AppAddict

For true App Addicts, even the ones who don’t spend a lot of time at the command line on their Mac, exploring the Homebrew universe can still be rewarding. Simply put, Homebrew for Mac is a package manager that simplifies the installation of software on macOS. It allows users to easily install, update, and manage software packages through the command line. Some of these programs install right into your applications folder as regular apps with a GUI, indistinguishable from an app from the App Store or that you extracted from a DMG or ZIP file. Other Homebrew packages are CLI (command line interface) programs where you have to learn the commands to type in Terminal to make them work their magic. Don’t worry, the documentation is usually sufficient to get you started.

This post isn’t intended to be a guide to installing or configuring Homebrew. Head to YouTube and Google to jump that hurdle. Instead, this is a chance for you to download a few helpful Homebrew apps that I’ve found to be helpful and relatively easy to use.

YT-DLP

yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with support for thousands of sites, most importantly, YouTube

TOPGRADE

Using TOPGRADE, one command upgrades Homebrew itself, all of your Homebrew packages, your Mac App Store apps and any updates made available by the operating system (it will ask you first). Set a reminder and run this once a week to update all the things.

OCRmyPDF

You can use OCRmyPDF to perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on PDF files. This tool can be helpful in converting scanned PDF files into searchable and editable documents.

FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a powerful multimedia framework that can decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter, and play almost any type of media files

Tesseract

Tesseract is an open-source optical character recognition (OCR) platform. OCR extracts text from images and documents without a text layer and outputs the document into a new searchable text file, PDF, or most other popular formats.

Mac users have several choices when it comes to file finding apps ranging from the built in Spotlight utility up to professional grade tools like Foxtrot, costing north of $100. The best app for you depends on your use cases. I tend to do the same type of searches over and over, so I need a utility that has saved searches or templates. I also often search for a specific file, so I want a nice, clean interface that’s easy to launch and access.

Launchers - App launching utilities like Alfred, Raycast, Launchbar and Quicksilver all have file finding capabilities and various other tricks up their sleeve like the ability to open the found files in apps other than the default.

EasyFind (free) from Devon Technologies finds files and folders by name, content, tags, or comments using advanced Boolean operators, wildcards, phrases, even regular expressions. It does not require indexing, is fast, and uses very little memory.

Find any File ($6) -  FAF can find files that Spotlight doesn’t, e.g. on network (NAS) and other external volumes, hidden ones inside bundles and packages, and those in folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search, such as the System and Library folders. It can even search in other user’s folders if you use FAF’s unique root search mode.

Scherlokk ($19) is a file search utility build for precise and reliable search of every file which meets the search criteria. Music, pictures, bookmarks, documents, etc can be found quickly and easily. Search can be made on any kind of build in volume, portable volume (thumb drives, memory cards, USB drives), network drive (AFP, SMB, FTP). It does not use the Spotlight Index. 

ProFind ($6.99) - With support for innovative natural language queries, application launching, saved searches, history, scripting and more. It includes an iOS app that lets you search your Mac from your phone.

Foxtrot Professional Search ($120) - Made for search on a NAS or file server. Features include multiple indices, advanced search criteria. It has advanced in-document searching. It finds hidden gems in terabytes of PDF, word processing, email, presentations and 300+ document types and their metadata.

Houdah Spot - ($34, included in Setapp) A fast a very configurable utility offering hundreds of criteria, exportable results, featuring templates for reoccurring searches, like the one I do every Sunday for Markdown files created in the last seven days to import into Eagle Filer. This is my personal Go To.

Tembo ($15) - Made by Houdah Software, this utility is very fast and rarely lets me down. It’s what i use when I’m searching for one particular file.  The real power of Tembo is revealed when you drill down into a group. Filters appropriate to the current group help you quickly find what you are looking for.

More file search utilities, including Windows at AlternativeTo.net

Troubleshooting a misbehaving Mac can be tough at times when the problem is caused by a background process that keeps failing and being restarted by the OS. Using just one of the many functions of the utility program, Lingon X, you can find and disable leftover junk you might not even be aware of.

