Popular Mac app Raycast heads to iPhone with key limitations

By Bryan M. Wolfe Published April 30, 2025

Raycast, a popular free productivity app for Mac, is making its way to the iPhone. However, due to Apple’s sandboxing restrictions, some of the tools it’s known for on desktop aren’t available on iOS, at least not yet.

Claiming to be a tool for achieving “productivity on the go,” Raycast for iPhone includes several core features at launch. These consist of AI Chat, Notes, Quicklinks, and Snippets. Thanks to cloud syncing, anything you do with the app on mobile syncs with desktop and vice versa.

As Raycast explains, these tools have found great success on the Mac platform:

Raycast is expected to launch several additional features on mobile in the coming months. These include the ability to add a custom keyboard to access AI Commands and Snippets wherever you type, as well as AI features already available on Mac, such as Reasoning, LaTex, AI Extensions, and more, clipboard history sync, and other enhancements.

Raycast for Mac is a powerful and rapidly growing productivity tool that significantly upgrades the macOS Spotlight search. Functioning as a blazingly fast and highly extensible launcher, it allows users to swiftly access applications, files, documents, and much more with just a few keystrokes. Beyond basic launching capabilities, Raycast integrates many built-in features such as a clipboard history manager, a calculator, quick access to system commands, window management tools, and a snippet manager for frequently used text.

What sets Raycast apart is its robust extension ecosystem, offering integrations with countless popular services and developer tools like Spotify, Notion, GitHub, and Jira, effectively bringing the functionality of these apps directly to your fingertips without the need to open them. While the core application is free, a Pro subscription unlocks additional features like AI capabilities, cloud syncing, custom themes, and unlimited clipboard history, further enhancing its utility for power users and teams.

With its sleek interface, extensive functionality, and active community development of new extensions, Raycast has become an indispensable tool for many Mac users looking to streamline their workflows and boost their productivity.