Product Development

Serverlife.

Every dev server you start leaves something running in the background, and after a while node.exe and python.exe in Task Manager stop meaning anything. Serverlife sits in the tray and lists what's really listening on localhost — with the port, the folder, and the page's own title, so a row reads like the site it's actually serving rather than a bare process name. It also tells your own projects apart from the OS, installed apps and whatever else is quietly running a local server you didn't start — and if one of yours falls over mid-presentation, it brings it back before anyone notices.

• Every port, PID, folder & page title
• Tells yours apart from the OS & installed apps
• Drop a folder on it to serve it
• Auto-restart if it dies
• Works offline

macOS 0.1.0 · Windows 0.1.0 — free & open source

Download for macOS ↓

1.4 MB ZIP Apple Silicon, macOS 13+ Version 0.1.0

Needs an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer) on macOS 13 Ventura or later — it isn't notarized by Apple, so the first launch needs one extra click (below)

1. Unzip it and drag Serverlife.app to Applications — or run it from wherever you put it, it doesn't need to live there.
2. macOS will refuse to open it the first time. The app isn't notarized — notarization needs a paid Apple Developer account, and this project is free. Right-click (or Control-click) Serverlife.app, choose Open, then Open again in the dialog. Only needed once.
3. It lands in the menu bar (and the Dock). Click the (i) button if you want to switch on the right-click menu — "Start server here" on any folder in Finder, from its Quick Actions.

SHA-256   7741adf7e9071631d154243c1398d19409740a629807cceb798ff826242c535c

Download for Windows ↓

1.2 MB ZIP Windows 10 & 11, 64-bit Version 0.1.0

Needs the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime, which most machines already have — the app will say so if yours doesn't

1. Unblock the ZIP before extracting it — right-click it, Properties, tick Unblock, OK. Windows otherwise treats every extracted file as downloaded-from-the-web.
2. Extract it somewhere permanent. The right-click menu remembers where the app lives, so moving the folder afterwards breaks the entry.
3. Windows will say the publisher is unknown. The app isn't code-signed — a certificate costs more per year than this project does. Choose More info → Run anyway.
4. It lands in the notification area. Click the round gear icon if you want to switch on the right-click menu — "Start server here" on any folder in Explorer, on its icon or in its empty space (under Show more options on Windows 11).

SHA-256   8aa309958519799ac1026e5d4312878e248ab39e69cfbfed4218f891097dde41

Source on GitHub All releases MIT licence Third-party notices

Check the row before you click Stop. Stopping a server takes down everything it started, and the Mine/System split and folder detection are best-effort guesses from where a process runs — not guarantees. Right-click any row to correct one by hand: move it out of Mine, or mark it as yours, and Serverlife remembers.

Nothing Serverlife looks at ever leaves your computer. There is no account, no upload, no telemetry — the only network activity is the app's own request to localhost to read a served page's title. Discovery is local process and port inspection, start/stop is a normal process tree, and the folder read is a best-effort look at the target process's own memory — it degrades to "unknown folder" rather than breaking anything.