What are you top Mac Apps and how did they change your "life"

Cool Workflows
21

Top Mac apps that I use regularly, or just what I think the top are? I do like a lot of the utilities people have mentioned, but I think the top ones for me are:

  • GarageBand - this is a criminally underpriced (free) lightweight yet very powerful DAW
  • Mainstage - Again, for $30, you can have amazing instruments and put on amazing concerts
  • iMove - Allowed me to be able to easily edit video and be creative
  • Loopback - The ability to route sound around inside a computer is a life saver when trying to combine sounds and make interesting music/audio workflows
  • Numbers - I didn’t realize that spreadsheets could be lightweight and beautiful at the same time
  • Messages - I know this is cross platform, but it is so nice to have that form of communication on screen

Those are a few I didn’t see. A lot of love for Drafts, Hazel, Text Expander, 1Password, Readdle Apps. But audio was a draw into the Mac, and it has a huge soft spot still.

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22

I’ll just consider my most life changing. I don’t know about “top”, which are probably Mail and Safari.

  • 1-Password. A password manager is a must have these days, and it manages more than just passwords.
  • Hazel, Chronosync, Resilio Sync, SuperDuper!. These mostly run in the background, moving files around. “Busy work” I don’t have to do myself, so 100% time saving.
  • Scrivener non-linear writing program matches my thinking processes. I haven’t had anything that has worked as well since a program called Kamas in the mid 1980’s.

Lot of other apps I use, but are not irreplaceable like these are. (OK, I guess I could replace 1Password if I had to)

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23

Just installed the Big Sur beta, which means I had to update my list that’s tucked away in Notes that reminds me of all the apps I need if I ever do a clean install. Here’s a few of them that are important to me since I use my Mac for both personal use and work (BYOD kind of).

1Password - Just an unbelievable resource that allows me not only to create secure passwords, but helps manage a lot of critical information that needs to be stored for those rare occasions I need it. Examples are someone asking for my passport number, or some auto insurance information.

Alfred - I probably use 10% of this apps capabilities, but it’s still a big deal for me. The ability for me to locate a folder or document with a few keystrokes is worth the price of admission.

Yoink - I am forever needing a file from a folder to drop into a chat, attach to an e-mail or I’m reorganizing/cleaning up the desktop/documents folder. Yoink is great for getting those files on a shelf for a few minutes before I drop them into the place they need to go.

I could go on and on, but those are three that really make a difference every day for me.

24

Dropbox Dropbox Dropbox!

Once Mac stolen in LA
Twice Excel file corrupted able to get historical backup
Three had to leave company after flash sale and firing of Executive team
Four allows great collaborative work like sharing Excel files worldwide between Macs and WinPC

Never missed a beat I happily pay them their annual fee

1 Like
25

MATLAB has a really nice environment where everything is live, you can evaluate code, examine variables, etc. The language is a little weird - the product of being nearly 30 years old, and morphing along the way rather than being what I would call a designed language like Python, Ruby, etc. But it’s really good for sciencing.

Obsidian has become my place for thinking and writing to think.

Notion for planning, project management, tracking daily habits and routines, personal data collection (BMI, meters rowed, etc.). Essentially, my take on August Bradley’s Life Operating System

Bookends is my reference manager. It’s reliable, much more so than EndNote, in my experience.

Texpad for writing using LaTeX.

Typora for markdown. Supports mermaid, and other diagrams, which is nice.

MailMate/SpamSieve currently runs in the background, filtering spam, running the occasional rule, while i use Spark for actually working with mail.

PDF Expert, my pdf reader, editor, and printer-outter.

DEVONthink, the dumpster for receipts, and i occasionally use the see also for my obsidian notes, and Bookends references, both of which it indexes.

Notebooks for what is essentially my lab notebook.

Curio for creating figures and PDFs for sharing with my PI.

Keynote for presentations.

Recently bought Screenflow for creating lectures.

Karabiner-Elements to make keyboards more useful. I.e. hold left control, it’s control, but tap and it’s left bracket. CapsLock to F18 for launching Alfred, hold and it’s Hyper. Etc.

Other little bits and bobs.

Edit: forgot about backups: Carbon Copy Cloner, ChronoSync, Arq to MinIO on my Synology, and Backblaze.

5 Likes
26

I am dependent on many of the apps previously mentioned, but I would add ScreenFloat a little utility that I use constantly.
My workflow commonly involves many apps whose windows overlap despite using two 27" monitors. My short-term memory has dwindled with age. ScreenFloat allows you to take pictures of pieces of your screen which then sit in floating windows which you can move around to preserve some peice of reference information until no longer needed.

1 Like
27

That’s a built in feature of the free Snappy app, by the way. And it’s a checkbox option in SnapNDrag Pro.

28

Some of my favorite, most used apps, in no particular order.

