AppAddict Newsletter

Every night my Obsidian Vault is synchronized to a folder on Dropbox. I use an app called Sync Folders Pro, in which you can schedule tasks. The only problem is that in order for the task to run, the app must already be launched. There's no way I can remember to launch it when I'm done using my computer for the day, so I had to find a way to have it launched for me prior to the time the task is supposed to run.

I chose Keyboard Maestro to do it for me, since Keyboard Maestro can also quit the app after the task completes. I use KBM for a lot of things, so it wasn't like I had to spend extra money just to get that feature. There are other, less expensive and simpler apps that can do the same thing.

• Task Til Dawn - A Free Mac Automation App - Also automates some file management tasks, printing and browser based tasks
• Alarm Clock Pro - An insanely useful app for all sorts of things, app launching is just a single feature
• Shortery - The Missing Mac Automator - Unlike iOS, you can't trigger shortcuts based on conditions. Shortery takes care of that by running shortcuts when triggered by time of day, wi-fi connections, calendar events and a dozen other conditions
• Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility - this app can launch scripts as well as appsto accomplish all sorts of tasks
• Running Cron Jobs on Your Local Mac - If you are a CLI pro, you don't need a third party tool to automate events. You can use crontabto run scripts that do all sorts of things for you on a time based schedule
• LaunchControl: The launchd GUI - This is another pretty technical app, one that l provides all the information you need to create or debug a launchd(8) service through an easy to understand GUI.
• How to schedule workflows on Mac - You can use the Automator app built into your Mac to create launchers for apps, documents and URLS and then activate those through a calendar alert. One of the available alerts built into the Apple calendar is the ability to open a file. If you just want to open an app, you don't even need to use Automator, just tell Calendar to open the app at time relative to the calendar event your created,

Some other time based tasks I use include:

• An Applescript to eject my backup drive in the morning before I wake up so all I have to do is unplug it. ChatGPT can write Applescripts pretty well
• An Applescript that moves tasks in Things 3 to a different data and time every night
• A shortcut that imports imports screenshots that meet certain conditions into a designated photo album every night
• Open and close an app on my two Macs at alternating times because I don't want it running on them simultaneously
• Before I retired, I automated the launching of the web page for my job's time clock systm so that I could clock in and out for the day and my lunch break

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Joplin is a free and open-source notes app. It's available for Macs, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. You can pay for Joplin E2E encrypted synchronization on its servers which are located in France for those looking to avoid US based cloud computing companies who are cooperating with the government. You can also use DIY synchronization on other cloud accounts, like Dropbox or iCloud.

My use case for Joplin is single purpose. After using Evernote from 2009-2023, I exported my data into ENEX files and closed my account due to its exorbitant pricing. I wanted a way to access that information without dealing with Evernote or its owner, Bending Spoons.

My preferred notes app is Obsidian, which is a plain text app that uses markdown. Many of my notes in Evernote were complex HTML emails that didn't translate well into Markdown. The material isn't anything I'll be editing but I want a way to use it for reference when I need it. Joplin did a good job of importing the notes in a readable format. It brought over all my tags. Organizing the information is easy inside Joplin. I elected to use Dropbox for syncing. It took a long time to sync 9K files even though the total file size is just over 1 GB.

I don't plan to add new notes to Joplin, but there is a web clipper available for those who can use that feature. There is also a plugin available that lets Joplin retrieve emails, something easily accomplished in Evernote but that requires considerable workarounds in Obsidian. Joplin doesn't have the same robust extension environment that Obsidian has, but there are several add-ons available.

Joplin is an electron app, so if the prospect of using an app of that nature is against your religion, move on along. I don't mind using electron apps, so it works for my purposes.

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When you have a lot of time to kill and nothing but your phone, what apps do you turn to as time killers?

My wife is running a 10-hour race this weekend. As usual, I'll be there as her crew, filling her water bottles, handing her food and bandaging blisters in short little bursts of time every hour. The rest of the time, I'll be left with just my phone as entertainment. Unfortunately for me, I don't game. Confessions of a Non-Gamer

I'm also not one to watch movies on a phone. After a few YouTube videos, I start to get restless. I'm a reader with attention span issues. I'm prepared to do without Internet, although hopefully I'll have connectivity. These will be my go to apps.

Pocket: Stay Informed - Pocket is where I save all the articles I want to read, but don't have time for. I also have a couple of RSS feeds that go straight to Pocket. I can add to it on my phone or my Mac. It's also integrated into Inoreader, my feed reader. You can download your saved articles for offline access.

Amazon Kindle - The cool thing about Kindle books is how little space they take up. I have hundreds of books saved on my phone.

NextDraft - I've been reading Dave Pell's daily links blog for over a decade. He suggests and comments on about a dozen stories a day and has a real knack for digging up fascinating content. He's as good at as anyone, even Kottke.

Medium: Read & Write Stories - Since its inception, I've read most Medium stories on Archive.ph. Then one of my cousins started a Medium blog and I got a subscription. It's been nice. Removing the friction and having the ability to subscribe to blogs has exposed me to a lot of good content.

Amerpie's Custom Tech Feed on Reddit - I will confess to being addicted to Reddit like no other place on the Internet. If you hang out in the wrong places there, it can be a real downer, but it also has some helpful and fun communities too. This is my collection of 37 tech related subreddits and where I hang out the most.

I don't think I'll die of boredom.

