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My Mac app gold star list

A list of the apps I immediately install on any Mac I own!

I have a full Google Sheet here, and I've just done an audit for 2024!

If you want to install multiple packages at once (e.g. setting up a Mac) you might want to see this file or read my full guide here.

💡 I’ve just written a guide on how I set up a new Mac. You might find it useful.

My other stuff:

  • Shortcuts for iOS and watchOS here (free ofc)
  • My collection of free design references, resources, and more here

Please add suggestions as issues!


🖱️ Workflow

App name Description Link
Raycast A much better Spotlight, with lots of 3rd party integrations External Site - Raycast
shottr Great screenshots and OCR text External Site - shottr
Rocket Type emojis using a colon (:) anywhere e.g. :rocket: = 🚀 External Site - Matthew Palmer
MeetingBar A menubar utility that shows your next meeting, lets you automate auto-joining, and create instant meetings App Store - MeetingBar
UTM Securely run operating systems on your Mac in virutal machines External Site - UTM
VMware Fusion Pro Now free for personal use - run virtual machines on your Mac to securely emulate macOS, Windows, and Linux External Site - VMware Fusion Pro
Notion Calendar A really good, free calendar! External Site - Notion

⚙️ Utilities

App name Description Link
Ice A better way to hide menu bar icons (with options for a bar below menu bar!) See alternatives here GitHub - Ice
Stats View stats about your system including CPU, remaining battery etc in your menu bar (like iStats) Github - Stats
The Unarchiver The best tool for opening .zip/.rar/.7z files (or Keka) App Store - The Unarchiver
Amphetamine Keep your Mac awake - even MacBooks with their lids closed! App Store - Amphetamine
DockDoor Preview your open windows by hovering apps in your dock Github - DockDoor
BoringNotch Make your Notch dynamic Github - BoringNotch

🌐 Internet

App name Description Link
Arc The browser I use for all work stuff - Chromium and just innovative in every way External Site - The Browser Company
Firefox Open source, fast, and privacy focused; you know what this is! External Site - Mozilla
Zen Browser A new Firefox-based, privacy browser — defintiely give it a try! External Site - Zen Browser
Velja The only way to juggle Safari and Arc in the best way - choose where links and apps open! App Store - Velja

⌨️ Code

App name Description Link
Sublime Text A lightweight, really nice text editor External Site - Sublime Text
Visual Studio Code A good place to code, especially for a newbie like me External Site - Visual Studio (Microsoft)
Zed A high performance code editor to compete with VS Code External Site - Zed
Amazon Q Turn off data sharing* Autocomplete for terminal, from AWS (requries a free AWS account) External Site - Amazon AWS

* In the Amazon Q app, go to Preferences > Advanced and turn off 'Share Amazon Q content with AWS' and 'Telemetry' More info: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/opt-out-IDE.html


🎶 Music

App name Description Link
Lossless Swticher Switches your current audio device's sample rate to match the lossless song on your Apple Music app, automatically Github - Lossless Switcher
Shazam Click the menu bar to find out what song is playing around you, or set it to just identify everything playing around you App Store - Shazam
Shazam Scrobbler Integrates with Shazam to scrobble everything (works great with auto shazam) that's playing around you External Site - Shazam Scrobbler
NepTunes for last.fm The last.fm app is really bad on Mac — here’s a better one! App Store - NepTunes

🎬 Media

App name Description Link
VLC The go to for playing anything that doesn't play in QuickTime, including conversion External Site - VideoLAN
HandBrake Convert video to any media (finally out of beta!) External Site - HandBrake

🔐 Passwords

App name Description Link
Bitwarden The best free password manager in my opinion, I use it in conjunction with iCloud Passwords External Site - Bitwarden

🖌 Design tools

App name Description Link
ImageOptim Strip out non-essential data in images and reduce their file sizes, or enable minification to compress them External Site - ImageOptim
Freescaler Simple free and open source tool used to upscale your low resolution images using advanced Al models App Store - Freescaler

✍️ Notes

App name Description Link
Notion Notes but on a different level - my life is here! External Site - Notion
MarkEdit A great free markdown editor Github - MarkEdit

✨ AI/LLM tools

App name Description Link
noScribe Use Whisper and pyannote locally to transcribe and perform diarization on your meetings Github - noScribe

🔧 Maintenence

App name Description Link
Onyx General maintenance tasks for your Mac External Site - Titanium Software
AppCleaner Fully uninstall apps External Site - FreeMacSoft
Grand Perspective FView all your files (and what's using that 'Other' space visualised into squares, and manage them External Site - Sourceforge

☑️ Misc

App name Description Link
Rewind A personalised, locally running AI, with a free plan! External Site - Rewind

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A list of apps I use on my MacBook

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