Having recently done a clean re-install, I consider my current set of installed apps to be ‘minimal’.
I was curious to see what that number actually is, so I ran this command in Terminal:
find /Applications -maxdepth 2 -type d -iname '*.app' -print | wc -l
The answer: 145
Which is much higher than I would have guessed.
(Also note that because this is Catalina, most of the default macOS apps do not actually show up in /Applications/ or /Applications/Utilities/ despite what Finder might tell you.)
Note: translating the find command above:
- Look in the Applications folder:
find /Applications
- and 1 folder level deeper
-maxdepth 2
- only for directories (
-type d)
- which end with
.app (-iname '*.app')
- and print the output (
-print)
- then filter those results (
|)
- through the program
wc (word count) with the -l argument (show me a count of lines)
The actual apps:
I often find it interesting to see what apps people have installed, so here’s my list, generated by. this command:
find /Applications -maxdepth 2 -type d -iname '*.app' -print \
| sed -e 's#.*/##g' -e 's#\.app##g' \
| sort -f
1Blocker
1Password 7
Alfred 4
Amazon ¹
Amphetamine
Audio Hijack
Banner Hunter
Bartender 3
BBEdit
Beamer
Bear
Better
BetterTouchTool
BetterZip
BlockBlock Helper
Brave Browser ²
Brave Browser Beta
Brave Browser Nightly
Broadcasts
Bumpr ³
BusyCal
BusyContacts
Carbon Copy Cloner
Cardhop
Choosy ³
ChronoSync
Clicker for Prime Video
CodeRunner
Contacts Cleaner
Copy URL to Clipboard
Default Folder X
Deliveries
Desktop Curtain
Discord
Display Menu
Downie
Drafts
DropDMG
Due
duet
EncryptMe
EpuborAudibleConverter
Fantastical
FastDMG
Feeder 3
Final Cut Pro
Fission
Fluid
FMail
Forecast Bar
GarageBand
Gemini
Google Chrome
Growl
Hand Mirror
HandBrake
HistoryHound
HomeControl
Honey
ImageOptim
iMovie
iStat Menus
iTerm
Jump Desktop
Kaleidoscope
Karabiner-Elements
Karabiner-EventViewer
KextViewr
Keyboard Maestro
Keynote
LaunchControl
Levelator
Link Unshortener
Logic Pro X
LosslessCut
MacPilot
Mactracker
MacUpdater
MailMate
Mailplane
Marked
MarsEdit
Mic Drop
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Mom ¹
Moom
Name Mangler
NetatmoModulesManager
NetatmoWizard
NewFileMenu
NoiseBuddy
Numbers
nvUltra Beta
OmniDiskSweeper
OmniFocus
OneDrive
Pages
PDF Expert
PDFpen
Permute
Phoenix
Podcast Chapters
Proxie
Rectangle
Reeder
Remote Desktop
Resilio Sync
Safari
Screens
Semulov
Service Station
Setapp
Sharpshooter
Signet
Slack
Soulver 3
SoundSource
Speedtest
StopTheMadness
Stream Deck
SuperDuper!
Suspicious Package
TableFlip
Taccy
TextBar
The Unarchiver
Things3
ToothFairy
Tot
Tower
Tracey ¹
Transmit
TripMode
Type2Phone
Typinator
Ulysses
Unite
VLC
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion Tech Preview
Weather ¹
Webcam Settings
zoom
Footnotes
¹ = this app is a Site-Specific Browser. Well, technically only Amazon is a SSB. The rest are more like “Single Task Browsers”. For example, the ones named “Mom” and “Tracey” are browsers where I am signed into accounts as my mom/wife in case they need me to help them with something. It’s easier (IMO) to just have one browser dedicated to that, so if I have to check something in my wife’s email and then follow a link from there to check her Google Account Security Settings, it’s not going to be confused as to who I am.
The Amazon one has its ‘Favorites’ bar with several bookmarks to things that I often want to check, such as my order status page, or if there is something that I am looking at but not sure I want to buy, I’ll bookmark it and put it on the bookmarks toolbar. Which I don’t want in my regular browser. Also, it defaults to smile.amazon.com which I always forget to use otherwise.
The Weather “app” points to the web page for my Netatmo Indoor Outdoor Smart Weather Station (this is the one Jason Snell has mentioned he uses). It also links to some other weather sites, pre-bookmarked to my specific location.
² = I generally only use the ‘regular’ Brave browser. I read somewhere that sync is coming to Brave, but is only currently in the nighty builds, but I haven’t actually used it much. Brave is also the browser that I use as my “work browser” so if I have a “work account” and “personal account” for the same site, Brave will always be signed into my “work account”.
³ = Theoretically, Bumpr and Choosy “do the same thing” - send links to different browsers. But Bumpr will also do the same thing for email links. I use MailMate for my work mail and Fastmail/Fmail for my personal mail (and Mailplane for my mailing lists, etc). Ideally I would just use Bumpr, but Choosy is still better at this than Bumpr because it can do things such as: “Take all of the links from Twitterrific (which is technically now called ‘Phoenix’) and send them to Link Unshortener which can remove most of the tracking crap that some sites use, and then Link Unshortener sends the final link to my default browser (Choosy) which sends it to the appropriate browser.
Note: translating the second find command:
For reference:
find /Applications -maxdepth 2 -type d -iname '*.app' -print \
| sed -e 's#.*/##g' -e 's#\.app##g' \
| sort -f
- Look in the Applications folder:
find /Applications
- and 1 folder level deeper
-maxdepth 2
- only for directories (
-type d)
- which end with
.app (-iname '*.app')
- and print the output (
-print)
- then filter those results (
|)
- through
sed which will apply two filters (each marked with -e):
- the first will delete everything from the left margin to the last
/
- the second will delete everything everything from
\.app to the end of the line
- then filter those results (
|)
- through the
sort command using the -f option which tells sort to ignore case (so nvultra gets sorted with the rest of the N apps rather than after Z)
The \ at the end of a line just makes it so you can break up a command over several lines for readability.
The \ before .app means I am looking for a literal period followed by the letters a p p because otherwise . can be used in regular expressions to mean any character.
. Waiting for the first person to report 4 digit apps