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I am in the early stages of setting up a home network environment consisting of three Macs, a Windows 11 Thinkpad, an Ubuntu 24 Thinkpad, two iPads, an Android tablet and two iPhones. The quickest and easiest way to move files between all these devices has proven to be the free and open-source app, Local Send. As long as all of the devices are on the same wireless network and not logged into a VPN, all I have to do is make sure the app is running on each one to send files.

The settings on the Mac app are straightforward. You can send files, folders, text messages or whatever you have on your clipboard to other devices. The program assigns each device random names (e.g., Shiny Cherry), but you can call them whatever makes sense to you. For receiving files you can toggle between three settings: off, on for any connection and on for favorites, with favorites being other devices you've designated as being in that category.

You have control over the color and light/dark theme of Local Send. You can choose to close the window and have the program accessed from the menu bar. You can set several options for saving files: automatically save, require approval, require a PIN. You can also designate a single folder as the destination for received files and all incoming data will go there.

For security, you can whitelist and blacklist network interfaces. All of them are whitelisted by default. If you need to change the default port, you can do that as well as change the default discovery timeout. Encryption is on by default but it can be turned off. Local send does not require that your network be connected to the Internet. The program collects no data from you to send to the developer.

You can inspect the code and read the documentation on GitHub. Mac Users can get the app from the App Store. It is also available through Homebrew.

brew install --cask localsend

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Cog is a free and open-source music player that can read and display metadata from dozens of formats, including AAC, MP3, ALAC, FLAC, Ogg, and WMA. It features playlists, ratings and a mini player. No data from the app is sent to the Internet. Your listening habits don't become data for some privacy sucking mega-corporation.

In the spirit of detaching from big tech as much as possible, I looked for a full-featured music player for my collection of songs and albums in various formats. I needed something robust enough to handle over 30K files without choking. Since the songs in my music folder all have the correct metadata already, I didn't need the ability to edit it. The initial import took some time, but it is a process that doesn't have to be repeated.

Cog reads files where they exist on your disk. It's perfectly able to use music files already in your iTunes library, if you have one, or it can read from other locations, including external drives.

Cog is a versatile audio player with global hotkeys, and desktop notifications. You can shuffle both albums and tracks, repeat single songs, albums, or even whole playlists. It can play music from the internet, including livestreams and hosted files. It even supports Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) using FFmpeg. It can also get live metadata updates from continuous streaming servers, like Shoutcast, Icecast, Ogg Vorbis comments, and timed ID3v2 packets, if the streamer uses them. Furthermore, it can even show you a cue sheet, which is like a list of songs in the order they’ll play. It can also show you album artwork for each song, both inside the cue sheet and outside. It can store album artwork in different formats, like JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, HEIC, or AVIF. It also has a graphic equalizer and a spectrum visualization in the toolbar or a separate window. And if you have a sound device that supports spatial audio, it can use that too. It also has multiple MIDI synthesizers, including the system synthesizer (which works with SoundFonts or the system GS bank) or BASSMIDI (which needs SoundFonts). It supports a number of audio formats, including some that you might not have heard of before, including obscure game and console formats

Cog is available on the developer's websiteand in the Mac App Store. If you are running an older version of macOS, you can download versions that work with them too.

Thanks to @dhry@mastodon.social for the tip on this app.

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I spend a fair amount of time looking for apps to test and review. While, I seem to concentrate heavily on apps for macOS, I am also fascinated by the solutions developers come up with to get tasks done on the iPhone and iPad. I keep running lists of candidates for AppAddict and for my personal use. I'm sharing this today and hoping to hear back from folks who have opinions on the apps on this list or suggestions for alternatives. Let me know, pro or con, what you think about these.

