// the find
ptmt/react-native-macos
[deprecated in favor of https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/] React Native for macOS is an experimental fork for writing desktop apps using Cocoa
This is ptmt's early fork of React Native that added Cocoa/macOS as a target platform, letting you write desktop apps with the same component model as RN for iOS/Android. It's officially dead — the README says so outright and points people at Microsoft's fork instead. Useful only as a historical reference, not as something to build on.
The fork mirrors RN core's actual platform-extension convention (.macos.js alongside .ios.js/.android.js) rather than bolting macOS support on as a separate package, so it's a legitimate look at how a full platform port was structured at the time. It ships a working RNTesterApp with component examples and screenshots, so you can actually see it running rather than taking the README's word for it. The directory layout (ART, Animated, EventEmitter, etc.) tracks RN's internal module boundaries closely, which makes it readable if you already know the RN core codebase from that era.
No commits since February 2024 and the maintainer says outright it's unmaintained — there's no one patching security issues or keeping pace with RN releases. It's forked from a very old RN baseline (Node 4.x in the setup instructions, pre-Fabric/TurboModules architecture), so none of the modern RN native-module ecosystem is compatible with it. The getting-started flow depends on a separate global CLI package (react-native-macos-cli) that almost certainly doesn't resolve cleanly against current npm/Node versions. Community support is pointed at Reactiflux Discord and DMing the maintainer on Twitter — there's no active issue triage happening now.