AppAddict

SmartTracker

SmartTracker is a universal app that syncs across all platforms via iCloud. Using the URL from a vendor's page (Newegg, Amazon, Micro Center, etc.), the app tracks prices in near real time. You can set a target price and receive a notification within minutes of a price drop.

Several features stand out: charts, tracking numerical data beyond price, and collections. When I'm shopping for a big-ticket item, I find it useful to create a collection of the same product across multiple vendors. Today I got excited when Micro Center listed Mac minis for $100 less than Amazon--until I noticed the fine print: in-store pickup only, at a single store in Georgia.

You can use the free version for up to five items. The full version costs $19.99 in the App Store. The developer, Hugo Price (u/hprione on Reddit), is responsive to support requests, bug reports, and feature suggestions.

WithAudio

WithAudio is a powerful text-to-speech application under active development, with new features and improvements arriving on a weekly basis. It currently supports English and French, with Spanish and Hindi on the roadmap for the near future.

The app works offline after a one-time download of additional resources, which happens automatically after you enter your license. In addition to choosing a language, you can select from 29 different voices across male and female options.

Using your Mac, you can process entire books, queue long documents, and export MP3 or M4B chapters to build your own audiobook library. WithAudio supports EPUB, Markdown, TXT, and some PDFs. (Pro tip: use Calibre to convert PDFs to EPUB for free.)

The Mac app also lets you follow along as a document is read, automatically scrolling and highlighting each sentence. There's even a Chrome browser extension for reading web pages.

The app is priced at $25.50 for a lifetime license and includes a seven-day, no-questions-asked refund period after purchase. Check out the developer on Reddit: u/s3rgio0

Delvepad

My background is in educational technology, primarily in the K--12 world. I always enjoy finding indie apps for students because they're often built by dedicated developers with real skill in conveying information.

Delvepad, a free and open-source app, fits that description. It's available for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Macs and is useful as a reference tool for lessons on artificial intelligence and the training of large language models. It includes a glossary and shareable resources.

Check out the developer on Reddit: u/Other_Passion_4710

Unfriction

I'm on a lifelong quest to find the perfect scratchpad. The way I work involves accumulating and processing small fragments of text throughout the day. Sometimes I need that information for two minutes; sometimes I want to keep it forever. Either way, I need a way to find it later, when future me goes looking for it with only the faintest memory of what it contains.

A good scratchpad needs to be as friction-free as possible. It should open instantly, accept information without ceremony, and then get out of the way. That's exactly what Unfriction does

It's a Mac overlay notes app by indie developer and Reddit user u/Cute-River-1592 Beyond its near-instant launch, its features include smart tags, automatic OCR from screenshots and an endless built-in clipboard manager. You can do imports and exports of your notes and choose any file storage location you want. It has a limited free version, and a lifetime license will run you $19.99. for a transferable 2-Mac license.

✉️ Reply by email

I spent most of my computer using life on a Macbook and only recently started using a dual display setup. I didn’t start this process until after the release of macOS 26, Tahoe. Quite possibly, that may be the absolute worst time to be experimenting with this in the history of the Mac. This is not my favorite version of the operating system. I’ve found that some relatively common applications are resistant to window management across Spaces: Calibre, Obsidian, Better Touch Tool, System Configuration, and Elgato Stream Deck Configuration are all consistently problematic. In addition, having windows from the same application open on more than one desktop creates issues for most window-management applications. Instead of using multiple windows from one browser, I’ve found it easier to just run two different browsers.

I am 100% open to suggestions from anyone who’s been down this road before me. Tell me what apps you use and why. If you have suggestions for best practices, please pass them along. Here’s a list of the tools and applications I’m currently trying to adapt to the way I use my Mac.

Bunch

Bunch manages windows and Spaces indirectly through easy-to-use scripts. The developer, Brett Terpstra, is a Mac legend, and he very kindly helped me troubleshoot some weird problems I ran into—specifically losing the required file association to run the scripts. Imagine Word telling you it can’t open .docx files. That’s what Bunch kept doing to me.