• Usage Device Monitor - Usage is a tool to monitor your device's activity, data usage, connection speed, and more.
• Annotable Annotation & Markup - Annotable is the most full-featured all-in-one image annotation tool.
• Infuse • Video Player - gnite your video content with Infuse -- the beautiful way to watch almost any video format on your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and Vision.
• Keep It Mobile - Keep It for iPad and iPhone is a powerful notebook and document organizer that can be used on its own or in conjunction with Keep It for Mac, available separately.
• Avast Security & Privacy - Protect your device from online threats and intruders, keep your email accounts safe from scams, browse safely on public Wi-Fi, and stay in control of your online accounts.
• Elgato Stream Deck Mobile - Stream Deck Mobile is a full-fledged recreation of our iconic Stream Deck keypad. Now with an all-new design, more freedom to customize, and powerful features exclusive to iPhone and iPad.
• Timery for Toggl - Enhance your Toggl time-tracking experience with Timery! Start your most-used timers with one click. Edit your recent time entries easily.
• Broadcasts - Broadcasts 3 introduces a beautiful new Mini Player, revamped Search experience, and a new Artwork Chooser to help style your library.
• GizmoPack - Bring your shortcuts to the next level with GizmoPack!
• one sec screen time + focus - Fight the social media algorithms and win back control over your social media usage & your subconsciousness!
• Redirect Web for Safari - Control your browsing with Redirect Web. Set custom redirect rules to navigate your favorite sites automatically.
• AirScrobble Last.fm Scrobbler - Welcome to AirScrobble--the ultimate way to scrobble everything from real life and your device directly to your Last.fm profile! Whether you're grooving to vinyl, discovering tunes on the radio, or catching jams on social media, AirScrobble makes tracking and scrobbling a breeze.
• Up Ahead Countdown Widgets - Up Ahead is a playful, beautiful way to keep track of everything you're looking forward to. Create events in seconds, and build yourself an eclectic timeline full of birthdays, weddings, holidays, vacations, game releases, sporting events, or anything coming up that brings you joy.
• OASIS AI - Create perfect writing in any format just by talking. AI transcribes your natural speech, then rewrites it as a professional email, blog post, college essay, LinkedIn post, text message, outline, TikTok video script, pop song & more.
• AI Journal & Diary - Reflectr - Transform your journaling experience with Reflectr, your AI powered private journal, designed to help you understand and navigate your thoughts more effectively
• Automadon - Automadon provides a suite of Shortcuts actions for Mastodon with support for multiple accounts. Actions available within Shortcuts include:
• HashPhotos - HashPhotos is the ultimate alternative to the Photos app.HashPhotos is the essential photo app for your iPhone/iPad, designed to revolutionize the way you manage, edit, and bring your memories to life.
• BookBuddy My Library Manager - BookBuddy is a powerful book management app that gives you access to your entire book catalog, anywhere. Using BookBuddy is fun and easy, allowing you to quickly find any book in your library, share your favorite books, and keep track of borrowed and lent books.
• Roadtrippers - Trip Planner - Discover the open road and the great outdoors with ease. Roadtrippers, the \#1 road trip planning app in the USA and Canada
• Photomator – Photo Editor - Photomator is a photo editing powerhouse, offering incredible tools for enhancing, retouching, and managing your photos. It includes an extensive collection of cutting-edge color adjustments, automatic selections powered by AI, powerful batch editing features,
• This Easy Photo Labels - Tell the whole story by adding pointers, labels, descriptions, and commentary to your photos.
• Noir - Dark Mode for Safari - Noir is a Safari extension that automatically adds a dark mode to every website you visit.
• Nintype - Transform your iPhone or iPad into a highly productive device where you can actually type relatively quickly with it - so writing emails, reports and articles are much nicer, because you can type faster on the iPad/iPhone than most people can on a desktop keyboard!
• Stickier Mobile - Old-school sticky notes with a few new tricks.
• Camera M - Pro Manual Camera - Camera M is a professional and modern camera designed to do one thing exceptionally well -- to help you capture beautiful photos in the highest possible quality with powerful and precise manual camera controls akin to a DSLR.
• Calendar 366 Events & Tasks - Appointments and to-dos, meetings and deadlines, birthdays and dates - make the most of your time with Calendar 366! Anything a calendar can do... Calendar 366 can do better - and all of its functions can be adjusted easily and intuitively
• Kino - Pro Video Camera - Make great video easy! Kino lets you just press record and create cinematic video with color presets created by expert filmmakers--no edit required. Plus, with "AutoMotion," the app automatically creates that smooth "film look" you see at the movies. Shoot great video with no film school required.
• ‎Mela - Recipe Manager - Mela is a simple, elegant and modern recipe manager that syncs with iCloud.
• ‎Just a Simple Image Converter - Experience the ultimate image transformation tool with our versatile Image Converter app. Seamlessly convert a wide range of image formats, including JPG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, PDF, WebP, BMP and HEIC all in one convenient application.
• ‎Habit Tracker - Checker - Checker is an app that can help you make new habits stick and be more consistent with any goal you're working towards. It provides an easy way to check in on the actions you're tracking and then displays your progress in a calendar grid, making it easy to see patterns and potential areas for improvement.
• ‎SnipNotes Notebook & Clipboard - SnipNotes transforms your Mac into a hub of creativity and efficiency, seamlessly syncing with your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Jot down inspirations directly from the menu bar and enrich your notes with images and diverse formatting options. Effortlessly pull in data from the web and other apps with a simple drag or let SnipNotes safeguard your clipboard content for later recall.
• ‎Cheetah Note - Cheetah Note is a simple yet powerful note app.
• ‎Bookmark Management - Trace - Trace: Capture Screenshots, Bookmark & Organize. Trace revolutionizes the way you capture screenshots, bookmark content, and organize your digital discoveries. Seamlessly integrated with your favorite apps like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and more, Trace empowers you.

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For those not familiar with it, Kagi is a subscription based, no-ads, privacy-focused search engine that provides an extreme level of customization. Unlike DuckDuckGo, which relies on Bing for most of its results, Kagi has its own scraper and while it does make API calls to other search engines, it is not totally reliant on them. Understandably, not everyone needs or wants to pay for privacy, but for people in vulnerable communities or who are politically active in ways that aren't supporting their nation's current government, it is a valuable resource.

Privacy Pass

Kagi recently released Privacy Pass, " a privacy feature that allows you to use Kagi Search without revealing your identity. When enabled, it lets you perform searches anonymously while still verifying that you're a valid Kagi subscriber. Think of it as a digital token system - similar to getting tokens at an arcade, where once you have them, you can use the services without showing your ID each time." To use Privacy Pass, you need to install a browser extension that enables it.

Kagi Search Extension

Kagi also has a search extension that automates setting it as your default browser and also provides for continuing a search session is a private browsing window.

Using Kagi with Safari

Since Apple limits the selection of custom search engines in Safari, due no doubt to the $18 billion that Google pays them for the right to be Safari's default search engine. There is a good work around though, Xsearch for Safari lets you instantly switch between multiple custom search engines from the Safari address bat. It works in macOS, iOS and iPadOS.

