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