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Five Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - February 2021

ddtmm said:
I don't know about the rest of the apps, but Postbox is great. It's a lot like Apple Mail but done right. I much prefer it over Mail. Tried it out many years ago and never looked back.
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I like Postbox, but it's such a memory hog. Even trying to scale back some of the indexing and folder subscriptions like they recommended, RAM usage easily spikes over 2-3GB within just a few hours of launching the application. I had to quit and relaunch Postbox several times a day to keep it from taking over all of my available RAM, and I felt it just wasn't worth the effort, so I went back to Apple Mail.
 
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Spotter sounds like Alfred, but it does offer a few commands that are only in the paid version of Alfred (plus Spotter is free). I still don't understand the attraction to Postbox. $40 is steep when there is a wide selection of free alternatives out there. I use Thunderbird with TBSync, and it works fine for me. Superpowered sounds cool, but I already have a slew of stuff in my menubar, and I already use Bartender to manage that. Maybe an Alfred workflow to replace the menubar item?

Jettison sounds awesome, I'll give it a try.
 
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grr74 said:
I'd recommend AdGuard. It is customizable and stable. I have set it and forgotten I have it :)
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This debate seems to be ongoing, I too have not been able to decide on one. Do you by chance know about the trustworthiness of AdGuard and its respect to privacy in relation to uBlock Origin?
 
ddtmm said:
I don't know about the rest of the apps, but Postbox is great. It's a lot like Apple Mail but done right. I much prefer it over Mail. Tried it out many years ago and never looked back.
Click to expand...
I looked at Postbox but found Spark to be a much better value (FREE!) and it provides better UI across all apple platforms. If you haven't tried Spark and use IOS devices give Spark a try, it won't cost anything but a little time.
 
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ddtmm said:
I don't know about the rest of the apps, but Postbox is great. It's a lot like Apple Mail but done right. I much prefer it over Mail. Tried it out many years ago and never looked back.
Click to expand...
I like it too in many ways, but some aspects of it makes it feel a bit out of tune – at least on MacOS (there's a Windows version too).

•Postbox doesn't give me a dark contextual menu when I right-click things. 😈
•The preferences window isn't dark (I have dark mode). 😈

In a way it feels a bit like Firefox on MacOS, in my opinion – it works well, but it doesn't acheive that true ”MacOS native app” feel that other software does.
 
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Isn't Jettison is basically alt+click eject?

EugenesSoggySalami said:
I havent found a single useful app yet for my MacBook Pro, all the basic functions that I need are already built in.

Edit:

I take that back, I do have AdGuard which I find very useful.
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Handbrake: for converting video formats
CarbonCopyCloner: creates bootable macos backup drives
balenaEtcher: writes IMG/ISO files to SD cards and USB drives
FindAnyFile: literally finds any file in your MacOS, nothing hides from this one. Good for getting rid of residue files installed by apps hidden all over the place.
The Unarchiver: opens any type of compressed file
1Passsword: doesn't need explaination

steve333 said:
I'd like to know what are the best Adblockers. I've tried a few and have to keep switching because of issues
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The best adblocker is uBlock Origin which is not available for Safari. There is also 1blocker, but I think Adguard might be better because i think its open source making it better. They are equally good I guess.
 
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I used to like Postbox and even purchased it as I thought it was great and allowed me to automate customer follow up with scheduling emails, since they updated to Postbox7 they took add ons away, and now I am left using Sparkpost since I despise Microsoft Outlook.
 
The best app by far that I’ve had on all my macs going back more than 10yrs has been Little Snitch. If you value your privacy do take a look. You’ll be surprised how chatty some apps are.

Hope it keeps working with future changes to OSX.
 
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I've been heavily using Postbox for over 6 years. And while overall, I like it, there are some stability issues I live with:
  • Sometimes, the number of unread messages next to the inbox doesn't match the tag on the dock icon. Twisting open the inbox triangle and clicking on a specific account inbox syncs them.
  • Sometimes, when you delete a message, you see a blank message remaining in the inbox. The deleted message is sort of in limbo. Restarting the app fixes it for a while. I'm not sure if there's a chance the message gets lost. IE, can't be undeleted or recovered.
  • Search results often has a banner at the top saying it's showing the top results and to click to view all results. Once in a while, I don't notice this message. I'd prefer it always show full results.
  • When upgrading to major new versions of Postbox, they don't keep your email whitelist (for embedded images). So you get to re-whitelist everything you whitelisted before. Obviously, they didn't prioritize this development work during new version programming.
So a good email client, with some stability issues that have been around for years. Would be nice to fix these before adding new features.
 
hornshwangler said:
I looked at Postbox but found Spark to be a much better value (FREE!) and it provides better UI across all apple platforms. If you haven't tried Spark and use IOS devices give Spark a try, it won't cost anything but a little time.
Click to expand...

I noticed in Spark for Mac you can't change the font size of a mail message and also not for the mail list. Did I overlook something?
 