Kagi Features

Kagi has zero ads and zero trackers. It's so secure that what you search for can be totally separated from your identity. You can customize your results easily. If, like any sane and rational person, you don't want to see any stories from the popular news channel that was fines $700 million for lying on the air last year in your search results, you can block the site from ever appearing. If you realize just how many answers to life's questions can be found on Reddit, you can tell Kagi to prioritize the site. In fact, you can customize up to 1,000 sites, either by blocking them or by promoting results from them.

I created a list of sites that are over-represented in search results because of search engine optimization,. It's not that their content is good. It's that the sites are engineered through content farming and keyword usage to appear high in search results. You can copy and paste the list right into Kagi's settings and never have the sites pollute your searches again. Because of problems with the mainstream media in the US, I also created a list of alternative news sources that I told Kagi to prioritize.

You can make your own custom search environment. Kagi calls that a Lens. Kagi Lenses allow you to customize your searches by specifying which websites (and other parameters) you see in your results. They provide a few Lenses to get you started, such as one to search only online discussions and forums.

Have more questions about Kagi? Get all the answers here.

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Whether you know who Sindre Sorhus is or not you still may be using one of his many popular and mostly free apps. Sindre is a full-time open-source developer currently based in Thailand who is responsible for more than 1,000 packages at npm, the world's largest software directory. In his spare time (LOL) he creates wonderful macOS and iOS apps.

He's recently been on a tear with updates, adding new features and dealing with bugs. A couple of apps that used to be free are now paid because of the support demands, according to Sorhus. Most of his recent updates require macOS, but older versions are still available for users who have not upgraded.

Actions for Shortcuts

• New actions added:
• Get System Color
• Get All System Colors
• Format Text List
• Is Location Services Enabled
• Is Screen Saver Active
• Send Distributed Notification
• Wait for Distributed Notification

Shareful

Shareful makes the system share menu even more useful by providing some commonly needed share services. The latest release requires macOS 15.

• Copy - Copy the shared item to the clipboard and so you can quickly paste it into another app.
• Save As - Choose a directory to save the shared item to.
• Open In - Open the shared item in any app.

Pandan

Pandan is a time awareness tool, not a traditional time tracker or break reminder. It shows you how long you have been actively using your computer, to make you aware and let you decide when it's time to take a break.

Folder Peek

Folder Peek  is the GOAT of menu bar access apps. I liked XMenu from Devon Technologies, but Folder Peek has more features and is just as rock solid in performance. Folder Peek lets you put folders full of whatever you want on your menu bar. You can make a folder with app aliases for your most used apps or add your entire applications folder. Give your documents folder its own menu bar icon or add an alias of it to another folder. My personal setup is a single folder with aliases for:

• Home folder
• Documents
• Downloads
• Screenshots
• Approximately 20 apps

Amazing AI

Generate images from text using Stable Diffusion 1.5. Simply describe the image you desire, and the app will generate it for you

Color Picker

• Quickly copy, paste, and convert colors in Hex, HSL, and RGB format
• Show as a normal app or in the menu bar
• Toggle it from anywhere with a global keyboard shortcut
• Make the window stay on top of all other windows

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Pieoneer, by developer Martin Lexow, is a pie menu app with three primary use cases.

App Switcher

Using any hotkeys you like, you can summon a round (pie) menu with the icons of all your running icon s. If there are any you don't want appearing in your app switcher, you can exclude them. I use an alternative finder (Qspace), so the regular Finder is excluded from my pie menu. The menu appears immediately after being summoned and can be navigated via arrow keys or clicked with the mouse. If you have a multi-button programmable mouse or if you use a utility like Better Touch Tool, you can set up mouse buttons or trackpad gestures to summon the Pieoneer app switcher.

Launcher

The launcher is activated similar to the app switcher — with a unique hot key combination, mouse button or trackpad gesture. The best use case for the launcher is to use it for your second tier of apps, ones that you use regularly, but don't necessarily leave running all the time. I added eight apps, but ten or twelve would also work.

Controller

The most intriguing use case for Pieoneer to me is the controller function. With it, you can add menu commands to the pie menu, for example, in your browser, you could add the command to open your internet history, to see your bookmarks, to open a location — which puts the cursor in the address bar so it can also be a search shortcut with your default search engine. If you take the time to set it up with your most used apps, you won't have to try to remember so many commands to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts.

You get Pieoneer in the Mac App Store for $9.99. Other apps by the same developer include Polycapture, Keystroke Pro and Cursor Pro.

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Universal Apps

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Stickier is a free sticky notes app that ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to useful features.

• iCloud sync for use on multiple devices
• Quick notes feature with custom hotkey for quick text entry
• Custom note color, text color and background image if desired. You can set a default for all notes and change individual notes to make them stand out
• Custom text, text size and margins
• Import and export notes
• Clickable links
• Checklists
• Menu bar and/or dock access

Stickier keeps a history of changes to each note, allowing you to revert to an earlier version or recover data if you need to. You can share the text of any note via the Mac share sheet. When it comes to pinning notes, you can leave a note open at its regular size, or you can collapse it so that it shows only the first line of text. You can choose the size and location of each note, moving it anywhere you’d like on your display.

Custom formatting includes bulleted lists as well as bold, italic and strike-through text. You can use the return key to create a paragraph break in a note, or a button in the interface to create a new line without the paragraph break.

You can get the app from the Mac App Store for free. The iOS app is $4.99.

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Got any feedback on this app? Got an alternative? Leave a comment!