Moom

The folks at Many Tricks are also legendary and genuinely nice. Moom is an award-winning app that lets you move and resize windows using hotkeys or menus. Theoretically, a setup like mine—two displays, twelve apps, eight Desktops—can be triggered with a single shortcut that launches everything and puts the windows exactly where I want them. I say theoretically because, with the apps I use, the results aren’t consistent, and it never gets everything right.

Spencer

Spencer doesn’t have Moom’s window-management depth. It’s designed for saving layouts for groups of Spaces/Desktops or for whatever is currently on screen across multiple displays. The developer is extremely responsive and even sent me a custom DMG that could control Calibre after learning I was having trouble with it. Unfortunately, like Moom, it doesn’t consistently place my apps and windows where I want them, so I end up making manual adjustments every time.

Snaps of Apps

The developer of Snaps of Apps is actively working on adding better Spaces support and improving responsiveness on laptops running in clamshell mode. I’ll continue testing every version he sends me.

Keyboard Maestro

This workhorse can actually do what I want, but it turns what other apps promise to do with a single click into a 50-step macro I have to build manually. That may simply be the price I have to pay to get things set up exactly the way I like them.

Better Touch Tool

For anyone fluent in Better Touch Tool’s action set, building the same kind of workflow as Keyboard Maestro is absolutely possible. It looks something like this:

• Navigate to the Space where you want to launch an app
• Insert pauses when switching Spaces
• Launch the app
• Pause
• Move the app’s window where you want it
• Pause

Elgato Stream Deck

I’m new to this gadget. It provides a physical interface that ties together Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro macros, Moom hotkeys, and scripts of all types. There’s simply no way I can cram many more hotkeys and trackpad gestures into my brain. I’m full.

Raycast

Raycast is another daily driver with window-management capabilities. I love the “almost maximize” command and invoke it instantly whenever an app tries to force full screen on me.

Stay

Stay remembers where your app windows live and puts them back there when displays change, apps relaunch, or the system restarts. It’s a persistence tool, not a controller—you arrange things once, and Stay enforces that memory. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work consistently. It’s effectively abandonware and seems better suited for people who constantly connect and disconnect external monitors.

My Basic Stack

The mysterious and obscure stack I’m using that’s causing me all these issues (/s) is listed below, If you are interested in why I use these apps, click the links. 

• Fastmail (Display 1, Space 1)
• Mona for Mastodon (Display 2, Space 5)
• Things 3 (Display 2, Space 5)
• Messages (Display 2, Space 5)
• Obsidian (Display 1, Space 2)
• Firefox (Display 2, Space 6)
• Drafts (Display 2, Space 6)
• Calibre (Display 1, Space 3)
• QSpace Pro (Display 2, Space 7)
• Vivaldi (Display 1, Space 4)
• Ghostty (Display 2, Space 8)
• QuickGPT (Display 2, Space 8)

Background

 My career was in educational technology, and I moved from school to school with a MacBook to put out fires and manage networks. I had one 15- or 16-inch display, and that was it. Now that I’m retired and have a desk of my own—complete with two 27-inch displays—I’m trying to create some new habits. As part of that, I’m attempting to use Spaces and Desktops in my workflow for the first time.

On a laptop with a single display, I was in the habit of running every app in full-screen mode and switching back and forth as needed. Now, with all the screen real estate I have, duplicating that workflow feels absolutely wasteful.

I settled on using four desktops per display, for a total of eight. I typically run around a dozen non–menu bar applications at a time, and I change them up depending on what I’m doing. I have one set of apps I use when I’m writing, another set for media management, and a third set for experimenting with automation tools and my self-hosted server.

✉️ Reply by email

When it comes to sharing data from a Mac, there are plenty of scenarios and plenty of methods. Identifying the right tool for the job comes with experience. Whatever method you land on today might not be the best method in a year--and that's OK. Sometimes a system you already know how to use and troubleshoot is better than something new and unproven, no matter how many bells and whistles it has. And then there's the gradual enshittification of tech, where the useful and free tool you once loved slowly becomes expensive and exploitative.