Amphetamine, Automounter, balenaetcher, Bartender, BetterTouchTool, Bumpr, Calibre, CCC, ClipGrab, DaisyDisk, Displaperture, FileZilla, Gemini 2, Get Backup Pro, HandBrake, Hazel, HyperDock, iStat Menus, Keka, KeyboardCleanTool, Menubar Controller for Sonos, Monosnap, Moom, Nightowl, NordVPN, Path Finder, QuickRes, Resilio Sync, RSS Bot, Time Machine Editor, Turbo Boost Switcher, VLC
 
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MacBH928 said:
Isn't Jettison is basically alt+click eject?



Handbrake: for converting video formats
CarbonCopyCloner: creates bootable macos backup drives
balenaEtcher: writes IMG/ISO files to SD cards and USB drives
FindAnyFile: literally finds any file in your MacOS, nothing hides from this one. Good for getting rid of residue files installed by apps hidden all over the place.
The Unarchiver: opens any type of compressed file
1Passsword: doesn't need explaination


The best adblocker is uBlock Origin which is not available for Safari. There is also 1blocker, but I think Adguard might be better because i think its open source making it better. They are equally good I guess.
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All of those apps are worthless to me lol.
 
MrGimper said:
Amphetamine, Automounter, balenaetcher, Bartender, BetterTouchTool, Bumpr, Calibre, CCC, ClipGrab, DaisyDisk, Displaperture, FileZilla, Gemini 2, Get Backup Pro, HandBrake, Hazel, HyperDock, iStat Menus, Keka, KeyboardCleanTool, Menubar Controller for Sonos, Monosnap, Moom, Nightowl, NordVPN, Path Finder, QuickRes, Resilio Sync, RSS Bot, Time Machine Editor, Turbo Boost Switcher, VLC
Click to expand...
Im not using none of those, jesus my lifes boring.
 
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Some apps I use and recommend that I didn't see mentioned yet:

SoundSource - MacOS sound controls done right
Vipr - good adblocker that blocks YouTube ads on safari
Micro Snitch - monitors webcam and microphone use and alerts the user every time either becomes active
 
ddtmm said:
I don't know about the rest of the apps, but Postbox is great. It's a lot like Apple Mail but done right. I much prefer it over Mail. Tried it out many years ago and never looked back.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the shout out!
 
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RockTheGlobe said:
I like Postbox, but it's such a memory hog. Even trying to scale back some of the indexing and folder subscriptions like they recommended, RAM usage easily spikes over 2-3GB within just a few hours of launching the application. I had to quit and relaunch Postbox several times a day to keep it from taking over all of my available RAM, and I felt it just wasn't worth the effort, so I went back to Apple Mail.
Click to expand...
Here are some tips we think will help:
  • Set IMAP accounts, set IMAP Limiting to a lower number in Preferences|Options / Accounts / [your account] / Local Storage.
  • For IMAP accounts, unsubscribe from folders that are infrequently used by selecting "Subscribe..." from File menu.
  • Delete older messages that are no longer needed.
  • Empty your Trash and Junk folders.
  • Compact your folders by selecting "Compact Folders" from the File menu, then wait 10 minutes for the process to complete. Additionally, you can set thresholds for when folders should be automatically compressed by going to Preferences|Options / Advanced / Network & Disk Space / and set a lower number for compacting.
  • On macOS, remove contacts that are no longer needed from macOS Contacts.app.
  • Go to Preferences|Options > Display > Conversations and set "Include messages from" to "the current folder."
  • Avatars consume memory, so try turning those off in the following locations:
    • Preferences|Options > Advanced > Web Services > turn off "use Gravatar...."
    • Display > Conversation > turn off "include contact photos."
Additionally, if you are using Gmail:
  • Limit the number of messages that appear in IMAP folders in Gmail settings. Using a web browser, log into your Gmail account, then go to Settings / Forwarding and IMAP tab / Folder Size Limits. Try setting these limits to a smaller number.
  • Unsubscribe from the Gmail "Important" folder if you are not actively using that label.
  • Consider unsubscribing from the "All Mail" folder, and use a different folder for Archiving. Create a new folder, name it "Archive Messages" then map the Archive function to this folder in Preferences|Options / Accounts / [your account] / Copies & Folders.
 
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robertcoogan said:
Spotter sounds like Alfred, but it does offer a few commands that are only in the paid version of Alfred (plus Spotter is free). I still don't understand the attraction to Postbox. $40 is steep when there is a wide selection of free alternatives out there. I use Thunderbird with TBSync, and it works fine for me. Superpowered sounds cool, but I already have a slew of stuff in my menubar, and I already use Bartender to manage that. Maybe an Alfred workflow to replace the menubar item?

Jettison sounds awesome, I'll give it a try.
Click to expand...
Anytime you divide the price of anything by $0 it becomes infinitely expensive, and that's one way of looking at it.

Invest in the things you use the most.
  • If you sleep 8 hours per night, buy a great mattress
  • If you work on a computer 6 hours per day, buy a great screen
  • If you commute 1 hour per day, buy a comfortable car
If you're like most of our users and spend 3 hours per day in email, invest in the app that makes you the most productive.

For a one-time purchase of $39 (currently discounted from $59), you'll get a killer app that can dramatically improve the way you email.

That doesn't seem steep to us relative to the other items mentioned above! ;)
 
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