Five Useful Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - April 2018

[MacRumors]

Apps designed for the Mac don't typically receive as much attention as apps for iOS devices, 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 managing and organizing your files, getting info about your Mac, accessing your favorite content quickly, and more. Many of the apps we've included this month were chosen by our forum members.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

[*]DaisyDisk ($9.99) - DaisyDisk is an app that's been around for quite some time, but it was just recently updated with extended support for Apple File System (APFS), the file system on macOS High Sierra. DaisyDisk is designed to show you all of the files on your Mac, so you can see what's eating up your disk space. Using simple drag and drop gestures, you can delete unnecessary content, freeing up storage.
[*]Hazel ($32) - Hazel is a little bit more expensive than the typical Mac apps we feature, but it has a unique function -- it automatically sorts and organizes all of your files. You can assign Hazel to watch folders on your Mac, such as the download folder, and using user-specified rules, Hazel will organize all incoming files into categories like Movies, Music, Pictures, Old Files, New Items, and more. Hazel can be used to open, archive, tag, rename, and upload files, and there are tools for cleaning up support files when you delete an app.
[*]Shortcut Bar ($8.99) - Shortcut Bar is a simple menu bar app that lets you access your favorite files, folders, apps, web bookmarks, and text snippets, essentially putting all of the files and apps you use most on your Mac right at your fingertips.
[*]Station (Free) - Station is an app that's designed to house and aggregate all of your web applications in one easy to access location. Instead of having dozens of tabs open with things like Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, and Slack, you can relocate them all to Station for quicker, more streamlined access. Station is, essentially, a web browser that has a more thoughtful layout for accessing web apps.
[*]iStat Menus ($9.99) - iStat Menus is a fairly well-known app that's worth checking out if you haven't already. It provides a wealth of information about your Mac that's accessible through your menu bar. You can track battery life and health, processor usage, memory usage, network details, weather information, and more, and it can send notifications based on your custom parameters. Want to know if your CPU usage has exceeded 60 percent for over 10 seconds or if your internet is down? iStat Menus can do that. It's free to download in a trial capacity, but unlocking full functionality costs $9.99.

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.

For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our lists from February and March.

Article Link: Five Useful Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - April 2018

 

[826317]

I highly recommend iStat Menus Pro. The latest version has a great design to it and shows loads of info on your status bar.

 

[Tivoli_]

DaisyDisk $9.99; However GrandPerspective app that does the same with a different graphical interface is only $1.99 (free directly from website).

 

[sharko]

Why pay $9.99 when you can just use Disk Inventory X for free?

 

[keysofanxiety]

Why pay $9.99 when you can just use Disk Inventory X for free?

Or OmniDiskSweeper! It doesn't look particularly nice but it does exactly what you need it to.

 

[autrefois]

Big fan of DaisyDisk. It's almost too easy to use. Smooth interface, it's hard to believe you're actually deleting gigabytes of data. Huge time saver as compared to manually figuring out the culprits taking up so much space. I haven't used GrandPerspective or Disk Inventory X to know how they compare, but $10 seems reasonable for what DD does.

 

[groovyd]

The absolute best app for the Mac in my opinion is menuBus (https://www.menubus.audio).

menuBus is a 'must have' for giving you complete control over all audio on your Mac across all apps (iTunes, Skype, Safari, YouTube, ...). menuBus runs seamlessly in the menu bar acting as a 'master bus' for all audio on your system. Its surprisingly simple interface allows you to drag and drop audio plugins in to the 'bus' for performing systemwide audio equalization, on-demand recording, multi-channel audio splitting, speaker and headphone calibration, you name it. Originally intended for professional use in recording studios and for music creation the app is is highly optimized, bit perfect, glitch free, and rock solid.

To this end, the developer Nathan Tiddy who happens to be a really cool guy (a goat farmer in New Zealand) actually listens to the user base and is constantly improving the app. On his website he provides examples of using it with free plug-ins to correct the frequency response of AirPods to make them 'studio reference' flat and is always super responsive to questions by users on his Facebook group page where users even have a vote for the next great feature he focuses on.

While even the free version has plenty of features for the majority of users to enjoy for only $20 the 'Pro' version is well worth it for the ability to save off unlimited presets activated by user-defined hotkeys.

This is an app that seriously Apple should just include in macOs.

 

[Schranke]

You should look into IINA for next month. Super nice (and free) media player build on mpv. A serious competitor to vlc and looks so much better.
https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

And here is a list of other apps I always make sure to have installed, all well known.
Alfred - better spotligt
Little Snitch - control app internet connections
Airmail - mail replacement
CoconutBattery - battery utility
Amphetamine - keeps Mac awake
1password - password manager

 

[HiRez]

iStatMenus is awesome, especially if you like to see what all the cores in your CPU are up to, see how much up/down bandwidth is being used on your internet connection, and see when disks are being read to or written from, at a glance.

I also really like ChronoSync for when you need to keep folder & file hierarchies synchronized on different devices or partitions, although in some cases things like Dropbox can do this in a more simple and automatic manner these days.

As mentioned above, Amphetamine is also a great utility, a full replacement for the older and unsupported Caffeine with a lot of options you can set.
[doublepost=1524867742][/doublepost]

DaisyDisk $9.99; However GrandPerspective app that does the same with a different graphical interface is only $1.99 (free directly from website).

If you just want something really basic, macOS High Sierra has this built in now. Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage > Manage... > Reduce Clutter. Sure, a utility probably has more options, but if you just want to see where the space-hogging files are, it's built in.