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Stickier is a free sticky notes app that ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to useful features.

• iCloud sync for use on multiple devices
• Quick notes feature with custom hotkey for quick text entry
• Custom note color, text color and background image if desired. You can set a default for all notes and change individual notes to make them stand out
• Custom text, text size and margins
• Import and export notes
• Clickable links
• Checklists
• Menu bar and/or dock access

Stickier keeps a history of changes to each note, allowing you to revert to an earlier version or recover data if you need to. You can share the text of any note via the Mac share sheet. When it comes to pinning notes, you can leave a note open at its regular size, or you can collapse it so that it shows only the first line of text. You can choose the size and location of each note, moving it anywhere you'd like on your display.

Custom formatting includes bulleted lists as well as bold, italic and strike-through text. You can use the return key to create a paragraph break in a note, or a button in the interface to create a new line without the paragraph break.

You can get the app from the Mac App Store for free. The iOS app is $4.99.

Thanks to @dhry@mastodon.social for the tip on this app.

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Many people have become concerned that changes in the US politics, the FCC and attitudes in the big American tech companies may result in less reliable privacy protections in the software they use. One solution is to move to using apps and services provided by European and Canadian companies. Australian writer Joan Westernberg did a deep dive on her tech stack recently, and here are a few apps she recommended, some of which I have featured previously on AppAddict.

ToDoist - Europe

ToDoist is a privacy first task and calendar app available for macOS and iOS available on the App Store. Todoist is a simple yet powerful planner tool that organizes both your life and work. It can also be used a habit tracker. Subscription based.

iAWriter - Switzerland

iAwriter a markdown/plain text editor designed especially for writing and document creation. It isn't a text editor in the fashion of VS Code or BBEdit. If you aren't a markdown wiz, all the commands are accessible from the menu bar. The simplified interface is its hallmark, but it has various powerful tools behind the curtains. Your documents are local by default, with options to use end-to-end encrypted storage solutions. More information

Proton - Switzerland

The Proton Foundation offers a list of encrypted services including email, cloud storage, a password manager, a calendar, and a VPN. None of its products are subject to US surveillance laws. It markets itself on its privacy features and isn't likely to follow the VC funded pattern of using your data to maximize profit.

Joplin - France

Joplin is an open-source notes app that offers a local only option or syncing on servers based in France. You can also opt for syncing on your choice of end-to-end encrypted services. It offers importing from various formats including Evernote, Markdown and plain text. It has a powerful web clipper and a plugin architecture, making it an extensible choice with support for multiple platforms.

Vivaldi - Norway and Iceland

Vivaldi is my browser choice for its built-in privacy and tracking protections and its extreme customization options. It has powerful security, power consumptions, appearance and tab management features as well as a built-in calendar, email and feed reader. There is a companion app for iOS.

LibreOffice - Germany

LibreOffice is a full-featured open-source office suite used by millions. It features a word processor, spreadsheets, presentations in an open format but can also open and save in Microsoft Office formats. Microsoft products are infamous for being telemetry filled and AI influenced. This is a solid privacy protecting alternative.

Cozy Cloud - France

Cozy Cloud is a personal cloud to gather all your data like bills, notes, and passwords. It's GDPR, privacy-focused, open source, and hosted in France. It has a limited free plan for you to investigate.

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If you like finding out about interesting and useful software, I’m making it easier for you to get detailed updates about what is available.

I started posting reviews of Mac and iOS apps in April 2024. To date, I’ve reviewed over 300 apps, posted several roundups of free Mac software and offered advice on Mac automation. So far, I’ve been able to respond to every message from readers with personalized advice when asked. 

I decided to newsletter to enable me to provide reviews to people who would like to receive them in newsletter form. I’ve had several requests and this appears to be an easy to manage method of getting the news about the latest apps to anyone who wants it in their inbox.

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Each of my reviews contains a link to where you can download the software, as well as its cost - if there is one. I am not affiliated with any developer or commercial publisher. I’ve been downloading, testing and using Mac software since the days of the classic OS. Most of my reviews are recommendations, but I occasionally post a “stay away” warning if I find something egregious that I think folks should avoid.

If you are a developer and would like me to review your app, contact me through the blog. I don’t review every app I’m presented with, but if you’ve made something unique and helpful, I’ll be glad to take a look and give you some feedback.

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Developer, writer and podcaster, John Siracusa, has a new app you should try out if disk space on your Mac is starting to become scarce.

I’m not convinced that anyone, anywhere, including Cupertino, truly understands the relationship between the disk space you actually have on your Mac and what the system reports. Cloud storage totals show what’s in the cloud, not on your hard drive. Then there is the whole purgeable space concept. Another factor that contributes to the mystery and one that I just learned about is what happens on AFPS formatted drives when you duplicate a file. I’ll let the legendary Mac developer, John Siracusa, explain:

Today, most Mac users don’t even notice that using the “Duplicate” command in the Finder to make a copy of a file doesn’t actually copy the file’s contents. Instead, it makes a “clone” file that shares its data with the original file. That’s why duplicating a file in the Finder is nearly instant, no matter how large the file is. Despite knowing about clone files since the APFS introduction nearly eight years ago, I didn’t give them much thought beyond the tiny thrill of knowing that I wasn’t eating any more disk space when I duplicated a large file in the Finder. But late last year, as my Mac’s disk slowly filled, I started to muse about how I might be able to get some disk space back. If I could find files that had the same content but were not clones of each other, I could convert them into clones that all shared a single instance of the data on disk. I took an afternoon to whip up a ...scrip... to see how much space I might be able to save by doing this. It turned out to be a lot: dozens of gigabytes.

