Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - March 2018

[MacRumors]

Apps designed for the Mac don't often receive as much attention as apps for iOS, so we've launched a monthly series that highlights useful, interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out.

This month's app selection, outlined in the video and the post below, includes apps for cleaning up apps on your Mac, finding new wallpaper, reading the news, and more.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

[*]OmniDiskSweeper (Free) - OmniDiskSweeper is a free app from the company behind OmniFocus. It's designed to show you all of the files that are installed on your Mac in size order, so you can find what's hogging space on your machine and delete it if so desired. OmniDiskSweeper doesn't discriminate against critical and non-critical files, though, so be careful when deleting stuff.
[*]News Explorer ($9.99) - News Explorer is a simple newsreader app that supports RSS, JSON, Atom, and Twitter, with cloud-based synchronization available between your Mac and iOS devices. It offers a distraction-free interface with a built-in browser and a selection of themes for customization purposes. Offline news is supported, as are smart filters, reader view, built-in imaging viewing, and more. It's $9.99 in the Mac App Store, but you can get a free trial from the website.
[*]Switchem ($9.99) - Switchem is designed to let you customize your workspace and manage your windows. You can group windows into different types, organize them into tiles and split-screen work views, and switch between open windows quickly.
[*]Wallpaper Wizard 2 ($9.95) - Wallpaper Wizard 2 is, as the name suggests, an app where you can find wallpapers for your Mac. It offers a collection of more than 25,000 HD wallpapers in 4K quality that look great even on Apple's largest displays. New wallpapers are added on a monthly basis, and there's a feature that'll automatically switch your background if you want.
[*]App Cleaner (Free) - App Cleaner is a minimal application that has one purpose -- it's designed to let you uninstall apps and all of their associated files. Just drag an app onto the App Cleaner interface and it'll find all of the hidden files so you can get rid of them.

Do you have favorite must-have Mac apps that we haven't highlighted yet? Let us know what they are in the comments and we might feature them in a future video. Many of this month's picks came from our forum members.

Make sure to also check out our February list, which covered apps like Unclutter, Dropzone 3, Bartender 3, and Magnet, and if you want some nifty iOS apps worth downloading, check out our separate iOS app list.

Article Link: Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - March 2018

 

[rubberfish]

Not sure how a wallpaper app qualifies as interesting.

 

[lec0rsaire]

I appreciate these articles but most of these are just different implementations of software that most Mac users are already using. Much of the stuff on the Mac App Store just offers alternatives to the stock MacOS apps. Lots of calendar and note apps. While some offer extra functionality, I get by just fine with the stock mail, calendar and notes apps. They sync on all my devices and I have no compelling reason to try different solutions. Perhaps if there was a way to test them for a month before buying.

I’m only willing to pay for something that offers features that Apple doesn’t provide with the exception of Office 2016. While iWork keeps getting better, Office will always be the gold standard for productivity. A full featured photo and video editor is also needed whether you choose Photoshop or Pixelmator and Premiere or FCPX.

 

[Aetles]

You should mention that News Explorer has a 7-day free trial on their homepage, so anyone can try before they buy. (This should of course be a feature of Mac App Store if Apple had any real ambition to make it great for users and developers, but alas, that is not the case.)

 

[robertcoogan]

News Explorer has a nice interface but is guilty of the same design flaw that many other RSS-savvy apps are: It fits everything into one window. As a result, the article titles are crammed into a narrow column and become truncated. As an added bonus: ad blockers won't work.

It would be even nicer if Apple would just restore the old RSS display to the Safari browser. It stretched almost the width of the browser window, and you could click on any article title while holding down the Command key. Any article selected like this would open in a separate tab behind the one with the RSS feed in it. The size of the RSS feed display could be adjusted with a simple slider on the side of the RSS feed window - still in the Safari browser. Simple. No need for a third-party app.

Oh well.

 

[Atarikid]

App Cleaner may be free but it only finds little and only obvious related files. iTrash is doing a way better job in general and always finds more linked files. Not free though.

