SBB on a Mac

There is no official SBB app for macOS, and that surprises people who assume the iPhone app must have a desktop version. It does not. Here is everything that actually exists, what each one is good at, and where each one stops.

The short answer

For buying tickets, use SBB Mobile on your phone or sbb.ch in a browser — nothing on this page replaces either. For checking whether you need to leave yet, without opening anything, a menu-bar app is the only shape that fits, and Perron is the one that exists.

Everything that runs on a Mac

App	Made by	Price	What it is
SBB Mobile	SBB	Free	The official app, and the one to use for tickets. iPhone and Android only — there is no Mac build.
SBB Preview	SBB	Free	SBB's public beta channel, built for iPad. Its own page says it is not validated for macOS.
sbb.ch	SBB	Free	The website. Works in any browser on any Mac, Intel included, and is the most complete option — but it is a tab you have to open and re-check.
Abfahrten – Schweiz	iPhonso GmbH	Free	An iPhone app that installs on Apple Silicon Macs. Its listing reads “Developed for iPad. Not verified for macOS”, and it needs macOS 14 and an M1 Mac.
TrainTime: Swiss Departures	Evan Thomas	CHF 1.00	Also an iOS app on Apple Silicon. Built around home-screen and Apple Watch widgets, which it does well — the watch face is something Perron has no answer to.
Raily: Swiss Transport Widget	Raily	Free, with a PRO tier	A home-screen widget, iOS-on-Mac, macOS 12 and an M1. If a widget on the desktop is what you want, this is the thing built for it.
Perron	Tidymill	Free, pay what you want	A native macOS menu-bar app. Runs on Intel and Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or later. No tickets, no maps, no journey planning.

Checked against each app's own App Store listing in August 2026. Prices and requirements move; if something here is out of date, tell me and I will fix it.

Two things the list has in common

They all open a window. The App Store options are iPhone and iPad apps running on Apple Silicon. That works, and for a full journey search it is genuinely more capable than a menu-bar readout. But it is still an app you switch to, which is the thing you were trying to avoid when you looked at the clock.

They all need Apple Silicon. Every App Store option above requires an M1 Mac or later, because that is what running iOS apps on macOS requires. On an Intel Mac the list is the website — and Perron, which is a native Mac app and runs on both.

What a menu-bar app does instead

Perron keeps your next departure — line, platform, delay — in the menu bar, so checking it is a glance rather than a task. You save the connections you actually travel once; it shows the one that matters, chosen by hand or by which of your saved stops you are nearest.

It is deliberately not a journey planner. It ranks the connections the timetable already returns for a route you saved. No tickets, no maps, no search.

What Perron does, in full · Download Perron 0.3.2 — free

Questions

Is there an official SBB app for macOS?

No. SBB ships SBB Mobile for iPhone and Android, and SBB Preview for iPad. Neither has a Mac build, and SBB Preview's own page states it is not validated for macOS. On a Mac, SBB's supported route is the website.

Can I install the iPhone SBB app on my Mac?

SBB Mobile is not offered for Mac. Several third-party Swiss transit apps are — Abfahrten – Schweiz, TrainTime, Raily — because iPhone and iPad apps can run on Apple Silicon Macs. They open a window like any other app, and all of them require an M1 Mac or later.

Does anything show Swiss departures in the macOS menu bar?

Perron does. Nothing else sampled while researching this page did: the App Store options are iPhone and iPad apps running in a window, and the widgets live on the home screen rather than the menu bar.

What works on an Intel Mac?

The sbb.ch website, and Perron. Every App Store option listed here requires Apple Silicon, so on an Intel Mac they are not available at all.

Where does Perron's timetable data come from?

From opentransportdata.swiss, the Confederation's open data platform, over Open Journey Planner — the same source the operators publish.

Data: opentransportdata.swiss — check SBB before you travel.

Perron is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Schweizerische Bundesbahnen SBB, opentransportdata.swiss, or the Federal Office of Transport. Service designations such as IC, IR and S are used descriptively to identify public transport services. Other apps are named as a matter of fact; no endorsement by them is implied either.