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What are your essential macOS apps?

Must haves:

1password
NordVPN
Brave (exclusively for YouTube)
RealVNC (to manage my PiHole)

Really like and want to support:

Contacts Journal (if you are in sales or need to track customer interactions this app is the best)
Home Inventory (unfortunately went subscription with a new version but keeping the old one I bought functional)
 
Forklift
Bartender
MacUpdater
Moom
Downie
MEGAsync
Display Buddy
Testify
Final Cut Pro
Spelling Alphabet
Copy 'Em
The Unarchiver
Calendar 366
AppCleaner
 
MacGizmo said:
OMG, is it me, or do you feel like the app's interface and functionality changes every time you open it? I can't even figure out what half the features do. Don't even get me started with the integration with Outlook (on the Mac), which is a disaster in and of itself.
Click to expand...

It changes very, very often. It's also rather unintuitive. And every Teams version has other features, it's not like they are simply crosscompiling it.

E.g. the web version (preferred) cannot share a screen (at least ours)
-> you have to create a meeting if you want to share and join twice.

- the fat client for windows cannot display a shared screen in full screen (web can and osx fat client can also)
- windows fat client can't be installed on non managed devices (restriction from our organisation)
- windows fat client in citrix environment doesn't have access to microphone and speakers
- osx fat client frequently just disconnects. if it is connected, it frequently lags minutes after the other clients. Funny how every teams client instance shows a different number and type of notifications at the same time

Also, the video compression is much too high, despite having enough bandwidth. If someone shares their standard 4k screen, the compression artifacts regularly prevent others from reading the standard fonts (e.g. shell, source code)

Another weird behaviour: If you quickly post a file (e.g. screenshot), you have to be careful that the name is unique. Otherwise it will override other files with the same name in the chat history.

The way to access conference room devices (big screen/microphone/speakers) also changes every time. We cannot just walk in and tap on the meeting, like with google.

Exchange integration in Apple Mail works quite well. However, Our team mailbox is done in a non-standard way (e.g. not just simple e-mail aliases or imap4) that it requires the Exchange fat client in addition. They also can't be accessed via the standard outlook web access, they have a hidden URL to another exchange instance. So if I access via web, I need at least three tabs.
 
Mine are:

Daisy Disk
Luminar Ai
Luminar Neo
Nisus Pro
Pure Vinyl (needs upgrade)
Studio Artist
1Password
Affinity Suite
Audio Hijack
Bartender
Canvas X Draw
Default Folder
iStatistica Pro
iZotope RX 10
Keyborad Maestro
Magnet
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Excel
Nak T-100
Ninox
Pixelmator Pro
QuarkXPress
SignalScope Pro
TechTool
Typinator
Yojimbo
LaunchBar (does not work with Ventura using Alfred until/if upgraded)
 
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Since I use devices that run MacOS, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and iOS, I am limiting my essential MacOS apps to those that make me depend upon MacOS....

Pixelmator
Apple Pages
Apple Keynote

These 3 apps justify (to me) the ridiculous upcharges for Apple hardware.
 
Cromulent said:
I'm curious about what macOS apps people find essential. Here are mine:

Rectangle Pro
AltTab
Alfred
ProtonVPN
Bitwarden

I'm also testing out Path Finder, which sounds useful as I'll be able to "mount" an SFTP connection to a virtual machine running FreeBSD.

What are your essential macOS apps?
Click to expand...
KeepassXC
Lulu
Wipr
Brave browser
SilentKnight
 
I just recently made a list of the support tools that I am using on my new M2 Air. When populating the list I was actually surprised at the large number I have to tweak macOS. Might get rid of some in the future but at the moment I am still happy and find all of them useful.

Here is my list:
- AlDente (battery charge limiter)
- Coconut Battery (check battery status)
- HazeOver (paid app that highlights active window and greys out rest)
- Hush (blocker tool)
- Keyboard Cleaner Tool
- Lockdown (privacy blocker)
- Onxy (great little tool)
- TopNotch
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Tools
- ClipGrab
- Logitech Tools (for Logitech Mechanical Mini keyboard)
- HiddenBar
- SuperDuper! (Complement to Time Machine backup)
- TimeMachine Editor
- TinkerTool
- Wipr (privacy tool)
- GrandPerspective (visualize what is on your harddisk)
- Rectangle (window management tool)

Happy to provide additional infos about the tools and my specific usage.
 
