List of applications and tools that make my macOS experience even more amazing
Light appearance. Prefer to use light themes as it makes text more readable during the day with natural light around.
Dark appearance. All apps are in one desktop since there is delay in switching between macOS multiple desktops. Dock is hidden. Desktop background is dynamic.
I use a lot of apps on my mac. Below is a list of my favorite tools with descriptions of how I use them.
I also share my dotfiles together with my iOS setup. And I made a Telegram group to discuss all things macOS/iOS.
I have extensive wiki where I share everything I know. Apps that I described in the wiki are linked to from here.
I made KM macro with this AppleScript to switch between light/dark macOS appearances. As appearances are switched, the themes get updated accordingly on most apps.
Alfred - Launcher
- Described in wiki.
Karabiner - Keyboard remapping
- Described in wiki.
Keyboard Maestro - Automation tool
- Described in wiki.
2Do - Flexible task manager
- Described in wiki.
1Password - Password manager
- Described in wiki.
BetterTouchTool - Mac input customizer
- Described in wiki.
Fantastical - Calendar
- Described in wiki.
- Comes natively with macOS and I started to love using it for exploring and searching through Wikipedia.
- It is incredibly fast to make the searches and it gives quick autosuggestions for any query I type that I can then select with up and down arrows.
CleanShot - Create & annotate screenshots/recordings
- After you make a screenshot, it allows for quick edits (arrows, text, blurring).
Popclip - iOS like mouse text selection popover
- Brings up a quick menu whenever some text is selected on which I can do a number of quick actions, like searching selected text on Google, YouTube or copy the text. Here are the extensions I have activated:
- And here is how it looks for me:
- Everything I use comes by default with PopClip except YouTube extension which you can download here. I used PopMaker tool to create this web search extension.
Reeder - RSS Reeder
- The app I use to keep up with my RSS feeds. I use RSS to follow my favorite blogs, stay up to date on new podcast episodes and even track some software releases.
- I use Inoreader to sync blogs I follow between phone and mac.
- Here is how Reeder looks like for me:
Transmission - BitTorrent client
- A torrent client that I use. Very minimal in its UI but very powerful and has all the features that I need.
Notion - All-in-one workspace
- Described in wiki.
Linear - Issue tracker
- Nice private project tracker. I like to use GitHub issues primarily for projects.
VS Code - Code editor
- Described in wiki.
iTerm - Terminal Emulator
- Described in wiki.
Sublime Text - Text Editor
- Described in wiki.
Sublime Merge - Git Client
- Use it to version control projects I work on. Use it together with gitupdate to frictionlessly manage updates.
Dash - API Documentation Browser
- Allows you to download any docset that you might want to use, search for any method, class or anything that you need very quickly, comes with the amazing Alfred workflow to simplify the process of searching for the right things.
Paw - HTTP client
- Use it to quickly make HTTP requests and test out API endpoints.
Neovim - Text Editor
- Described in wiki.
Telegram - Messenger
- Described in wiki.
Spark - Email client
- Love how it smartly categorizes emails by categories. I approach all of my email tasks in GTD style. Keeping my email Inbox close to 0 at all times.
Tweetbot - Twitter client
- Described in wiki.
Textual - IRC Client
- Described in wiki.
Figma - Design tool
- Described in wiki.
Sip - Collect, organize & share colors
- Great color picker I use to collect my favorite colors and color schemes.
PixelSnap - Measure everything on screen
- Use it to quickly get measurements of objects and distances between elements.
Spotify - Music streaming
- Found a lot of great music with this app and the phenomenal Alfred Workflow makes using the application an absolute joy.
- Quickly finding artists, songs I want to listen, instantly adding the song playing to my Likes playlist or any other playlist I want, seeing what other songs the artist has and more.
IINA - Video player
- Open source alternative to VLC built specifically for macOS.
- It is based on mpv and has a more modern and native look than VLC.
- Described in wiki.
- Vimari - Adds custom layer of keybinds you can customize to personalize the browsing experience like hinting and moving between tabs.
- Wipr - Ad content blocker that uses Safari native content blocking API's.
- 1Password - 1Password is a phenomenal password manager, this extension just gives a seamless interaction of it with the browser.
- Described in wiki.
I use brew package manager to install all the tools I use on my system.
I curate a list of interesting CLI tools. Below are ones I love & use:
- exa - Replacement for ls written in rust.
- ripgrep - Search text for patterns fast.
- fzf - Command-line fuzzy finder.
- fd - Simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to 'find'.
- watchexec - Executes commands in response to file modifications.
- bat - Cat clone with wings.
- up - Deploy infinitely scalable serverless apps, APIs, and sites in seconds to AWS.
- jq - JSON processor.
- git - Version control.
- curl - Transfer data from or to a server.
- youtube-dl - Download videos from YouTube and other video sites.
- tmux - Terminal multiplexer.
- direnv - Environment switcher for the shell.
- htop - Interactive text-mode process viewer for Unix systems.
- httpie - HTTP client.
- rq - Tool for doing record analysis and transformation.
- pandoc - Universal markup converter.
- trash - Move files and folders to the trash.
- vtop - Graphical activity monitor.
- gotop - Terminal based graphical activity monitor inspired by gtop and vtop.
- howdoi - Instant coding answers.
- asciinema - Terminal session recorder.
- tldr - Simplified and community-driven man pages.
- imgcat - Like cat but for images.
- screenfetch - Fetches system/theme information in terminal.
- hugo - Fast and flexible static site generator.
- reflex - Run a command when files change.
- modd - Flexible tool for responding to file system changes.
- now - Real time global deployments served over HTTP/2.
- yarn - Fast, reliable, and secure dependency management.
- hub - GitHub wrapper.
- xsv - Fast CSV command line toolkit written in Rust.
- pv - Pipe Viewer.
- m-cli - Useful utils for macOS.
- pgcli - Postgres CLI with autocompletion and syntax highlighting.
- mas - CLI for mac app store.
- loc - Count lines of code quickly.
- alfred - Manage Go-based Alfred workflows.
- neofetch - System information tool.
- license-up - Create a license quickly for your project.
- piknik - Copy/paste anything over the network.
- bench - Command-line benchmark tool.
- ghq - Manage remote repository clones.
- npx - Execute npm package binaries.
- devd - Local webserver for developers.
- wifi-password - Get the password of the WiFi you're on.
- fkill - Fabulously kill processes.
- ran - Simple static web server written in Go.
- mcfly - Fast visual command history search.
- hyperfine - Excellent command-line benchmarking tool.
If you found this interesting, I also have similar repository going over what applications I use on iOS/WatchOS as well as how and why I use them.
Here you can find more setups by other people that you can take ideas and inspiration from.
- Works for me - Collection of developer toolkits.
- Use This Interviews - What do people use to get stuff done?
- Omar Bahareth's my-mac-os - Another my-mac-os.
If you shared a similar personal setup to this, be it for Windows, Linux or anything else, you can add it in Similar Setups section.
I love finding new awesome tools and apps. If you have a favorite tool or app that you think I missed, please say it.
You can support me on GitHub or look into other projects I shared.