Lingon’s superpower is the analysis of the software that runs in the background on your machine. It looks at the processes that are particular to your account, those that apply to all users, those assigned to root, at all login items and at privileged helper tools. You may very well find remnants of programs you thought you deleted or disabled long ago. If you have now or ever had Adobe products running on your computer, you have stuff you can turn off. If you have login apps prone to quitting, you can set them to restart automatically. For the remnants of old programs, Lingon reveals where that stuff is located in the finder for you to remove manually.

The primary function of Lingon X is to run scheduled tasks, a feature shared with other automation apps like Keyboard Maestro and Hazel. With it you can schedule reminders, send emails, and move files. It will also open your essential apps, launch scripts, and run commands at specific times or when triggered by events. The latest version can even wake or sleep your Mac. Any script you set to run can be launched as root if needed. It’s powerful enough for CLI junkies to do voodoo but simple enough for even non-technical users to schedule simple tasks.

Lingon X comes in two versions. The one I’ve reviewed is $19.99 and is available from the developer’s website. It can often be found offered in software bundles from places like AppSumo and BundleHunt.

There is a version on the App Store for $5.99, but is many fewer features because of sandboxing and I do not recommend it.

If you’re going to get into the software and file downloading game, you’re going to end up seeing some strange compressed files. Although macOS had built in decompression capabilities for some file formats (ZIP, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, WAR, CPGZ and CPIO), it doesn’t come close to supporting the formats that the free utility, Keka supports: 7Z, ZIP, RAR, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, LZIP, BROTLI, ZSTD, LRZIP, DMG, ISO, LZMA, EXE, CAB, WIM, MSI, PAX, JAR, APK, APPX, XPI, IPA, CPGZ, CPIO, XIP, CPT and more.

Furthermore, if you want to do some file compression yourself, macOS will let you make ZIP files and DMGs. That’s it. By installing Keka, you’ll gain the ability to create files in a variety of formats: 7Z, ZIP, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, LZIP, BROTLI, ZSTD, LRZIP, AAR, WIM, DMG and ISO.

Keka can divide large files into multiple parts that will automatically reassemble after decompression. You gain the ability to use 256 bit encryption. You can also take advantage of a drag and drop interface into the Keka main window or by simply dropping files onto the Keka icon in the dock.

There is also a version of Keka available for iOS.

If you have a legacy version of macOS running, it’s no problem, you can freely download the current and past versions on the Keka website. If you want to kick the developer some dough, you can also get Keka on the App Store for $4.99 and take advantage of having it updated automatically. In order to set Keka as your default extraction app for compressed files, you’ll need to download a free helper app on the developer’s website. The developer is Jorge Garcia Armero. If you like the app, buy him a cup of coffee. He has given a lot to the Mac community.

The privacy policy is rock solid. No data leaves your computer.

According to my notes, I bought the audio recording and transcription app, Just Press Record nine years ago. It’s had a place on my Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch ever since. For a one-time purchase price of $4.99 it gives you the ability to record an unlimited number of audio files that you can leave in iCloud or download onto your Mac. You can edit both the audio itself and the transcription right in the app. Using the share sheet you can export the text and the underlying audio wherever file storage is permitted on your setup. If you are recording a podcast, you probably want to get something more sophisticated, but if you just want to dictate into your watch or iPhone and edit on your Mac, this is the app I recommend. Unlike some free apps that handle dictation and transcription, the developer of Just Press Record doesn’t collect any data on you or your device. Zero. Nada.

There are too many features to list them all but here are the highlights:

• Record in WAV, AIF or standard iTunes M4A (ACC) formats
• Adjustable playback speed
• Support for over 30 languages, independent of your device's language setting
• Text - make corrections and add new text to your transcriptions
• Print a hard copy of your transcripts
• Search by filename or transcription content
• Just Press Record does not record calls or audio from other apps

Just Press Record on the App Store

Most knowledgeable Mac users run multiple layers of protection on their devices from custom DNS configurations, custom firewalls, VPNs and ad blocking software in their browser. If you want a free, open-source firewall with preconfigured rules that places a minimal load on your computer, Lockdown Privacy Desktop and its companion iOS app Lockdown Privacy Ad blocker VPN do a great job on both platforms. The setup procedure is minimal, and the basic configuration is done for you. Lockdown also lets you create custom rules and is capable of blocking any site. I’m not recommending the paid VPN though because there are better and cheaper choices out there.

