Hm. As others have hinted at, play with Alfred’s Workflows feature.
The most basic thing I love about Alfred is that it provides a sorta-fuzzy text-based way of reaching a variety of actions. You can specify a variety of words that get at certain actions, like opening certain URLs. I have a set of Workflows to that end. I’m not sure what keyword I’ll think of to launch, say, MyNoise. So I specify a bunch of possible keywords and then I spend less time guessing what the “right” one is when I go to use it.
Alfred’s also my Emoji inserter. I use Joel Califa’s Emoji Pack. This provides you with a searchable emoji snippet provider from the same cmd+space launcher I use for files and actions.
I don’t use Alfred for moving folders the way you describe. My workflow for file manipulation, though, usually goes something like:
cmd+space
Type ’space to start searching files or type fspace to start searching folders.
Type the name of the thing I’m looking for (I’m generally able to remember this, as it’s usually something recent.)
Hit cmd+enter to reveal the file in Finder and manipulate it from there.
If desired, you can also tap → to access some other functions from here.
All that said, Alfred is only one of the utilities that make macOS what it is for me—I mentioned it in this thread, though, because it “changed my life” in that it totally expanded my conception of what interacting with the Mac could look like.
I totally forgot about that and you are so right. Preview is a bliss for a fast Finder-Work In my opinion. Coming from windows I super liked Preview back 10 years ago. I hope that Preview-fuctions will grow more in the future, like it has in the last OSX updates. Its super fast and super boring.
What I also like a lot is: “Show Preview in the Sidebar” in the finder. I just discovered this function back 2 years a go, whereas it was inside Finder for many years. This function helps me to se all the details to the file and a little thumbnail, giving me the chance of not opening the normal preview-window at all anymore.
Also I wanted to thank the community for participating in the discussion. It is highly effective for me and I would like to come back to this forum in the future, to get inspired more by others!
There is no question which Macintosh program changed my life the most. It was CodeWarrior. I was a professional Fortran77 programmer, but had almost always used Apple (//e, //gs Woz edition, Macintosh SE/30) and had toyed around with writing programs (aka Apps) on my Macintosh SE/30, but the Apple MPW/TML Pascal tool-chain was too hard to use for me to get up to speed. CodeWarrior allowed me to get over the hump and, after a couple of years of writing small programs, get a job as a Macintosh Software Engineer. That was 23 years ago and was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
I have another one, and it is Renamer. I had never thought about the possibility of bulk renaming files, and I’m sure there’s some code and other stuff to get it done, but it saves me so much time for little things. For example, I export my slides as images to my Blackboard Collaborate session. When I export slides from Power point it labels them as Slide1, Slide2, etc. and when I go to import, the slide are sorted as Slide 1, Slide 10, Slide 11 or something weird like that. With renamer I just add that extra 0 in there (Slide01) (LIKE KEYNOTE DOES AUTOMATICALLY).
And that saves me enough time to comment in this forum.
FYI we recently talked about batch-renaming apps here. I’ve used A Better Finder Rename for many years, but I tried the built-in functionality in macOS and it was fast and dead-easy too. If you aren’t doing really sophisticated renaming I’m just recommending using the built-in tool now.
My recent favorite utility: Dark Mode for Safari, a macOS Safari extension that forces all websites to adopt dark mode. It’s a $1.99 one-time purchase and ticks all the boxes for me. I recommend checking out the detailed list of features on its website.
I’d say the dark mode it enforces on most websites look very natural and polished to me, rather than constantly screaming “I’m a color-inverted dark theme”. I especially enjoy the Softer Dark Mode theme because I find the low saturation color palette pleasant to look at.
Just getting into Keyboard Maestro and it seems to be the app that really changes my life on Mac (thanks to the great Field Guide, thank you, David!!!).
Keynote is a close second, since it showed me the merits of having a computer (I’m a converted uber-luddite); I was doing so many different things in keynote (graphics, movies and of course presentations and page layouts among others).
I know that there are many, many productivity apps out there, and I’ve tried them all, but they all fizzled out for various reasons—adding new items is too cumbersome, app is too cluttered, sync doesn’t work well, etc.
That is, until I tried Things. Things really resonates with me and how I work/live.
It’s simple yet powerful, and I spend my time completing tasks rather than “building my system”.
