Tinkertool Application

2 min readMay 26, 2021

TinkerTool running on macOS Mojave with ‘General’ preferences pane open.

Initial releaseDecember 7, 2010Stable releaseOperating systemmacOSAvailable inMultilingualTypeUtilitiesLicenseFreewareWebsitewww.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.htmlUsage

Tinkertool Application Free
Tinkertool Application Status
Tinkertool Application Download

Oct 17, 2019 To verify that the download package is authentic and has not been altered by a third party, you can verify its SHA-256 checksum. The SHA-256 checksum for the current version of the download file is ef148437af551bcce49e247610dfd4a1699cd6204057dc9feb0707f94096b9c1.

TinkerTool is a freeware application for macOS that allows the user to customise the system by exposing hidden preferences to a graphical user interface (GUI).[1] It is developed by German developer Marcel Bresink Software-Systeme. Its latest release is version 7.4.2, which is optimised for macOS Catalina and many features that came with it.[2]

Features[edit]

TinkerTool gives users access to hidden system and application preferences that Apple has built into macOS, but not integrated into GUI preferences menus. Although users can typically access these through Terminal operations, TinkerTool assembles them and provides a GUI similar to Apple’s System Preferences application for easier access.

By using Apple’s hidden preferences, the application only commits changes that are reversible and affect the preferences of the current user account. Administrative privileges or background processing are not required. The application also supports a reset option to reset all preferences to Apple’s defaults, or to the state that existed before using the application.

History[edit]

Initially, TinkerTool worked with all versions of macOS. However, over the years, compatibility with particular versions of macOS was spun off into separate applications: TinkerTool Classic, TinkerTool Classic Generation 2, TinkerTool 4, TinkerTool 5, TinkerTool 6, and the current TinkerTool. Support therefore goes back to Mac OS X 10.1 Puma and later.[3]

Versions[edit]

TinkerTool versions are specific to versions of macOS and are not backward compatible. The program will not work correctly if used with an OS for which it was not designed.