 

[jclo]

You should mention that News Explorer has a 7-day free trial on their homepage, so anyone can try before they buy. (This should of course be a feature of Mac App Store if Apple had any real ambition to make it great for users and developers, but alas, that is not the case.)

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add a mention.

 

[kirky29]

I've never quite understood Wallpaper apps, not when Google Images is out there! Search by resolution sizes too.

 

[developer13245]

Innovative 3rd Party Apps for Apple platforms are dead. Apple killed them by screwing small developers.

 

[barkingsheltie]

Apps designed for the Mac don't often receive as much attention as apps for iOS, so we've launched a monthly series that highlights useful, interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out.

This month's app selection, outlined in the video and the post below, includes apps for cleaning up apps on your Mac, finding new wallpaper, reading the news, and more.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

[*]OmniDiskSweeper (Free) - OmniDiskSweeper is a free app from the company behind OmniFocus. It's designed to show you all of the files that are installed on your Mac in size order, so you can find what's hogging space on your machine and delete it if so desired. OmniDiskSweeper doesn't discriminate against critical and non-critical files, though, so be careful when deleting stuff.
[*]News Explorer ($9.99) - News Explorer is a simple newsreader app that supports RSS, JSON, Atom, and Twitter, with cloud-based synchronization available between your Mac and iOS devices. It offers a distraction-free interface with a built-in browser and a selection of themes for customization purposes. Offline news is supported, as are smart filters, reader view, built-in imaging viewing, and more. It's $9.99 in the Mac App Store, but you can get a free trial from the website.
[*]Switchem ($9.99) - Switchem is designed to let you customize your workspace and manage your windows. You can group windows into different types, organize them into tiles and split-screen work views, and switch between open windows quickly.
[*]Wallpaper Wizard 2 ($9.95) - Wallpaper Wizard 2 is, as the name suggests, an app where you can find wallpapers for your Mac. It offers a collection of more than 25,000 HD wallpapers in 4K quality that look great even on Apple's largest displays. New wallpapers are added on a monthly basis, and there's a feature that'll automatically switch your background if you want.
[*]App Cleaner (Free) - App Cleaner is a minimal application that has one purpose -- it's designed to let you uninstall apps and all of their associated files. Just drag an app onto the App Cleaner interface and it'll find all of the hidden files so you can get rid of them.

Do you have favorite must-have Mac apps that we haven't highlighted yet? Let us know what they are in the comments and we might feature them in a future video. Many of this month's picks came from our forum members.

Make sure to also check out our February list, which covered apps like Unclutter, Dropzone 3, Bartender 3, and Magnet, and if you want some nifty iOS apps worth downloading, check out our separate iOS app list.

Article Link: Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - March 2018

[doublepost=1522446751][/doublepost]Great review! Found it helpful - Switchem will be very useful for me. Interested in trying out Newsreader as well. Wonder if it supports subscriptions? E.g., I subscribe to NYT, New Scientist, Nature, wonder if it can pull subscriber features.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Instead of OmniDiskSweeper, I use Disk Inventory X, another free app that kind of does the same thing but in a *much* easier to see visual manner:

It's been around for *years* and hasn't really changed functionality in something like a decade, not that it needs to.

 

[Mick-Mac]

Yes - I know all that. But this kind of of thing (I thought) isn't supposed to be front and center on the main MacRumors website. I usually see this stuff in the column on the right (which I also monitor).

 

[AngerDanger]

…

Hard to believe I know, but rumors are only a small part of Macrumors

I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I can't actually buy any apples from Apple…

 

[ScubaCinci]

Instead of OmniDiskSweeper, I use Disk Inventory X, another free app that kind of does the same thing but in a *much* easier to see visual manner:

It's been around for *years* and hasn't really changed functionality in something like a decade, not that it needs to.

I was going to post the same...essentially the Mac version of the WinDirStat Windows app.

