Krova
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Guides / Install

Install Krova

Install Krova on Windows or macOS, find its icon, and remove it completely if you change your mind. Both builds are unsigned, so read the warnings first.

Windows 10 and 11

  1. Get Krova-windows-x64-setup.exe from the Download page. It is a 64-bit installer. You can check its hash first.
  2. Run it. Windows shows Windows protected your PC, because the installer is not signed. Select More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Follow the installer. It installs for your user only and does not ask for administrator rights. If Microsoft’s WebView2 runtime is missing, it downloads it, which needs an internet connection once.
  4. On the last page, leave Run Krova ticked, and tick Create desktop shortcut if you want one. Otherwise start Krova from the Start menu.

On Windows, Krova’s keyboard shortcuts are on from the start (Ctrl+Alt+Shift with Left, Right, Up or 1 to 9). If another program already uses one of those combinations, Settings lists the ones Krova could not register. See Keyboard shortcuts.

Find Krova

Krova starts hidden: no window opens, and it has no taskbar button. Look for its icon in the notification area at the right end of the taskbar. Windows often puts new icons behind the ^ arrow (“Show hidden icons”); drag the Krova icon out of there to keep it visible.

Right-click the icon (on a Mac, click it) to open the menu:

  • Enabled: tick to turn Krova on. When off, dragging windows never shows zones and the keyboard shortcuts are released.
  • Edit layouts…: opens the layout editor.
  • Settings…: opens the settings.
  • Launch at login: start Krova when you sign in.
  • Quit Krova: stops it.

Krova’s window (the layout editor and Settings) is made when you ask for it. Closing it closes it for good, together with the embedded browser that draws it, and Krova keeps running in the tray. That is why a tray-only Krova is small: in one measurement during development the whole app was about 6 MB of private memory in one process, against about 200 MB across seven processes with the editor open (one run on one PC; see Performance). To get the window back, choose Edit layouts… or Settings… in the tray menu, or start Krova again. Starting Krova a second time does not open a second copy: it opens the first one’s editor window.

macOS 13 and later

Never tested on a real Mac. The macOS build is unsigned, not notarised, and has not been run on a Mac. Expect problems, and treat what follows as the intended behaviour.

  1. There is no macOS download yet: macOS support is coming once it has been tested on real hardware. When it ships it will be Krova-macos-universal.dmg, for Apple silicon and Intel.
  2. Open the disk image and drag Krova to Applications.
  3. The first launch is blocked by Gatekeeper. In Applications, right-click (or Control-click) Krova, choose Open, then Open again. If the dialog has no Open button, go to System Settings, Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and choose Open Anyway.
  4. Grant Accessibility: System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, and turn on Krova. If Krova is already listed, switch it off and on again. Krova shows a banner in its window until access is granted. If snapping still does nothing, quit Krova and start it again.
  5. macOS may also ask for Input Monitoring, so that Krova can notice a window being dragged. Krova only watches the left mouse button and whether your activation key and Escape are held; it does not read what you type.

Krova lives in the menu bar and has no Dock icon. The menu is the same as on Windows. The macOS build has no keyboard shortcuts and no window memory yet; you snap by dragging.

Uninstall and remove all your data

Windows

  1. Choose Quit Krova from the tray menu.
  2. Open Settings, Apps, Installed apps, find Krova and choose Uninstall.
  3. On the first page of the uninstaller, tick Delete the application data, then continue. That removes both data folders below. If you leave it unticked, they stay.

This is everything Krova can leave on a Windows PC:

WhatWhereRemoved by the uninstaller
Settings and layouts (config.json, and config.json.bak if it was ever recovered) %APPDATA%\dev.krova.desktop Only with “Delete the application data”
The web view’s cache and browser profile (WebView2) %LOCALAPPDATA%\dev.krova.desktop Only with “Delete the application data”
The start-up entry, if Launch at login was on Value Krova under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Yes
The program, Start menu and desktop shortcuts %LOCALAPPDATA%\Krova Yes

To remove the data by hand, quit Krova first, then run this in PowerShell:

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:APPDATA\dev.krova.desktop" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\dev.krova.desktop" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" -Name "Krova" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

macOS

  1. Turn off Launch at login in Krova, then choose Quit Krova.
  2. Drag Krova from Applications to the Bin.
  3. Delete ~/Library/Application Support/dev.krova.desktop (your settings and layouts).
  4. If a start-up entry is left, remove it in System Settings, General, Login Items, or delete ~/Library/LaunchAgents/dev.krova.desktop.plist if it exists.
  5. Remove Krova from the Accessibility list (and Input Monitoring, if it is there) in Privacy & Security.

The list of what Krova stores, and why, is on the Privacy page.