Regardless of circumstances, the criteria most people use to judge these tools in today's tech world are security, speed, and reliability.

My Use Cases

There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for sharing files.

• It depends on the type of data you want to share: an image, a link, a single document, a 20 MB DMG, or an 11 GB MKV video.
• The type of device the intended recipient is using.
• The sensitivity of the information. There's a big difference between a funny meme and a copy of your tax returns.
• How soon the information needs to be available to the recipient.

Scenario 1 -- I have a link or image and I want to share it RIGHT NOW to the iPhone, iPad, Windows laptop, or MacBook my partner is using.

If you're going from one Apple device to another, built-in tools like AirDrop, Messages, or email are all viable options, with AirDrop being the flakiest. That's usually because both sender and recipient need the correct settings, and the recipient has to be savvy enough to know where the received file ended up on their device.

If you're sharing with a Windows or Android user, a cross-platform messaging service like Signal or Telegram can work. For the tech-savvy, LocalSend is a useful app that's cross-platform, free, and powerful, with a few gotchas. It has to be running on both devices, and anyone with a complicated firewall setup may be in for a headache.

Scenario 2 -- I have several documents I want to share with my partner, who will need to download and use them on her MacBook.

When you're at home, there's no need to send the information through the internet. LocalSend is a good option. You can transfer files even if your internet connection is down.

While it's relatively easy to turn on local file sharing for Macs on the same network, it's a best practice to leave that turned off, as it opens up another attack vector for bad actors. If you resort to email, get in the habit of sending files in password-protected ZIP archives. Free tools like Keka can handle that easily. Another easy-to-use and powerful encryption tool is Encrypto.

If it better suits your purpose, most cloud services (iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive) have Finder integration that lets you share links to files. Just make sure you know whether you're sharing a copy of a file or sharing access to the file--there is a difference.

I don't use US-based cloud storage for most of my files. The two services I do use, Koofr and kDrive, both offer sharing through links. Koofr offers lifetime access to 1 TB of storage for $139. kDrive has a 3 TB subscription plan for just €4.99 a month.

Scenario 3 -- I have a collection of documents, images, and links I want to access from my phone, iPad, and Mac, with changes made on one reflecting on the others.

This is where you need a reliable cloud service. iCloud is built in, but results can vary wildly for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I have folders on two Macs that live about three feet apart, and they'll go days without syncing Desktop and Documents.

If you're tech-savvy, there are self-hosted options like Immich for photos and Nextcloud, a roll-your-own cloud service with many compatible apps and plugins--but did I mention that it's slow?

Scenario 4 -- I have 16,000 books, 150,000 photos, and 32,000 songs I want to continually sync between four computers on the same LAN for reasons that make sense to me.

For giant jobs like this, the champ is Syncthing. The situation I describe above is my real-world use case. I like to manage my images on my relatively fast MacBook, but I sync copies to two ancient iMacs (running Linux) that I use as giant digital photo frames, while also maintaining multiple backups of my photos.

I also manage my ebook collection on my Mac, while syncing it to my self-hosted server so I can use Calibre Weband Audiobookshelf for remote access.

Scenario 5 -- I am traveling and need to get files onto the hard drive of my home computer so I can remote in and do X to those files.

If your cloud service of choice isn't an option--because it's acting flaky, you have space limitations, or for other reasons--using Blip is worth considering. Blip is a free service that can handle large, multi-GB files and resume transfers if they're interrupted. It uses TLS 1.3 for in-transit security.

It's not pure peer-to-peer; your data uses Blip's infrastructure for signaling. I sometimes have problems getting my devices, all signed into the same account, to see each other. Unlike LocalSend, Blip works across the internet, and plenty of people use it without issues.

My other suggestion in this category is Taildrop, the file-sharing protocol between your personal computers on the same Tailscale network. It's as easy as using the share menu on your Mac or mobile device. It's relatively new and still in alpha, but it's free, and I've never had an issue with it.