To be clear, there are firewalls out there with more features. The new release of Little Snitch is great and costs $59. Lulu is another option. It’s free and open source but it’s not preconfigured to block all of things Lockdown blocks. Getting Lulu set up takes several steps and making it work the way you want it to requires some technical know-how. Lockdown is a good option to set up if you are helping anyone with a Mac and they aren’t comfortable with the more technical aspects of things. I put it on my mom’s iMac.

Lockdown is certified by the Openly Operated foundation and every aspect of the product is 100% transparent, including code, infrastructure, privacy and security claims, and even company location and owners. All claims and information is backed by public proof that anyone can check, and verified by independent auditors. Lockdown was developed byDuet Display CEO Rahul Dewan and former iCloud engineer Johnny Lin.

The preconfigured rules block the following:

• Amazon Trackers
• Crypto mining
• Data Trackers
• Email Trackers
• Facebook Trackers
• Game marketing
• General marketing
• Google shopping
• Marketing trackers
• Ransomware
• Reporting
• Snapchat trackers
• WhatsApp trackers

In my testing, even with Little Snitch running 140,000 different rules, Lockdown still continued to find things to block on my Mac, mostly Google trackers. I won't go into a lot of detail on the iOS app but I'll just say my iPhone installation has blocked 82,000 trackers.

We all have our ways of discovering new music, friends, blogs, magazines

• but what do you do when you hear about a new tune or album, and you don’t have the time to listen to it at the moment? If you get a copy of MusicBox for $2.99 from the App Store, you can add songs from Apple Music, Spotify or Tidal to your own custom curated lists.

Adding songs is as easy as using the share sheet or copying and pasting one or more URLs into the app. MusicBox is a universal app, so you can hunt for tunes on your iPhone, iPad AppleTV or Mac. Using Shazam, you can even add a song you hear playing on the radio or on someone else’s device. You can add entire playlists from Apple Music and with the latest release add podcasts and radio stations.

When you add a song in MusicBox, you get access to the metadata too, including release date, genre, record label and other user configurable fields. You can play songs from within the app itself, with your music provider’s app or with a third-party app like Marvis Pro.

Features include auto-tagging, smart search, home screen widgets and extensive shortcut support. There are no subscriptions or IAPs.

MusicBox is the creation of Marcos Tanaka, who also created Play, MusicHarbor and MusicSmart.

Bebop Quick Notes is a simple to use and configure app that allows you to quickly capture information via the keyboard or share sheet. You can set it up to save its notes to the location of your choice in the files app such as your Dropbox folder or an Obsidian vault. Using it in conjunction with Obsidian ideal. Obsidian is a great app, partially handicapped by its slow startup on mobile. Bebop starts quickly and is instantly able to capture text. You can choose to save the files using one of four file extensions:

• .txt
• .md
• .markdown
• .mdown

Even the free version lets you create an unlimited number of notes. There are no ads, trackers or logins in the free or Pro version.  Upgrading to Pro via a $4.99 IAP lets you use Bebop itself to recall a greater number of notes (as opposed to viewing them in another app). Pro users also get to choose different color themes in the app.

The Developer, Jack Cheng, describes his app thus “Bebop is an iOS notes app built with a capture-first mentality. It assumes that review and organization are better done on larger screens, and a mobile interface should be lightning-fast and clutter-free."

When it comes to file syncing utilities, people have wildly varying needs. They may have a USB drive with a set of files they need for work but want to keep a canonical copy of the same files at home. Perhaps they like to have a full disk clone as a backup or, like me, a regular copy of an Obsidian vault copied to a cloud service.

If you are a master at the terminal, you might be able to make rsync do everything you want, since most file syncing utilities are GUIs for rsync with a few bells and whistles thrown in, but if you are a mere mortal, you probably want to opt for an app.

Free File Sync is an excellent choice. It’s backwards compatible on Macs all the way back to OS X 10.10 Yosemite. It’s free, open source and cross-platform with Windows and Linux. I use it on a Mac (in conjunction with NTFS for Mac) to sync files between a USB drive and a directory an external NTFS SSD. The default settings work for many use cases and it’s a breeze to create and save sync jobs.