Things has helped me be known as someone with great follow-through because I capture everything. I have some of my best thoughts in the shower (#ShowerThoughts) and I love how easy it is to use the Apple Watch app to quickly capture something. I’m one of those people who can be consumed thinking about something, so getting it recorded in Things allows me to mentally move on to something else.
I recently began using Mail to Things to replace my workflow for tracking my finances. Receipt e-mails from common stores (Amazon, Target, etc.) get automatically forwarded to receipts@, which then gets forwarded to my unique Things address. It makes is so easy to make sure I record all of our purchases, and is way better than our previous process (if you could even call it that!).
I thought more about this topic and had the following Idea:
I would love to see a spreadsheet (Google Docs etc.) with all those crucial Apps mentioned here, listed in the spreadshet naming hte crucial functions, including a comparison to other similiar apps and most importantly: Whether I could achieve this with the built in functions of Apple/Mac or whether there is a similiar function within the Mac or within Apps created by Apple.
I know App-developers will not like what I am saying now and I am apologizing in advance: But I want to minimize the Apps I am depending on in the future on my Mac and want to use as much system integrated functions as possible in order to be more free, independent from other developers and also be faster with my mac (less apps, less storage, less cpu usage etc.). So if anybody would be willing to start a live spreadsheet (which gets updated regularly) with a summary of this thread I would be happy.
I think there are so many good apps mentioned here, but It would take me too long to check all of those apps in order to find out what they do and keep the information in my brain. Also Apps eveolve over the time (they get new crucial functions etc.). Thanks community!
While it didn’t change my life, Lightroom is a key piece of software for me. For the best photos, I use DxO PhotoLab, but the collection is managed by Lightroom.
Most of the apps mentioned in these threads can be achieved with the apps provided by Apple. It depends on your growing need as a user how much feature or function you need/want from an app. For example, you can edit videos on your Mac with the Photos app or Quicktime app, or iMovie. You can use TextEdit or Pages to write down notes. You can create your own to-do list with Reminders, Notes, Calendar, Numbers, or any combination of those apps. You can record sound with Quicktime app, Voice Memo, and GarageBand. App Developers know this and that’s the reason why there is a multitude of apps that may seem like they have the same function or feature. But they differ in the workflow, UX/UI, and additional features or functions.
I commend you for wanting to work with the apps you already have. We all started with that too and the built-in apps are already powerful as it is. It just depends on how you utilize them in your workflow.
For my needs, Numbers work great as I don’t need some of the powerful features of Excel. I edit some of my photos in the Photos app as it is faster and not everything needs to be processed on Affinity Photo or Pixelmator.
I suggest you start with what do you want to work on your Mac and start with the apps you already have. I think having a long list of alternatives apps will just waste your time and will be counterproductive. Having those readily available lists will just make you confuse. The built-in apps are already powerful and you don’t need the list to convince you otherwise.
If you need help in looking for ways to do things with just the built-in apps on the Mac, just ask here in MPU. We’ll be right here to guide you and answer your questions.
One feature in Excel not in Numbers that so far I can’t do without … Pivot Tables. Some say Numbers’ Organise feature is a Pivot Table, but it isn’t. Sort of, but not enough. For my year-end tax stuff, I’ve done a simple Python/Pandas program, but to rely on that for everything I do is silly given how simple in Excel. Just requires me to hang on to the Office 365 License longer than I want. Dilema.
I already have an ongoing subscription to Office 365. The issue for me is when to relinquish it. Started using Word in 1987 and Excel in ~1990 … and re-bought licenses so many times. Sigh. I haven’t really used it but for the occasional Pivot…
I don’t understand the first thing about pivot tables. Look interesting…haven’t a clue how or when to use them. that said, have you looked at Hyperplan.
No, never heard of Hyperplan and from from a quick look it does not have anything to do with being a replacement for Excel or Pivot Tables. Pivot Tables are really good. Been in Excel since 1986 as I recall. Despite that, people don’t know and have missed a great opportunity.
I’ll probably drop my Office License and rely on using Python/Pandas to pivot data that I need.
Oh my goodness. Want to talk about changing my life? Pivot Tables in Excel changed my life. They are such
an easy way to summarize data in various ways. Want the details about a result? Just double-click on the interesting cell in the pivot table and you will get a new spreadsheet with just those records.
We might need a separate thread. The possibilities are numerous.
OK, so I say this with a degree of good-natured humor. But I have to confess, if pivot tables in excel changed my life then I would conclude that I’ve got to do something about my life!