Scenario 6 -- I need to share a large file with a random internet stranger I may never talk to again.

This is a case where using a shared link from a cloud service or Nextcloud is your best bet. There are also browser-based sharing services that might work. PairDrop works well as a PWA in Safari.

Scenario 7 -- I have a collection of files I want to share with the internet at large and be able to update and change them.

There's no need to buy a domain name or open an account with a hosting service and CDN. Just use GitHub.

I'm no coder, but I've had a GitHub account for ages for several different reasons. It's what I use to share my automation settings for Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, and Better Touch Tool. Using GitHub Desktop, I can move files into a folder on my Mac and sync them to GitHub in just a couple of minutes.

You don't have to understand pull, push, or git to make use of GitHub. Once you have an account, you can also use it as a free backup service for Obsidian or even blogging platforms like Micro.blog.

A Couple of Newcomers

If you're interested in these kinds of apps, there are a couple of new ones worth keeping an eye on.

Zynk -- a new freemium service worth testing.

• Send folders, photos, and multi-gig archives
• Works across phones, laptops, TVs, and servers
• End-to-end encrypted
• Resumable transfers
• No size limits
• Built-in chat and voice
• Share via the app or browser links
• Preview files in the app before downloading

Droplet -- still in TestFlight. I'll be writing more about this when it's released. Droplet is an app for almost instantly moving files between Macs and iOS devices. It offers a simple drag-and-drop interface that literally takes about 15 seconds to learn.

✉️ Reply by email

Someone asked me to name the best free app available to Mac users in 2026. I didn’t hesitate before choosing Tailscale.

Tailscale is a VPN, but not in the usual sense. It’s a private, encrypted, identity-based network where your devices recognize each other no matter where they are. It uses WireGuard technology and is often described as a mesh network. The terminology isn’t important. This isn’t the kind of VPN that simply masks your home IP address or anonymizes web traffic.

Tailscale lets you treat a collection of devices in different geographic locations as if they were all in the same building, plugged into the same network and connected to the same switch. In practice, you can link computers in your home, at your office, while staying in a hotel, and even machines belonging to family members. It works across platforms, and all traffic is end-to-end encrypted. You don’t mess with opening ports or exposing your home network to the internet. You don’t have to learn AWS, firewalls, or how to configure TLS certificates. The computers associated with your free Tailscale account are referred to as your Tailnet.

You don’t have to feel like you’re studying for your CCNA whenever you use software that relies on networking. If some of the details sound confusing, that’s fine. Tailscale doesn’t require you to understand subnets, routing, or DNS to be useful. You install it, sign in, and your devices can see each other.

If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. You don’t need to fully understand it to take advantage of the power of this free tool. You just need to learn how to use the Tailscale app, which isn’t overwhelming at all. You don’t have to understand subnets or routing.

One of the most useful features of Tailscale is the concept of an exit node. An exit node is a computer you control that has internet access. When you need to access the internet in a private and protected way from another computer, you can toggle a single switch in Tailscale to route your network traffic through that remote machine, no matter where you are.

I recently vacationed in Central America and relied on hotel Wi-Fi. I didn’t need to enable—or even install—a conventional VPN on my laptop. I simply chose a computer in my home, 2,000 miles away, as my exit node and used it as my gateway to the internet.

If you have a VPN subscription to a service like Nord or Mullvad that’s limited to a small number of devices, you can sometimes work around that limitation by using one of your machines as an exit node. You can even access that exit node from your phone, whether you’re on a cellular network or Wi-Fi. Once connected, all of your traffic appears to the receiving services as if it’s coming from your home computer.

I use a private tracker to download what are commonly referred to as Linux ISOs. That tracker only works when it sees my computer as being connected from the IP address assigned to my home router. If I’m traveling and need access, I just connect through the Tailscale exit node on my self-hosted server and everything works as expected.

There’s also an Apple TV app for Tailscale. I gave my brother, who lives on the opposite side of the country, access to my Tailnet so he can watch regional sports like NCAA basketball that are only broadcast locally.

