No account. No email address. No trial clock. Click the button, unzip the file, and it's yours. Check the requirement below first — the current build runs on Apple Silicon Macs only, and we'd rather tell you now than after the download.
Intel Macs are not supported. The build is compiled for Apple Silicon only, and Rosetta can't help: there is no Intel code inside it to translate. To check which you have: Apple menu → About This Mac. If the Chip line says Apple M-anything, you're good. If it says an Intel processor, this build won't launch.
Windows isn't shipping yet. The code builds for Windows and the build script is in the repo, but there's no tested release. Shipping an untested build of something that holds your books is worse than shipping nothing. Email me if you want a note when there is one.
The whole app. Maker, contractor and landlord modes, all reports, all exports. Free, and it stays free.
Download Daygig — FreeDouble-click the downloaded file. You'll get Daygig.app, the full user manual as a PDF, a sample bank CSV, and the install and policy docs. Drag Daygig.app to your Applications folder, or leave it wherever you like. It runs from anywhere.
Daygig isn't notarized through Apple's paid developer program, so the first launch needs one extra step. Right-click Daygig.app and choose Open, then choose Open again in the dialog. macOS remembers the decision — every launch after that is a normal double-click.
If you double-click it first and get told the developer can't be verified, that's the same thing. Right-click, Open, Open.
If instead it says "Daygig is damaged and can't be opened", that is macOS quarantining a downloaded app rather than a broken file. Open Terminal, paste this, press Return, and try again:
xattr -cr /Applications/Daygig.appmacOS may ask whether Daygig can find devices on your local network. Click Allow. Daygig runs a private server on your own Mac at 127.0.0.1 so the app can open in your browser — that prompt fires for any process that opens a socket, including ones that never leave the machine. The details are here if you'd rather read them than take my word.
Pick your mode, enter your business name, state and tax rate, choose which modules you want, and you're in. Takes about two minutes and you can change all of it later in Settings.
Setup asks which of three you are. This decides your chart of accounts, which screens appear, and which tax worksheets you get. It is not a permanent commitment, since you can change it in Settings, but starting in the right one saves you pruning accounts you'll never use.
| Maker / creative business | Artists, makers, filmmakers, bands, crafters, indie sellers. Inventory, bill of materials, orders, events, campaigns, and a Schedule C worksheet. |
|---|---|
| Contractor / home services | Trades, repair crews, one-truck LLCs. Job costing, time tracking, estimates, invoices, subcontractor 1099 tracking, and a Schedule C worksheet. |
| Landlord / property | Small landlords and short-term rental hosts. Properties, leases, rent roll, capital reserves, STR profitability, and a Schedule E worksheet. |
A sample bank CSV ships in the sample_data folder next to the app. Import it under Transactions to see the review-and-post flow with numbers that aren't yours before you commit your real books to anything.
Everything Daygig stores sits in one folder, deliberately outside the app so updating can't touch it:
~/Library/Application Support/Daygig/To get there: in Finder press ⌘⇧G and paste that path. Inside you'll find daygig.db — your entire ledger as one standard SQLite file, plus your backups, receipt images and product photos.
That file is not a proprietary format. Open it with the sqlite3 command built into macOS, with any database browser, or with a short Python script, and read every table without Daygig's involvement. Copying that one file to a new Mac moves your whole business with it.
Back it up somewhere that isn't this Mac. Daygig snapshots your database before nearly every write, but those snapshots live on the same disk. They save you from a mistake; they don't save you from a dead drive. Settings has a one-click export — put it on a drive or a cloud folder on whatever schedule you'll actually keep.
Don't run the live database out of a cloud-synced folder while using it on two Macs at once. It's a SQLite file, and two writers will corrupt it.
Double-click Daygig.app to start. Your browser opens on the dashboard.
When you're finished, click Shut Down in the sidebar, then close the tab. That stops the local server. Closing the browser tab on its own leaves it running quietly. Harmless, but it's there.
Updates are manual on purpose. Daygig checks whether a newer build exists and shows a banner with a download link; nothing installs itself behind your back. Your data folder lives outside the app, so replacing Daygig.app with a newer copy keeps every record intact.
Expected on first launch. Right-click Daygig.app, choose Open, then choose Open again in the dialog. macOS remembers it after that. This appears because the app isn't notarized through Apple's paid developer program, not because anything is wrong with the file.
This is the most alarming-looking message and the least serious one. macOS puts a quarantine flag on anything downloaded from the internet, and for an app that isn't notarized it reports that as damage. The file is fine. Clear the flag in Terminal and open it normally:
xattr -cr /Applications/Daygig.appChange the path if you put the app somewhere other than Applications. You only ever need to do this once.
Most often this is an Intel Mac. Check Apple menu → About This Mac: the Chip line needs to say Apple M-something. If it does and it still won't start, look for daygig-startup-error.log in ~/Library/Application Support/Daygig/ and send it to [email protected].
The local server is still starting. Wait a few seconds and refresh. If it persists after half a minute, quit Daygig, restart it, and check the error log named above.
Daygig writes every server error, with the request path and full traceback, to daygig-errors.log in your data folder. Send me that file and I can usually tell you exactly what happened. A packaged app has no visible console, which is why that log exists.
Daygig finds the next free port on its own and tells the app where it landed, so this usually resolves itself. If it doesn't, restart your Mac and try again.
Settings → change your profile. Your existing records stay; the screens and chart of accounts adjust. If you'd rather start clean, Settings also has a factory reset — take an export first.
Drag Daygig.app to the trash. To remove your data as well, delete ~/Library/Application Support/Daygig/. Nothing is installed anywhere else: no launch agents, no login items, no receipts in system folders.
Only if you want AI receipt parsing. Everything else works without one. If you add a key, receipts go from your Mac directly to Anthropic and cost roughly two cents each; the key is stored encrypted on your machine.
The app is free and the documentation is thorough, but if your books are a mess or you've never run double-entry before, email me and I'll help you get set up. There's no support tier and nothing to buy. I'd rather you use it than give up on it.