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The included MacOS apps I use constantly:

Pages​
Numbers​
Mail​
Messages​
Notes​
Safari​

These are the things I install immediately with a new machine:

Alfred​
1Password​

Next, these which I rely on to stay organized and tidy:

BusyCal​
Bartender​
Things​

for producing actual work:

Ulysses​
Agenda​
Highland 2​
Adobe Creative Cloud​
Sublime Text​

and then some (very) helpful utilities:

F.lux​
TextSniper​
DaisyDisk​
App Cleaner​
Yoink​
CoconutBattery​
Carbon Copy Cloner​
 
Last edited:
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Applications I'm generally happy with (in no particular order):
  • DaisyDisk: a disk visualizer to see where space is being used, very high quality
  • IINA: a capable media player, like VLC, but more polished
  • iTerm2: a terminal emulator more customizable/pleasant than Terminal
  • KeePassXC: a free, open source, cross-platform password manager
  • calibre: an eBook/PDF library – a little janky, but I don't know of anything better
  • Hex Fiend: a snappy hex viewer and editor
  • Skim: a fast and clean PDF viewer
  • Synergy: for sharing a keyboard and mouse between multiple machines (software KVM)
  • Forklift: a decent dual-pane file browser, but can't do some things that Finder can
  • Monodraw: for creating figures and diagrams using only text
  • Affinity Designer: a vector graphics package with some quirks, but it works and it's not a subscription
  • yEd: a (non-native) diagram package that isn't completely horrible
Applications where you don't really have much choice:
  • PDFpenPro: a slow and buggy PDF editor, but you can wrangle it to work usually
  • Logic Pro: for music creation and mastering, has more rough edges than it should for $200
  • Final Cut Pro: for video creation, same story as above, except this one is $300
  • Motion: for video special effects, more of the same, but you only pay $50 for it
  • Xcode: for Mac/iOS development, a steaming 40GB pile of bugs, and it only gets bigger with every release
Bonus applications:
  • Quicksilver: a better and faster program launcher. I'm currently using Spotlight, as it has come a long way over the years. But it's been going downhill, may be time to switch back – why is there a one second delay on the quick calculator functionality?
  • Karabiner: a powerful keyboard customizer, particularly useful if you use a non-QWERTY keyboard layout. It emulates a hardware device that uses your custom layout natively, which is great for programs that blatantly ignore the OS keyboard setting. This became Karabiner-Elements in response to Apple breaking things, and it was severely neutered compared its predecessor. Haven't checked it in a while, it may be back to feature parity now.
 
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Hunter5117 said:
Curious why you don't want to install Homebrew?

PS I am old enough that the original, Norton Commander, was my goto app for managing and fixing DOS file systems back in the day. At the time I owned a small-town computer shop and NC was indispensable in helping keep my customers systems running well.
Click to expand...

I miss Qedit, QFiler and Mace Utilities!

Was also a big fan of Underware's Brief editor (which got acquired and morphed into Norton Editor lol)
 
I try to keep the number of apps as small as possible. But for my daily use I need:
Omnifocus
Carbon Copy Cloner
AdGuard
IA Writer
Enpass
 
Alfred
Bartender
MacUpdater
Calendar 366
Forklift
NordVPN
1 Password
Carbon Copy Cloner
Nisus Writer Pro
MS Office 365
 
Hey! Getting my first macbook tmr!

Any must-have apps? Obvious one for me is alt-tab but that's all I can really find.

Thanks!
 
calcal said:
general use with some light cxoding - also switching from windows so i wanna make the transition easier
Click to expand...
Tip, the preview app in macOS does a lot, and can replace a handful of apps/utilities in windows

Start using the system and as you get used to it, omissions will be evident.
 
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imo the must have apps already come installed on your Mac

the rest really depends on your needs

for example, i have neither alt-tab, rectangle, etc. installed, despite coming from Windows last year.
But after having adjusted to the way macOS is working, i'm actually not really missing such functionality anymore, despite from a technical standpoint, these might of course be the "superior" solutions.

many Mac users will also recommend using Alfred instead of Spotlight, but for me, Spotlight is already way more than just good enough

what i have installed on my Mac (from the top of my head)
- Affinity Photo - photo editing
- Reaper 6 - music making software
- VLC (free!) - media streaming & conversion tool
- KnockKnock (free!) - offline malware launcher scanner
- yt-dlp (free!) - Terminal based video downloader
- Firefox with uBlock Origin extension (both free!) - just recently installed for a "block almost everything setup" in case i should feel the need to, so i can keep my stock browser Safari extension free

only must have for me would be Reaper 6, since i really don't like GarageBand and Reaper is my personal DAW of choice anyway
and occasionally Affinity Photo

and of course all of those might be completely useless for your own use case
 
Since you're getting a MacBook definitely get Bartender 4.
iStat has a menu bar item, a green dot, that lets you know you're connected to the internet, which I find priceless.
I need a text expander so I settled on Atext but there's plenty of others.
Keyboard Maestro is great for lots of stuff but I mainly use it to launch apps and files using the function keys and other key combos.
DriveDX & Coconut Battery will let you know the health of your ssd and battery respectively.
Last but no least Carbon Copy Cloner for backups.
I also highly recommend that you avail yourself of the knowledge base found at Howard Oakley's website:
eclecticlight.co

The Eclectic Light Company

Macs, painting, and more
eclecticlight.co eclecticlight.co
 
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I have a tendency to install programs that look as if they will be useful. Examples include a program that shows you all of the defined keyboard shortcuts in the current program. Useful with Adobe products. Another allows to to use key presses to insert text, such as your address, and use multiple clipboards.

During the last system install I realized that since I am not writing documents all day the text and multiple clipboard app just wasn't being used. Same thing for the application keyboard shortcuts. After a wipe and an install I didn't reinstall them.

In short find apps that will be frequently used and will help your productivity.
 
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