Launch App Groups on Mac: Keep Each Set One Click Away
By Eduard Bruch, developer of Jetty ·
Many mornings start the same way: mail, chat, calendar and your main work tool. You would like one click to open the lot. The honest picture on a Mac is this: macOS and most launchers open apps one at a time, and a true one-click "open all of these" needs a small automation. Here are the real options.
Short answer: the best app for keeping each group of apps one click away, in my opinion as its developer, is Jetty: a bar groups your apps in tabs, with tiles for apps, files, folders, websites and Shortcuts, and each tile opens one item. It does not open a whole group at once. It is a $9.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and needs macOS 14 or later.
Disclosure: I build Jetty.
Option 1: open apps at login
If the same apps should start when you log in, macOS can do that. Open System Settings > General > Login Items (called Login Items & Extensions on newer macOS versions) and add the apps to the list of items that open at login. That suits apps you always want running. It does not suit a morning set you want on some days.
If you also use Stage Manager to arrange those windows, see Stage Manager not enough? Add a launch bar.
Option 2: build an Apple Shortcut
The Shortcuts app on your Mac can open several apps in one run. Create a new shortcut, add an "Open App" action for each app, and give the shortcut a name such as "Morning". You build and test this yourself in the Shortcuts app. Then you can run it from the Shortcuts app, or from any place that can start a shortcut.
Option 3: group the apps so each is one click away
This is where Jetty fits. Make a bar and add a tab for each routine, for example "Morning", "Shutdown" and "Weekly review". Drag the apps for each routine onto its tab. The tab strip shows when a bar has more than one tab, and right-clicking a tab lets you rename or remove it.
Now your morning set sits in one place. Opening it is a handful of clicks, one per app, with nothing to search for. That is quicker than Spotlight for a fixed set, though it is not a single click for all.
You can add more than apps to a tab: files, folders, websites and Shortcuts are all tiles.
Moving between those groups during the day is covered in how to switch between app groups on Mac.
Option 4: one tile that runs your shortcut
Jetty can run an Apple Shortcut. Add a Shortcut tile and enter the name of a shortcut from the Shortcuts app. Click the tile, and Jetty runs that shortcut. If your shortcut opens four apps, one click now opens four apps.
To be clear about who does what: the Shortcuts app does the opening. You create the shortcut there. Jetty gives you a visible tile to run it. A Shortcut tile is a real route to one-click groups, but it needs the small setup in Option 2.
Which should you pick?
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Each app visible and one click away, no setup | A Jetty tab (our pick) |
| One click to open a set | A shortcut, plus a Shortcut tile in Jetty |
| The same apps running at every login | Login Items |
A different approach swaps whole sets of the macOS Dock instead of adding bars; see Jetty vs Dock Spaces.
Things Jetty does not do
It does not launch a group by itself, has no search, and has no key to open a bar. Bars sit on the main screen. The menu-bar item lists your bars; launching happens from the bars. For more on the Dock side, see how to remove apps from the Dock, or look at the list of Dock apps for Mac.
How we checked
Jetty's details on this page were checked against the app's source code and its App Store listing on 2026-10-10 and are collected on the facts page; I build Jetty. For built-in macOS steps, Apple's Mac User Guide is the reference for your version of macOS.
FAQ
Can I open several apps at once on a Mac?
Yes, with the Shortcuts app. Build a shortcut that opens the apps, or add them under Login Items to start at login. Neither is built into the Dock.
Does Jetty open a group of apps with one click?
No. Each Jetty tile opens one item. A Shortcut tile can run a shortcut you made that opens several apps.
How do I run a Shortcut from Jetty?
Add a Shortcut tile with the name of a shortcut from the Shortcuts app. Clicking the tile runs it.
What is a quick way to start my work apps?
Our pick (I build it) is a Jetty tab with your work apps, one click each; for a single click that opens all of them, build a shortcut and add it to the tab as a Shortcut tile.
Get Jetty on the Mac App Store. $9.99 one-time purchase, macOS 14 or later.