  • Capture One - as a professional photographer, I used Lightroom (and Aperture before that), for many years, but switched from it to Capture One, and haven’t looked back.
  • 1Password - phenomenal password, serial number, credit card, ID, etc. keeper that saves me tons of time, and frees my mind to only have to remember one password.
  • Alfred - I’m not a power user, and haven’t written a single workflow, but this app saves me tons of time and keystrokes.
  • Fantastical - as much I like (most) Apple products, I find the calendar to be pretty basic, and lacking in features and options.
  • DayOne - a fantastic journaling application that keeps track of all of the locations that I visit throughout the day so that I can write about what I did there (this is outstanding while traveling on vacation). I can also add photos, video, and audio which it while convert to text. What’s really cool is that I can add a quick note from my watch as well. Entries include location, time, date, outside air temperature, number of steps walked, etc.
  • DEVONthink - this is my storage location for damned near everything. I used to use EverNote but switched to DEVONthink, and haven’t looked back. I can capture webpages, images, text snippets, PDFs (manuals, books, bills, etc.) and quickly & easily be able to locate exactly what I need using their fantastic search capability.
  • DEVONagent - crazy good internet search tool!
  • iStat Menu - great information (network, disks, memory, temperature, etc.) about what’s going on with my computers
  • Drafts - because so many folks rave about this app, I’ve downloaded it, but I’m still not exactly sure how, when and where it fits into my daily workflow.
  • Synology Drive - I have a couple Synology NAS that I store all of my photos, DEVONthink databases (via WebDAV), movies & music, and files. For years, I used DropBox, but continually ran out of space, so I switched to Synology Drive and now store (and share) all kinds of documents there, and can easily access them from my iOS devices and MacOS computers.
  • Chronosync - makes a daily, bootable backup of my 27" iMac.
  • CrashPlan - back-up my MacOS devices to my Synology box, and to their cloud.
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30

This is becoming yet another “name your favorite utility/app” thread. This might be what the OP meant it to be. My interpretation of “life changing” is different though.

I would have guessed this was more like people mentioning they started using Logic and became a famous pro musician e.g.

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31

Utilities

  • aText
    like TextExpander, but one time purchase, and in my opinion has more snippet options (such as, EPOCH time for my zettelkasten id needs). This app also saves my time whenever I need to write ⌘, ⌥, ⇧, →, ↑ etc.
  • Hammerspoon
    I found this free and open-source software while researching whether to buy Keyboard Maestro. This tool might be not as featured as KM, but it fulfills my needs.
    I use this to rearrange windows with keyboard. I was interested to try i3wm because of its main feature to use keyboard shortcut to arrange windows. Hammerspoon provide the (maybe) same feature that I might get from using i3wm.
  • Boop
    Lightweight paste bin. This app saves my time from previously opening online service to format JSON/CSS/XML, convert HEX → rgb, and best of all, it is free on the App Store.

App

  • DEVONthink
    I was skeptical about this app, more because my niche use case. Turns out this app satisfy my archiving needs. Also, there is new OKR in my office to research from books, and this app (also its iOS “companion”, though lacking) helps me.
  • nvALT → FSNotes
    these kind of note taking apps that can be navigated with keyboard (⌘+j for next note, ⌘+k for previous note), supports [[wiki linking]] blew my mind. nvALT is unstable, then I found FSNotes, similar but more stable and nice-looking, it also has iOS app. When I knew that nvUltra probably won’t support keyboard navigation, I think I will keep using FSNotes.
  • Canary Mail
    I knew about PGP encryption when I tried Canary Mail. The macOS version is faster than how Mail.app used to be (tho Mail.app is getting more stable after these days)
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32

:+1:
I know other apps do what ScreenFloat does – maybe better – but I’ve been using SF for so long that I would lose joy if it stopped working. It’s simple and handy and I use it all day long.

(Plus, Matthias is such a pleasant developer – and he and his team also make Yoink. What’s not to like :slight_smile: )

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33

Is that an automatic backup? Is it easy to implement? I would love to be able to do this… I am sorry I am such a newbie!!

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34

You all seem to be using 1Password… I have been using Dashlane for about a year now… is 1Password better?! Am I missing something?!

35

The incredible rush of power that I feel when I use Keyboard Maestro (:heart_eyes:) makes it –by far– my top Mac app.

It fundamentally changed the relationship I have with the professional work I do, thus: it changed my life. I own my own business and fly solo, so the amount of leverage I can build for myself using Keyboard Maestro is extremely empowering and it makes me want to work more.

When I get properly situated with my new iMac I have coming in the mail I’m going to “go to the next level” and start incorporating Text Expander, Hazel, Better Touch Tool (which I’m already playing around with), and a few other little ones here and there.

And of course, I have to mention Adobe’s heavy-hitters (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Lightroom Classic, and Premiere Pro) but that’s run-of-the-mill stuff… This is MPU!

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36

No. Or it must be that you’re not listening to “influencers” and are making up your own mind. Which is a very positive thing imho. If Dashlane works for you (and why wouldn’t it?) there is no reason to switch to another password manager. I’m using SafeInCloud Password Manager and have no reason to switch either.

3 Likes
37

no worries, everyone is a newbie when they do something for the first time :slight_smile:

I use a combination of Hazel (iCloud drive folders), Resilio Sync (some larger folders and Photo’s library) and the Synology Drive app to move everything to where it needs to be. From there Synology’s Hyper backup encrypts it en sends the most important data to the Synology C2 cloud storage option I have.

It’s somehow grown naturally this way. To start with I’d look something like a Resilio sync and Synology Drive mix, should not be that hard to implement.

You all seem to be using 1Password…

Seems that way, doesn’t it?

1P was the 1st password manager that really integrated well with iOS/macOS and was not a web solution, so many people went there years ago. For me it’s still a very good solution.

That does not mean other solutions aren’t also good, or even better, for me that’s just what I tried first, and I’ve been very happy with their solutions for years now.

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38

So as not to hijack the thread I’ll note that if you search you’ll find a lot of password-related discussions. Like this one

39

Why oh why did I not think about using Hazel. Just being playing with it for the last week. I can see there is a sync rule so perfect! TYVM.

40

@anon41602260 and the virus of FOMO rears its ugly head like a bad case of herpes.

There are a few functional areas that reduced the candidate selection to a few choices. Excel or Numbers, Powerpoint or Keynote but others where there are so many choices one’s eyes tend to gloss over and many apps are kept to suppress the FOMO virus and screen capture apps are one such category.

41

Is that intended to be funny? I don’t get the point at all. I was merely saying I like the app.

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