There are plenty of Mac apps that will save disk space by finding duplicate files and then deleting the duplicates. Using APFS clones, this app can reclaim disk space without removing any files.

If you have technical questions, there is extensive documentation on Siracusa’s blog - Hyperspace

Siracusa went on to convert the script he wrote into a native Mac app, written in Swift. You can get it from the App Store for free and run it against your Mac’s file system to see how much disk space you can reclaim. If it’s a significant amount, you have several subscription and purchase options:

• $9.99 a month
• $19.99 a year
• $49.99 lifetime

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Unless you are an accomplished touch typist, which I am not, you probably spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard when working at your computer. Occasionally, those of us who type in this manner inadvertently hit the Caps Lock key unknowingly. When we finally check the display, we see a long string of text IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Fixing this is a PIA.

Enter Captin, a free little utility that lets you know in every way possible when you have turned on Caps Lock, and not just visually. You can set a sound warning too.

Notification Methods

• HUD - Instant visual feedback
• Menu-Bar Icon - Customizable LED color
• Dock Icon - Theme-aware Dock-icon style
• Customization - Color, duration, size, and sound
• Multiple Displays - Adjust position for each display

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Amazon recently announced its intention to prevent customers from being able to download copies of their purchased ebooks, a feature it had supported since the inception of the Kindle. Amazon is also the company behind Audible, the popular vendor of audiobooks. Although they have not said they will be revoking download access to this service, it is a possibility and audiobook owners looking for a way to back up what they have purchased are looking for a solution to make this content useful outside the Amazon walled garden.

The solution I am using is Libation, a FOSS title available on GitHub. Libation is a bare-bones application without a fancy UI, but it is fully functional and takes only a few minutes to set up and use. After it converted my audiobooks into M4B files, a standard audiobook format which allows bookmarks, I was able to play my books using VLC and various iOS apps like the free Audiobooks MP3 and M4B Player.

One warning - the file sizes are large. If you have a sizable collection, I would advise against downloading to your internal hard drive unless you have a lot of free space. Saving to an external drive would be a better option.

Download Libation on GitHub.

Features

• Import library from Audible, including cover art
• Download and convert all books to other audio formats (M4b and MP3)
• Download accompanying PDFs
• Add tags to books for better organization
• Powerful advanced search built on the Lucene search engine
• Customizable saved filters for common searches
• Open source
• Supports most regions: US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, India, and Spain
• Fully supported in Windows, Mac, and Linux

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#Obsidian #ObsidianMD #PKM
I’m not one of those people who tell others that the only or best way to use Obsidian is by eschewing plugins and going with a vanilla version of the app. If that works best for some people, that’s fine, but in my experience, the real power and enjoyment of the Obsidian experience comes from finding plugins to extend the functionality of the app.

My primary uses for Obsidian are:

• Where I do all my writing
• As a life record/journal
• Personal database

The plugins I use are the ones that help me with those tasks. I don't leave all of these turned on all the time. For example, I leave the importer plugin turned off unless I am going to use it immediately. Since I use Obsidian on multiple devices and sync with Obsidian Sync, I am able to use different plugins on each device, a feature you don't get with DIY syncing. I can also have different settings for plugins on different devices. I only use my primary computer with the plugins that sync with external services like RSS and Raindrop.io

You can generate your own list of plugins to share with Share my plugin list by Benature

