Download the app.
One zipped bundle from the latest GitHub release. Universal binary — Apple Silicon and Intel.
Install News Widgets.
Five short steps. The first time you launch, macOS will show a scary popup — that is expected, and the next section explains exactly why.
Heads up
macOS will say “this app is from an unidentified developer.” That is normal.
News Widgets is NOT a virus. I (Ben) didn’t pay Apple’s $100/year Developer Program fee, so macOS shows a scary popup for indie apps. Big-tech apps don’t get this popup because they pay Apple. The code is fully open-source on GitHub — you can read every line.
YOU MUST go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → click “Open Anyway” the first time, OR right-click the app and choose “Open” → “Open” again. After that, it just works.
Step by step.
About a minute, start to finish.
Unzip and drag to Applications.
Double-click the .zip in your Downloads folder, then drag NewsWidgets.app into /Applications.
Double-click. macOS will block it. Click OK.
This is Gatekeeper doing its job. Don’t panic — just dismiss the dialog. We’ll fix it permanently in the next step.
Open Anyway.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security. Scroll down to the “Security” section. You’ll see a row mentioning NewsWidgets — click Open Anyway.
Drop them on your desktop.
Right-click your desktop → Edit Widgets, find News Widgets in the picker, and drag “AI Today” and “World News” into place. That’s it.
One-line installer (advanced).
If you trust the script, this downloads and installs in one step.
$ curl -L https://github.com/bendawg2010/NewsWidgets/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash
Troubleshooting.
I clicked “Open Anyway” but nothing happened.
macOS pops up one more confirmation. Look for a smaller dialog asking you to enter your password or use Touch ID, then click Open. If you don’t see it, switch back to System Settings → Privacy & Security and try again.
My widgets are blank or not refreshing.
Open the main NewsWidgets app once and let it pull a fresh feed. macOS WidgetKit caches the timeline, so the desktop widget can take a minute to update on first launch. If it’s still blank after that, check that you have an active internet connection and try removing & re-adding the widget.
I’m on macOS Sonoma or older.
News Widgets is built for the new desktop-widget system in macOS Tahoe. Older versions of macOS won’t support the desktop placement, but the in-app reader still works. Upgrade if you can — the desktop experience is the whole point.
I want to add or remove a source.
Open the NewsWidgets app, go to Settings → Sources, and toggle any source on or off. Add a custom RSS feed by pasting its URL at the bottom of the list. Changes apply to the desktop widget on the next refresh (within a few minutes).
How do I uninstall?
Drag /Applications/NewsWidgets.app to the Trash. To wipe cached articles too, also delete ~/Library/Containers/com.bendawg2010.NewsWidgets.
Is there a Homebrew cask?
Not yet. Once the app is signed and notarized, a Homebrew cask is on the roadmap. Star the repo to be notified.