 

[swingerofbirch]

My favorite Mac app has to be EvoCam. No longer in production, but still my favorite. I wish someone would buy the rights to it and continue development. I've tried SecuritySpy but seems confusing (to me at least) in comparison.

 

[fathergll]

Why pay $9.99 when you can just use Disk Inventory X for free?

I also use Disk Inventory x. From this video it seems the DaisyDisk is more advance and faster.

 

[Master Atrus]

There was an old Mac app that I loved (Attachment Tamer) but it is no longer in production. Does anyone know a good alternative? I can't seem to find anything that does the job of helping maintain formatting between Apple Mail and all my Windows Outlook coworkers.

(and also Station, seems to require a Work Google Account ... am I doing something wrong?)

 

[lec0rsaire]

You should look into IINA for next month. Super nice (and free) media player build on mpv. A serious competitor to vlc and looks so much better.
https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

Thanks. I’ll give this a shot. The main reason I’ve stuck with VLC is that I know they won’t abandon the project like so many others ave especially those based on Mplayer many of which are still in the beta phase. I’ve looked at the screenshots and it does look nice. Almost like a first party app which is always nice. While functionality is more important than looks, a nice UI is always a plus!

Coconut battery and EtreCheck are really must haves. The latest version of EtreCheck is no longer free after 5 uses but I believe the old version can still be used unlimited. Great stuff for quickly finding any sorts of problems on your installation. I still have yet to try Alfred. I don’t run any pirated software so Little Snitch is of no use to me. AirMail is really good but I prefer the stock mail app. I try to use as much of the first party stuff as I can to keep down system bloat and lots of stuff on my menu bar.

 

[chublet]

My favorite Mac app has to be EvoCam. No longer in production, but still my favorite. I wish someone would buy the rights to it and continue development. I've tried SecuritySpy but seems confusing (to me at least) in comparison.

I love SecuritySpy, works great for me with excellent tech support. I did try Evocam but the cameras I had at the time - cheap Chinese ones - were not supported very well, since moving to SS I have been really impressed with all the features and the fact 'it just works'...

 

[applefan69]

Great idea Macrumors! I will look forward to these posts.

I really like Folx. It reliably gets the highest download speed my internet package can manage (through seemless multiple connections... does not even tell you it is doing that ubt I know it is working based on the speeds I get). Also a good full featured torrent manager. My biggest grief is the way some websites handle the pass off to Folx, such as when my banking goes to bring up a pdf statement, but I just go into safari and disable Folx for those particular websites.

Cant remember what I paid (wasnt cheap), but seems worthwhile to me. I dont use alot of the features but Folx is packed with everything you can ask for from a download manager. Developer seems to be a small respectable one too. So pay up you cheapos.

This is NOT a paid comment, I am truly just a random happy user.

 

[cfurlin]

There was an old Mac app that I loved (Attachment Tamer) but it is no longer in production. Does anyone know a good alternative? I can't seem to find anything that does the job of helping maintain formatting between Apple Mail and all my Windows Outlook coworkers.

(and also Station, seems to require a Work Google Account ... am I doing something wrong?)

Nothing wrong, it does require Google, but you don't find that out until after you install it. They never mention it on their website either. Very deceptive.

 

[Carlos_X_el_magnifco]

I quite like Bartender, which selectively hides menu bar items. There are a lot of items I only need once every few weeks, and hiding them away helps me see what's important.

Another great app is PopChar, which provides more convenient access to the full range of text characters you have on your Mac than the built-in Emoji & Symbols palette.

 

[fhall1]

Bartender, Yoink, and PopClip are three that I use all the time (in addition to a lot of those already mentioned)

 

[blodyholy]

I quite like Bartender, which selectively hides menu bar items. There are a lot of items I only need once every few weeks, and hiding them away helps me see what's important.

Another great app is PopChar, which provides more convenient access to the full range of text characters you have on your Mac than the built-in Emoji & Symbols palette.

Bartender looks nice! Does it play well with iStat Menus? I am a big fan of that, and if I can "tuck" all of the menus away to only access them as needed that would free up some menubar space.

 

[dmdev]

I second iStat Menus. Have had it for years and I can tell right away when something is off with Safari, or VMWare, etc.

 

[Junior117]

Station is surely an interesting one. I've used it for a few hours and I like it, but there are a few things that are a little bit irritating, such as the fact that there's no bar at the top of the window that allows me to move the window around (I don't see an option to add one either). I'm also not too much of a fan of disabling the display of the close, minimize, and full-screen icons when hovering over them.

Other than that, it works pretty well for me and I can definitely move a lot of my tabs that I open a lot from Safari to here. And if they fixed a few of the above issues, I would certainly use it daily.

 

[Tech198]

Products like DaisyDisk or other software to show how much free space is used, by what applications, are starting to become common, particularly with GUI interface..

Everyone likes colors

 

[TheSkywalker77]

I'll have to try some of these out.

 

[parsonsmike]

iStat Menus is literally the first program I install on a clean OS. I've been using it for at least 5 years, and I just feel blind and disconnected from the machine when I use a mac that doesn't have it installed.

Also, pay $10 for DD if you want to, but Disk Inventory X is fantastic and free.

 

[edrozenberg]

Some great suggestions here - IINA - how did I not hear about this? Goodbye ugly/slow VLC, for most things (but thanks VLC for being there all these years).

DaisyDisk - I have it, very nice looking, but the pie chart approach with mouseover labels requires too much effort and brainpower to navigate. Nothing beats OmniDiskSweeper for a super simple to understand hierarchical tree of your file usage.

Station - I get what they're trying to do, unify all the terrible web "apps" out there under Station's own 350 MB "app". But the world really doesn't need yet another bloated Electron turd.