it sends app names, bundle identifiers, versions and whether Floodtide covers each app, at most once a day. From the Floodtide update that brings the Tide it will be on by default in every copy, whether or not you subscribe, and it will add each app’s build, how it updates and any update feed address found inside it. It never carries a name, account or device identifier. The app tells you when it switches on, the same switch turns it off, and the Tide works with it off. The separate anonymous usage line stays off unless you switch it on.
How do you keep betas out of the version reports?
Versions marked beta, alpha, RC, nightly, preview or similar are thrown out. A version only shows once two different Macs report it on the same day, so one Mac cannot put a version in front of everyone. Reports are only used for apps with no official source, so they can never override a real update feed, and they never install anything.
Which apps will it add?
The ones Floodtide users ask for most, as long as the developer publishes an official update source. Ask for yours from inside Floodtide: select the app and choose Request Coverage. Subscribers’ requests are researched first.
When does it open, and what will you email me?
When the first batch of apps has been researched and tested. You get one email on the day the Tide opens, and at most three in all. Then the list is deleted.
Can I try it first?
Yes. If you bought Floodtide before the Tide opens, the Tide is free for your first three months, on every Mac on your licence, with nothing to do. After that it is half price for you, £4.99 a year, for as long as you stay subscribed. New buyers get the Tide in the 14-day trial, and the 14-day refund covers it too.
The tide is coming in.
Leave your email and hear the day it opens. Nothing to pay today.