The other app I recommend, Sync Folders Pro, is $8.99 in the App Store. It has two features that Free File Sync doesn’t have including a set it and forget it scheduler. I have a Keyboard Maestro macro that launches Sync Folders Pro every day at 1:59am and closes it five minutes later. In the interim, a scheduled sync of my Obsidian vault occurs with a folder on my Google Drive. If you purchase Sync Folders Pro from the App Store, you can download the Plus edition from the developers web site at no added charge. This edition gives you the ability to make full disk clones.

Key Features

• Supports Macs, iPad, iPhone, iPod.
• Bootable backup on an external drive (SSD, HDD)
• Bidirectional synchronization, one-way synchronization, mirroring backup.
• Powerful preview mode. Ability change file operations before sync. "Line by Line" comparison.
• Automatic scheduled synchronization.
• Synchronization any number of pair folders at same time.
• Auto-updating help in the app. Periodically adding answers to frequently asked questions.

Other top choices in the sync and backup field that I've tried and can recommend are Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper.

Back in the olden days, lazy vendors of things like security cameras used to have websites and software that only ran on Internet Explorer because of a proprietary protocol called Active X. Even today you will find certain websites developed for Chromium browsers like Chrome, Edge and Brave that don’t work correctly on Firefox or Safari, which use other browsing engines. Then you have websites than can run in a browser, but work (arguably) better in an app: Zoom, Figma, Discord, Microsoft Teams etc. For web developers and bloggers, the three different browsing options present a challenge, as web pages can look different from browser to browser.  That’s why Raycast has a command to “open URL in a different browser.” To help get this madness under control, the king of open-source software, Sindre Sorhus created the free but valuable app, Velja. Once you install Velja and configure it, your links will open where you want them to. If you’ve created your own progressive web apps with Safari or Edge or using something like Coherence or Unite for sites like Facebook, you can create your own rules to open links that way.

I’ve tried paid apps like Openin 4 Advanced Link Handler, Choosy and Switchbar and found that I liked Velja better.

Open links clicked in a specific app in a specific browser

For example, to open all links you click in Slack in Chrome:

• Open the Velja settings and go to the “Rules” pane.
• Create a new rule and give it a name.
• Select the browser to open. You can even choose a specific Chrome profile.
• Create a new “Source Apps” matcher and select the app you want. For example, Slack.
• Click “Save”.

If you use an outliner to plan, sketch out ideas or help you write and you don’t need the bells and whistles required for heavy academic work, check out Zavala by developer Maurice Parker. A universal app with offline capability and full iCloud syncing, Zavala has some features like custom fonts, not found in more expensive products like Omni Outliner, Cloud Outliner or Bike.

Zavala Features:

• Tagging
• Quick open dialog box
• Full text search
• To do / item completion
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Backlinks
• OPML sharing and export
• Markdown sharing and export
• Printing

Zavala Shortcut Actions

As more and more people grow tired of corporate controlled social media they are turning back the clock to the early days of the web and taking up blogging. There is a growing IndieWeb culture worldwide. Most blogging platforms like Micro.blog, Bear Blog, Tumblr, Pika and various Word Press iterations have online editors for use within a web browser in which you can compose your posts. By and large they are all lacking. You’re locked into using rich text when you’d rather use Markdown or vice-versa or maybe you’re asked to code stuff and you’re not a coder. MarsEdit, the blog editor by Red Sweater software steps in admirably to fill the gap. With MarsEdit you can choose your writing style, WYSIWYG or different styles of Markdown. It provides word processing features like search and replace.  If you choose Markdown, you can get previews of rendered text quickly.  The focus is on writing. There’s even a typewriter mode to keep what you’re typing centered on the screen. There are multiple ways to get images into your blog posts, including from iOS devices, Apple Photos, file selection or drag and drop. No Internet access is required to compose and you can use the built in calendar to schedule posting whenever you’d like.

Mars Edit works with WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, TypePad, Movable Type, and any blog that supports a standard MetaWeblog or AtomPub interface.

A license for MarsEdit will set you back $59.95 or you can get it from Setapp.

If MarsEdit doesn’t suit your style, other editors to consider are Scrivener and Ulysses.

