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. |
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My other stuff:
Please add suggestions as issues!
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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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
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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Bitwarden |
The best free password manager in my opinion, I use it in conjunction with iCloud Passwords | External Site - Bitwarden |
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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Notion |
Notes but on a different level - my life is here! | External Site - Notion |
MarkEdit |
A great free markdown editor | Github - MarkEdit |
App name | Description | Link |
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noScribe |
Use Whisper and pyannote locally to transcribe and perform diarization on your meetings | Github - noScribe |
App name | Description | Link |
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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 |
App name | Description | Link |
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Rewind |
A personalised, locally running AI, with a free plan! | External Site - Rewind |