 

[ambientdaw]

Absolutely LOVE HazeOver which dims all apps behind the currently focused app, works like a charm. This was featured last time Macrumors did an article like this.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE is there an app that will raise and lower the brightness automatically for apps? I am constanly altering when moving between dark (DAW apps) and bright apps (browsers, Finder, etc)... !!!!!

 

[0947347]

Is there an app that allows to play both, speakers and output at the same time

Also, anything that would make MacOS to have a true dark mode? I use computer mainly at night. And no, no nightsshift or similar

 

[jinnj]

I appreciate these articles but most of these are just different implementations of software that most Mac users are already using. Much of the stuff on the Mac App Store just offers alternatives to the stock MacOS apps. Lots of calendar and note apps. While some offer extra functionality, I get by just fine with the stock mail, calendar and notes apps. They sync on all my devices and I have no compelling reason to try different solutions. Perhaps if there was a way to test them for a month before buying.

I’m only willing to pay for something that offers features that Apple doesn’t provide with the exception of Office 2016. While iWork keeps getting better, Office will always be the gold standard for productivity. A full featured photo and video editor is also needed whether you choose Photoshop or Pixelmator and Premiere or FCPX.

Give Hazel a try. It's like Workflow.app on iOS for Mac and a lot more powerful.

 

[thasan]

The most important apps for me to make my life easier are:
BetterTouchTool (for resizing and repositioning windows in one or more displays)
Xtrafinder (handy shortcuts for copy, paste, nice explorer option etc). Although I have not been able to use it for the past few months after upgrading OS even though I followed their installation instruction.

 

[robertcoogan]

The most important apps for me to make my life easier are:
BetterTouchTool (for resizing and repositioning windows in one or more displays)
Xtrafinder (handy shortcuts for copy, paste, nice explorer option etc). Although I have not been able to use it for the past few months after upgrading OS even though I followed their installation instruction.

I use TotalFinder. It does what XtraFinder does, but also brings back the older style tags (when the entire file/folder name was colored, not just an annoying little dot).

 

[AZhappyjack]

All of these threads are the same. They start with a list of apps of questionable value... and by page two, everyone is posting the same litany of their favorite apps that have little or nothing to do with the original list... and by page three, we read the same list of "better" or "more productive" apps that appear on page three of the other threads about "interesting" or "useful" or "must-have" apps...

 

[ceriess]

I would never install any of this malware ********. You have to be senile to buy into any of this crap. Sincerely, it looks like MacTumors is just in this for the bucks at the expense of its readers. SCAMWARE> STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS!!!!<<<<<

 

[kriebe]

Is there an app that allows to play both, speakers and output at the same time

Also, anything that would make MacOS to have a true dark mode? I use computer mainly at night. And no, no nightsshift or similar

You already have the app on your computer that allows this. In your Utilities is an app called Audio Midi Setup. Open that up.

Click the + in the bottom left of the window.
Select Create Multi-Output Device.
Then just click the checkboxes under the "use" column for each of the outputs you want to use at the same time.
Change the title to whatever you want and that will show up as it's own audio output selection from the Sound menu item or in your Sound within System Preferences.

 

[rubberfish]

Innovative 3rd Party Apps for Apple platforms are dead. Apple killed them by screwing small developers.

Tumult HYPE is an incredible 3rd party app

 

[Ruggy]

Give Hazel a try. It's like Workflow.app on iOS for Mac and a lot more powerful.
[doublepost=1522459864][/doublepost]
WOW!!! I was looking for this! I have 5 drives and I am always looking for stuff in various drives! Just purchased and indexing a 5TB drive. One suggestion: "Find Duplicate files". Are there any size limitations? Any way to have separate indexes?

Agreed. Just what I've been looking for too but 9.99 euros in Europe and no trial period.
[doublepost=1522480624][/doublepost]

Agreed. Just what I've been looking for too but 9.99 euros in Europe and no trial period.

That's 50% more expensive by the way.

 

[diipii]

My thoughts exactly. Superficial and a bit patronising.

"Patronising" made me laugh.