There are a lot of options for screenshot utilities on the Mac, from the built in ability to capture images that’s built in to the OS, to the full featured freemium app Shottr by indie developer Electric Endeavors for still images to even more powerful still and video capture products like SnagIt by TechSmith. The product I personally use, CleanShot X hits the sweet spot in the middle. It may be over kill if you just need to screenshot memes for social media, but if you are a blogger, need screenshots for work documents or deal with tech support regularly, you should take advantage of the 30-day money back guarantee and try it out.

CleanShot X has over 50 features, including several new ones in the just released version, 4.7:

• Annotation
• CleanShot Cloud uploads
• Scrolling capture in any app
• Screen recording with built-in camera overlay
• Background tool (with new and custom background presets)
• Text recognition (with automated cursor sizing)
• Pin screenshots (and toggle them visible/invisible)
• Hide icons and widgets 
• Self-timer

New Features in version 4.7 include:

• Ability to resize screen shots
• Cursor automatically resizes to match text found in the image
• 10 new background gradients wallpapers, as well as custom wallpapers
• Saved presets for screenshots
• Autoformats text when entered on a screenshot
• Hide desktop now hides widgets too
• Pinned screenshots can be toggled visible and hidden

CleanShot X is $29 for the current version with one year of updates and 1GB of cloud storage.  If you need pro features like availability on multiple machines, guaranteed perpetual updates, unlimited cloud storage, custom domain association - a pro version is available for $10 a month, $8 a month if paid annually. CleanShot X is available as part of SetApp.

If you have a Dropbox account, even a basic free one, you’d be well served to install Maestral, an open-source Dropbox client for macOS. It allows you to locate your Dropbox folder wherever you want, not just in your ~/Library/Cloud Storage folder where Apple wants to force you to keep your files. Since it’s not an official Dropbox client, it doesn’t even count against your three-device limit. Having even a basic Dropbox account can be useful if you use IFTTT, want to avoid iCloud for any reason or have legacy apps that require Dropbox. Maestral even allows you to have multiple accounts on the same computer. It has fine grained controls to dial in selective sync however you want. The application has been around for a while and is still under active development. There is documentation available for technical subjects like symlink compatibility and gitignore files. If you don’t feel sufficiently challenged in life, Maestral even has a CLI for you to use. I am not the Dev.

One of my favorite utilities, one I’ve used through several version is Dropzone 4 from Aptonic. It is a menubar app that performs a variety of functions. Similar to apps like Yoink, Unclutter and Dropover, it provides a space to park files you need to copy elsewhere later. You can also create a grid of folders where you frequently copy files to have them always available even if Finder isn’t open. One of my favorite features is shortcut integration. I use a shortcut by Jarrod Blundy over at HeyDingus! to upload images to my blog host (Micro.blog). I get prompted to provide alt-text and after doing so I get a Markdown link conveniently copied to my clipboard. Other features include:

• Shorten URLs quickly using TinyURL shortener. Just select a URL to shorten and press Ctrl+Option+Cmd+S and the shortened URL is automatically copied to the clipboard.
• AirDrop integration lets you drop files or folders from any app and share them with your other Macs over the network.
• Imgur integration lets you share images fast and get a link for pasting.
• Quickly resize and convert images between different sizes and formats.
• Upload files to Amazon S3
• Upload files to your FTP server
• Upload files to your Google Drive
• Download and install add-on actions that let you upload to services like Google Drive, YouTube and many others.
• Powerful multi-tasking engine allows you to run multiple tasks at once and track the progress of each one through the in-grid task status area.
• See how tasks are progressing at a glance in the animated menu item.
• Launch Dropzone actions with the newly added keyboard shortcuts feature
• Add applications, folders or actions to your grid easily by dragging and dropping them on the Add to Grid area.
• Develop your own actions using the updated and massively improved Ruby or Python API

When downloaded from the Aptonic website the app is $35 for a lifetime license. The same license is $39 if you get it from the App Store. If you don’t want to spend that much or just try it out, you can pay $1.99 per month. If you are a SetApp subscriber, you are in luck as Dropzone Pro is included in your subscription.

