1Install
- Download Rankly.dmg (latest release from GitHub).
- Open the DMG and drag Rankly into the Applications folder.
- Eject the DMG and open Rankly from Applications or Launchpad.
Requirements: macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon or Intel Macs.
2First launch
Rankly is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS may ask once whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet. Click Open.
There's no account and no setup. You start with an empty sidebar — add your first app to begin.
3Add an app
- Click Add App (the + button in the sidebar).
- Type the app's name, its App Store ID (e.g.
id1234567890or just the digits) or paste its App Store link. - Choose the country (storefront) to track — 53 are available — and press Search.
- Click Add next to the right result. Turn on Add as competitor if it isn't your own app.
You can track any app — yours or anyone else's. Each tracked app lives in the sidebar with its keyword count.
4Add keywords
Select an app, type into the keyword field at the top of the Keywords tab and press Add. Separate several keywords with commas to add them at once:
habit tracker, daily routine, streak app, goal planner
Rankly checks each new keyword right away. Right-click keywords to refresh, copy or delete the selection.
5Reading the table
| Keyword | The search term, exactly as a user would type it into the App Store. |
|---|---|
| Rank | Your position in the iPhone App Store search results for that country. Rankly reads the top 250; >250 means the app isn't in them. |
| Change | How many places the rank moved since yesterday. Green arrow = up, red arrow = down. |
| Popularity | ~5–100. An estimate based on how early (after how many letters) and how high the term appears in App Store autocomplete. It is not Apple's Search Ads popularity score. |
| Difficulty | 0–100. How hard the term is to rank for, based on how established the top-10 apps are (their rating counts) and how many of them use the term in their name. |
| Trend | A sparkline of the recent rank history. |
6Refreshing & daily schedule
Ranks are refreshed automatically once a day: when Rankly starts and the data is older than today, and then with an hourly check while the app is running. One result per keyword per day is stored in the history. With the menu bar extra on, Rankly keeps running after you close the main window, so the daily refresh still happens.
To refresh manually, click the refresh button in the toolbar or press ⌘R (refresh all ranks). A progress counter shows how many keywords are done. Requests are deliberately paced, so large lists take a little while.
7Keyword detail panel
Select a keyword to open its detail panel:
- Rank History — a chart of the daily ranks (needs at least two days of data).
- Apps ranking for this keyword — the top 30 apps with their rating and number of ratings.
- Track — adds that app as a competitor in one click so you can follow its ranks too. Apps you already follow show Tracking.
8Keyword suggestions
Click Keyword Suggestions (lightbulb) in the toolbar, enter a seed word and press Find. Rankly lists related searches from App Store autocomplete with an estimated popularity and a difficulty score. Add the ones you like with a click.
9Analysis tab
Switch to the Analysis tab and click Start Analysis. Rankly extracts candidate keywords from the app's name, subtitle and description, expands them with autocomplete and searches each in the App Store. It takes about 1–2 minutes; results are saved per country and you can re-run it anytime with Re-analyze.
Keywords you rank for
Every candidate term where the app appears in the results, with its rank, popularity and difficulty.
Name & subtitle words you don't rank for
Words that already sit in your most valuable metadata but don't bring you into the results — strong candidates for a rethink.
Competitors
Discovered automatically: apps that keep appearing near the top for your keywords, from the same category. Competitors you track are always included. Each shows its rating, how many keywords it shares with you and how many it ranks in the top 50 for. Click Track to follow one.
Opportunities
Keywords where competitors rank in the top 30 but you don't. They're scored by popularity, difficulty and how many competitors use them. Searches for brand or app names are filtered out. Click Track to add a keyword to your list.
Suggested keyword field
A ready-to-paste, comma-separated 100-character keyword field for App Store Connect, built from your best terms. Words already in your name or subtitle aren't repeated (Apple indexes those anyway). Click Copy and paste it into App Store Connect.
Apple never publishes an app's hidden keyword field. Rankly doesn't guess it — it finds the keywords the app really ranks for.
10Multi-country analysis
In the Analysis tab, click Multi-country Analysis….
- Language matching — Rankly reads the languages the app is localized in from the App Store and pre-selects the storefronts that search in those languages. Other countries are listed separately: the app shows in its default language there, so ranking is usually weak.
- Skip countries analysed in the last 24 hours — keep this on to avoid repeating fresh work.
- Click Start Analysis. Countries are analysed one by one in the background, each with its localized name and description. The sheet shows an estimated duration; it's slow on purpose so Apple doesn't block you.
- When done, switch the scope to All countries for a per-country overview (keywords you rank for, how many in the top 10, opportunities) and the best opportunities across all countries.
- Resume after a block — if Apple temporarily blocks search, the run pauses and shows how many countries are finished. After the indicated time, click Continue with Remaining. Failed countries can be retried with Retry Failed.
12Updates
Rankly updates itself with Sparkle. By default it checks for a new version automatically once a day. You can check right away with Rankly → Check for Updates…, the download button in the menu bar extra, or Check Now in Settings.
In Settings (⌘,) you can turn automatic checks off, or let Rankly download and install updates automatically.
Every update is signed and notarized and downloaded from GitHub Releases. The update check only fetches the release feed — no system profile or usage data is sent.
13Where data is stored
Everything stays on your Mac, inside Rankly's sandbox container:
~/Library/Containers/com.ardasenturk.rankly/Data/
- SwiftData store — tracked apps, keywords and rank history.
- Analysis results — one JSON file per app and country in
Library/Application Support/Rankly/analysis/.
Nothing is synced or uploaded anywhere.
14How to fully uninstall
- If you enabled Launch at login, turn it off in Settings. Then quit Rankly — use the power button in the menu bar extra, or ⌘Q.
- Move Rankly from Applications to the Trash.
- In Finder choose Go → Go to Folder…, enter
~/Library/Containers/and move thecom.ardasenturk.ranklyfolder to the Trash. This deletes all tracked apps, keywords, history and analyses.
15Troubleshooting
“Apple temporarily blocked search” (HTTP 403)
Apple briefly blocks the search endpoint for a network that sends too many requests. Rankly then stops all searches for one hour (retrying would only extend the block) and shows when it will continue. It also doubles the spacing between requests for the future (up to 8 seconds). Just wait — refreshes and analyses resume afterwards.
Rank shows “>250”
The app isn't in the top 250 results for that keyword in that country. Check that you're looking at the right storefront and that the app is available there. New keywords often need time — and metadata changes — to start ranking.
“App Store request limit” (HTTP 429)
The App Store asked Rankly to slow down. Rankly waits and retries automatically with longer pauses. If the error remains, try again a little later.
Something else?
Open an issue on GitHub with your macOS version, Rankly version and what you saw.