Install Tern

Tern for Mac is free and needs no account. You download it from this site, move it to Applications and open it, and it keeps itself up to date from then on.

What you need

• macOS 26 or later. Tern runs on Macs with Apple silicon and on Intel Macs.
• A few minutes. The first run takes about two, in five short steps.
• Nothing else. There is no Tern account to make. The agent is optional and uses your own Claude API key, which you can add later.

Tern comes as a notarised disk image from the download page, outside the App Store. Apple has checked it, so it opens like any other app.

Install Tern

1. Download Tern.Go to Download and get Tern for Mac. Tern.dmg lands in your Downloads folder.
2. Open the disk image.Double-click Tern.dmg. A small window opens with the Tern icon and your Applications folder.
3. Drag Tern to Applications.Drop the Tern icon onto the Applications folder, then eject the disk image.
4. Open Tern.Open Tern from Applications. The first time, macOS may ask you to confirm that you want to open an app you downloaded from the internet.

The first run

Tern opens on a short welcome. Choose Get Started and it takes you through five steps:

• Import brings your tabs, bookmarks and history over from the browser you use now. See Bring your tabs.
• Spaces lets you name your Spaces, give each a colour and set their hours. See Your first Space.
• Desks makes your first Desk, a set of pages side by side.
• Agent shows what the agent would do. It stays off unless you turn it on.
• Ready asks whether to share anonymous usage counts. This is off until you turn it on.

Choose Start Browsing at the end. If you would rather set things up later, Skip Setup keeps what you have chosen so far.

Updates

Tern looks for a new version once a day while it is open, and asks before it installs one. To look straight away, choose Tern › Check for Updates….

Each check goes through ternbrowser.com and is counted by version only. No IP address is kept. The Privacy page has the details.

Tern for iPhone

Tern for iPhone needs iOS 26. It is coming soon to the App Store. Once it is there, your Spaces and pinned tabs reach it through iCloud. See Sync with iCloud.