For years, Bean, a free word processor for macOS has been my go-to when I needed to create a document with rich text, tables and images. Weighing in at only 8MB, it starts instantly and places little demands on even my wife’s 10-year-old machine. It reminds me of Microsoft’s WordPad in a way, only better. The developer, James Hoover issues regular updates including one as recently as last month. Hoover has written, “About Bean, some have said, “Why switch from Word? It has everything that I need!” So, keep using Word; I used Word for years and was reasonably happy with it. But Word is a big brute of a program. Sometimes using Word is like going out for lunch and getting this huge platter of greasy food when all you wanted was something light, like half a sandwich.” It’s not a Word replacement, but how often do you need all the bells and whistles?

Bean natively reads and writes these file formats:

• .rtf format (rich text)

• .rtfd format (rich text with graphics)

• .bean format (identical to .rtfd)

• .txt and plain text (Unicode and legacy)

• .webarchive format (Apple’s web archive format)

Bean transparently imports and exports these formats:

• .doc format (MS Word ‘97, minus images, margins, and page size)

• .docx format (Word 2007, minus images and some formatting)

• .odt format (OpenDocument, minus images, margins, and page size)

Bean can export all of the above formats to these formats:

• .html (web page format)

• .pdf

• .doc compatible (with images intact)

Features
• Live Word Count
• Make Template Documents
• Free-Form Headers and Footers
• Page Layout View (Optional 2-Up)
• Dark Mode, Alternate Colors
• Split-Window Editing
• Full Screen / Focus Mode Editing 
• Date-Stamped Backups
• Find Panel with Regular Expressions
• Word Completion and Dictionary
• Inspector for Formatting
• Highlighter
• Select By Text Style
• Floating Window

YouTube in undeniably a force in the modern world. My 77-year-old father watches it daily as does my four-year old granddaughter. If you watch YouTube on a PC running macOS, Windows or Linux, I suggest you do it with FreeTube. FreeTube is a privacy lover’s dream, using no trackers and allowing you to subscribe to your favorite channels without an account. All user data is stored on your machine and is never sent to or stored on the Internet. The data for videos is either scraped or obtained through the Invidious API. The interface is similar to YouTube and easy enough for a child to use. FreeTube is open source and THERE ARE NO ADS. You can even download videos using a one-button interface. You can create playlists and lists of favorites. I honestly do not know why this app isn’t more well known.

Settings

FreeTube has plenty of settings and you can make the interface as spartan as you want by turning off different elements.

The Sidebar

Video Buttons

There are buttons on each video for the following functions:

• Add to playlist
• Add to favorites
• Open in external player (like VLC or IINA)
• Download
• Change media formats
• Share

  

If you are an Apple Music subscriber, you know it’s not the best at letting you know about upcoming new releases. If you are really into music, you may get your news from social media or the entertainment press but there is a better way, the MusicHarbor app. This app will scan your music library to find the artists you listen to and create a list of upcoming albums you may want to put on your calendar. In some cases, you may even find recently released albums you weren’t aware of. It is a versatile app, allowing you to listen to single tracks or whole albums within its interface. You can use it to find videos that will open and play in Apple Music. The interface is extremely customizable as is the search feature. You can add and remove artists at will.  The app is so in tune with my preferences that it let me know about a new Johnny Cash album, and the Man in Black has been dead over twenty years.

• MusicHarbor website
• MusicHarbor on the App Store

On Macs, the default app for opening disk image files (DMG) is the native DiskImageMounter.app. You are not limited to using this app, however, you can use other tools like FastDMG or Keka to mount these disk images, one of the most common file types for downloaded apps from the Internet. The app that works best for me is RapiDMG. When you make RapiDMG your default app for opening disk images, double-clicking on the file mounts the disk image files, extracts the application contained in it to the Applications folder, deletes the DMG (if that is your preference) and then highlights your new installed app in the finder. It happens fast. If you are really into automation, you can use an app like Hazel or the built in folder actions service to automatically process DMGs in your downloads folder as soon as they are downloaded. RapiDMG is free to try for seven days, and a lifetime license is a whopping $0.99 in the App Store.  No data is collected about your machine during this process. The app was last updated seven months ago.  The developer is on Twitter @branchseer

Feel free to drop me a note with any questions