My Plugins

• 
  ⬇️ Actions URI by Carlo Zottmann ^[Adds additional x-callback-url endpoints to the app for common actions — it's a clean, super-charged addition to Obsidian URI.]
• ⬇️ Advanced URI by Vinzent ♡ ^[Advanced modes for Obsidian URI]
• ⬇️ Attachment Management by trganda ♡ ^[Customize your attachment path of notes independently with variables and auto rename it on change.]
• ⬇️ Auto Note Mover by faru ^[Auto Note Mover will automatically move the active notes to their respective folders according to the rules.]
• ⬇️ Beautitab by Andrew McGivery ♡ ^[Creates a customizable new tab view with beautiful backgrounds, quotes, search, and more.]
• ⬇️ Better Search Views by ivan-lednev ♡ ^[Outliner-like breadcrumb trees for search, backlinks and embedded queries ]
• ⬇️ Better Word Count by Luke Leppan ^[Counts the words of selected text in the editor.]
• ⬇️ Buttons by shabegom ^[Create Buttons in your Obsidian notes to run commands, open links, and insert templates]
• ⬇️ Calendar by Liam Cain ^[Calendar view of your daily notes]
• ⬇️ Commander by jsmorabito & phibr0 ♡ ^[Customize your workspace by adding commands everywhere, create Macros and supercharge your mobile toolbar.]
• ⬇️ Dataview by Michael Brenan ^[Complex data views for the data-obsessed.]
• ⬇️ Editing Toolbar by Cuman ♡ ^[The Obsidian Editing Toolbar is modified from cmenu, which provides more powerful customization settings and has many built-in editing commands to be a MS Word-like toolbar editing experience.]
• ⬇️ Extract url content by Stephen Solka ^[Extract url converting content into markdown]
• ⬇️ File Explorer++ by kelszo ^[Hide and pin files and folders in the file explorer using custom filters, such as wildcards and regex, based on their names, paths, and tags. Additionally, achieve the same with a single click in the file menu.]
• ⬇️ File Manager ^[Adds missing features to the file explorer.]
• ⬇️ Folder Note by xpgo ^[Click a folder node to show a note describing the folder.]
• ⬇️ History Today by Yaob1990 ^[View and review your historical notes from this day across previous years]
• ⬇️ Iconize by Florian Woelki ^[Add icons to anything you desire in Obsidian, including files, folders, and text.]
• ⬇️ LanguageTool Integration by Clemens Ertle ^[Inofficial LanguageTool plugin]
• ⬇️ Linter by Victor Tao ^[Formats and styles your notes. It can be used to format YAML tags, aliases, arrays, and metadata; footnotes; headings; spacing; math blocks; regular markdown contents like list, italics, and bold styles; and more with the use of custom rule options as well.]
• ⬇️ Metadata Menu by mdelobelle ♡ ^[For data quality enthusiasts (and dataview users): manage the metadata of your notes.]
• ⬇️ Mononote by Carlo Zottmann ^[Ensures each note occupies only one tab. If a note is already open, its existing tab will be focussed instead of opening the same file in the current tab.]
• ⬇️ Multi Properties by technohiker ^[Adds Properties to multiple notes at once. Either right-click a folder, or select multiple notes and right-click the selection.]
• ⬇️ Omnisearch by Simon Cambier ♡/♡ ^[A search engine that just works]
• ⬇️ Periodic Notes by Liam Cain ^[Create/manage your daily, weekly, and monthly notes]
• ⬇️ Plugin Update Tracker ^[Know when installed plugins have updates and evaluate the risk of upgrading]
• ⬇️ QuickAdd by Christian B. B. Houmann ♡ ^[Quickly add new pages or content to your vault.]
• ⬇️ Raindrop Highlights by kaiiiz ^[Sync your Raindrop.io highlights.]
• ⬇️ Read Later by Gabriele Cannata ^[Synch web pages to markdown and integrate with read-it-later apps (Pocket, Instapaper)]
• ⬇️ Readability Score by zuchka ^[Score the readabilty of your writing using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formula.]
• ⬇️ ReadItLater by Dominik Pieper ^[Save online content to your Vault, utilize embedded template engine and organize your reading list to your needs. Preserve the web with ReadItLater.]
• ⬇️ Recent Files by Tony Grosinger ♡/♡/♡ ^[List files by most recently opened]
• ⬇️ Rss Copyist by aoout ^[Get the rss articles as mdfiles.]
• ⬇️ Safe Filename Linter by sneaky-foxes ^[Lints filenames for invalid or troublesome characters]
• ⬇️ Settings Search by Jeremy Valentine ^[Globally search settings in Obsidian.md]
• ⬇️ Shortcut Launcher by MacStories ^[Trigger shortcuts in Apple's Shortcuts app from Obsidian with custom commands.]
• ⬇️ Style Settings by mgmeyers ^[Offers controls for adjusting theme, plugin, and snippet CSS variables.]
• ⬇️ Tag Wrangler by PJ Eby ♡ ^[Rename, merge, toggle, and search tags from the tag pane]
• ⬇️ TagFolder by vorotamoroz ^[Show tags as folder]
• ⬇️ Text Generator by Noureddine Haouari ♡ ^[Text generation using AI]
• ⬇️ Things Logbook by Liam Cain ^[Sync your Things.app Logbook with daily notes]
• ⬇️ Things3 Today by wudanyang6 ^[Manage today's tasks with Things3]
• ⬇️ Waypoint by Idrees Hassan ^[Easily generate dynamic content maps in your folder notes using waypoints. Enables folders to show up in the graph view and removes the need for messy tags!]
• ⬇️ Update modified date by Alan Grainger ♡ ^[Automatically update a frontmatter modified date field when you modify your note. This will not use the filesystem time, but only when you modify the file through Obsidian. Optionally store a history of edit times.]
• ⬇️ Templater by SilentVoid ^[Create and use templates]
• ⬇️ Paste URL into selection ^[Paste URL "into" selected text.]
• ⬇️ Local Images Plus by catalysm, aleksey-rezvov, Sergei Korneev ♡ ^[Local Images Plus plugin searches for all external media links in your notes, downloads and saves them locally and adjusts the links in your notes to point to the saved files.]
• ⬇️ Global Search and Replace by Mahmoud Fawzy Khalil ^[Search and replace in all vault files]
• ⬇️ Share my plugin list by Benature ☕️/⚡️/♡ ^[Share the enabled plugins in list/table format.]
• ⬇️ Arcana by A-F-V ♡ ^[A collection of AI powered tools]
• ⬇️ Automatic Table Of Contents by Johan Satgé ^[Create a table of contents in a note, that updates itself when the note changes]
• ⬇️ Bluesky by eharris128 ^[Post to Bluesky.]
• ⬇️ BRAT by TfTHacker ♡ ^[Easily install a beta version of a plugin for testing.]
• ⬇️ Find orphaned files and broken links by Vinzent ♡ ^[Find files that are not linked anywhere and would otherwise be lost in your vault. In other words: files with no backlinks.]
• ⬇️ Image Picker by ari.the.elk ♡ ^[Adds a UI panel for quickly selecting images that are in your vault.]
• ⬇️ Lazy Plugin Loader by Alan Grainger ♡ ^[Load plugins with a delay on startup, so that you can get your app startup down into the sub-second loading time.]
• ⬇️ Map View ^[An interactive map view.]
• ⬇️ Media DB by Moritz Jung ♡ ^[A plugin that can query multiple APIs for movies, series, anime, games, music and wiki articles, and import them into your vault.]
• ⬇️ Note Refactor ^[Extract note content into new notes and split notes]
• ⬇️ Novel word count by Isaac Lyman ♡ ^[Displays a word count (and more!) for each file, folder and vault in the File Explorer pane.]

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I never realized this blog would become as popular as it has. I picked up blogging as a hobby to accompany the other joy in my life, which is the never-ending process of refining my workflows to use the absolute best software for every task. Somehow, I ended up with three blogs, this one, Living Out Loud, Linkage and another that is a combined fire hose of everything put together. I’d be lying if I told you that I’m always able to remember what I’ve written on each platform. In 2024, I wrote 500K words. I’m too old to keep all that straight.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared the actual list of apps that I used to get work done here on AppAddict. These aren’t the coolest or the most powerful or the best bargains, not necessarily. They are the workhorses that allow me to do what I need to do. I’m not saying they are the best for everyone. If you do a lot over email, you need something more specialized. I don’t do much with spreadsheets or presentations, so I’m not even listing those.

Most (not all) of the links here describe my use cases or what I like about the app and why I use it. All links contain download info.

• 📨 Mail Client: Kiwi for Gmail
• 📜 Writing: Obsidian
• 📝 Temporary Notes: Drafts and Scratchpad
• 📆 Calendar: Fantastical legacy features, not paid
• 📖 RSS: Inoreader
• 🌐 Browser: Vivaldi on macOS and iOS
• 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
• 📑 Read It Later: ⭐ Pocket
• 🟦 Photo Management: Apple Photos
  • Optimization - Clop
  • Screenshots - CleanShotX
  • Automation - Dropover
  • More Optimization - ImageOptim
  • Editing - Toyviewer

• 📋 Clipboard Management - Raycast
• 🔐 Password Management: Apple Passwords and Access
• 🚀 Launcher: Raycast
• 🔐 Security
  • VPN: Nord
  • DNS: Next DNS
  • Firewall: Little Snitch
  • Tracker Blocking: Privacy Badger
  • Ad Blocking: Ublock Origin
• ☑︎ Task Management: Things 3
• 📱Updating Apps:
  • Homebrew: Cork
  • Almost Everything Else: MacUpdater
  • Etc: Topgrade
• ✍️ Journaling: Day One

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Protecting your online privacy is an ongoing game of whack-a-mole with big tech. Google is making a big deal out of eliminating tracking cookies at the same time is implementing tracking based on digital fingerprinting for which few protections exist. One organization working on privacy protection solutions for this invasive technology is the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It’s free privacy tool is a browser extension, Privacy Badger, available for Chromium and Firefox browsers. A Safari version is under development. Since tracker blocking is an ongoing struggle, it’s good to know that the developers at the EFF are actively working on meeting the challenges of emerging invasive practices by big tech.

Privacy Badger is not a traditional ad blocker, and it will not replace whatever you are currently using. The extension is focused on preventing companies big and small from tracking where you go on the Internet and what you do there. It doesn’t work off a list of URLs. Instead, it uses an algorithm to determine if you are being tracked and takes action to block offending sites. For tracking sites that you want to have a relationship with, such as Meta or X, it provides clickable links to connect to them from external sites when you choose to. I like that it creates an opt-in situation for you.

Privacy badger is compatible with native tracking prevention found in more secure browsers like Librewolf, Firefox and Vivaldi. As the political situation evolves in the US, protecting your browsing habits will become more important than ever. Take the steps needed to keep yourself safe from big tech and the government.

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Sandkorn, from developer Peter Borgas, is a free app that provides you comprehensive information on the apps installed on a computer, particularly sandboxed apps and what those apps are entitled to access.

Every app you obtain from the Mac App Store today is sandboxed, isolated from other apps and information sources, however, the apps have certain entitlements to different resources on your computers, some of which, but not all, you can see in System Settings > Security and Privacy. On a Mac, what you see in your applications folder are actually bundles you can right-click on an app and select View Package Contents and see what is contained in the bundle. Some apps have plugins and XPC services bundled with them that have their own entitlements. BBedit has 18. Xcode has a whopping 90!

Entitlements are things like:

• Calendar
• Contacts
• Location
• Bluetooth
• Camera
• Microphone
• Printing
• Incoming Network Traffic
• Outgoing Network Traffic
• Folders in your home directory

Although I only have six apps showing in my Security and Privacy Settings that have permission to access my camera, there are 56 apps that are capable of using it. Theoretically, they should ask before I access a feature that requires its use, but I'm just a guy on my couch with a laptop. If you are analyzing software in a highly sensitive area, knowing these entitlements is vital information.

Aside from the information I have already described, Sandkorn is the best app I’ve found for generating lists based on certain criteria, like architecture. If you’re one of the people that recoil in horror over the prospect of using Rosetta on your precious M-series Mac, Sandkorn can tell you if you have any Intel apps installed. It can generate lists of pure Apple Silicon and Universal apps. If you keep apps in a non-standard location, such as an external or secondary hard drive, you can have Sandkorn scan those locations too.

Get additional information on Sandkorn at the developer’s website. Check out his other apps like Lingon X and Smultron while you’re there.

You can download Sandkorn from the Mac App Store.