Tailscale isn’t a replacement for every kind of VPN. It won’t automatically anonymize all your traffic the way a commercial VPN service does, and it doesn’t make unsafe devices magically secure. You still need good passwords, disk encryption, and basic common sense.

What it does exceptionally well is remove friction. It gives your devices a private, encrypted way to find each other without turning you into an amateur network engineer.

Using an iPhone or iPad with an SSH client, I can connect to my home-based Macs and Linux boxes to run scripts, reboot machines, restart services, and transfer files.

Because I can use macOS Screen Sharing, I can also easily access Macs belonging to family members for whom I provide technical support. When I need to remote into their machines, there’s nothing to set up. They don’t have to find or report their IP address to me. I can see everything I need in the Tailscale app.

Another use case for power users is remote backups using rsync. This is especially useful if you follow the 3-2-1 backup model: three copies of your data, on at least two different types of media, in at least two different geographic locations. You can set up a headless Mac or Linux box at a friend’s or relative’s house and sync your important documents and media with a simple script. As far as your computer is concerned, that remote system might as well be sitting right beside it.

A free Tailscale account allows you to add up to 100 devices and assign management access to three users. If you’re setting up computers for family members or friends who aren’t technically proficient, you don’t have to give up one of those seats. You install Tailscale using your account, and they rarely—if ever—have to do anything other than turn their computer on. From there, you can use tools like Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, and other automation utilities to get real work done.

Tailscale is good, solid technology packaged in easy-to-use apps. It still requires sensible password management, like any other tool. You’ll still want a conventional VPN if you need to anonymize traffic from at least one device. But Tailscale removes barriers that once made these kinds of setups the exclusive domain of network engineers—and it does so quietly, reliably, and for free.

✉️ Reply by email

I've tried a variety of notch apps, and I haven't been truly happy with any of them. I'm not sure whether the novelty of the interface is the problem, or if it's the design of the apps I've used that bothers me. I recently installed Droppy, a free and open-source app built entirely with Swift for speed and stability, and I like it more than the other notch apps I've used.

It isn't overloaded with superfluous features, and the features it does have can be toggled on and off easily. It also seems very stable--I haven't encountered any bugs so far.

Utility Replacements

Depending on which features you enable, Droppy can replace several categories of single-purpose apps:

• Clipboard Manager -- Toggled off by default, you can enable a clipboard manager that's accessible from the notch interface. If you cut and paste a wide variety of elements all day long, you'll want something more powerful, but for casual use it gets the job done. It has keyboard controls, lets you choose how many items to keep in your history, and includes privacy protections like disabling password storage or excluding entire apps. If you copy an image containing text--whether it's a photo or a screenshot--Droppy can use OCR to extract that text.
• Mini Music Player -- The mini music player displays the current track and album art in the notch, with the usual controls for previous and next tracks, play, and pause.
• File Shelf -- Droppy lets you drag files in and out of the notch or into a floating window, much like apps such as Dropover, Yoink, and Gladys.

Extensions

Droppy's architecture allows you to add or remove features through extensions. This keeps the bloat down. You won't be faced with menu options for Spotify or Alfred if, like me, you don't use either of those products. The currently available extensions include:

• AI background removal
• Alfred integration
• Adding the Services menu
• Spotify integration
• Screen capture of UI elements
• Window snapping
• Voice transcription

Other Features

• A heads-up display appears when you use the keyboard controls for brightness and volume. You can also enable an HUD for AirPods if you use them with your Mac.
• On my M2 MacBook Air, Droppy uses about as much memory as Apple Notes or Messages--that is to say, not much. It does consume some CPU cycles and power, but it's not going to hog your system resources.
• You can choose to have Droppy appear as a notch even on Macs that don't actually have one. Alternatively, you can have it appear as a Dynamic Island to mimic the behavior on the iPhone. The functionality is the same either way.

Other Notch Apps

I tried Notchnook shortly after it came out, and it felt more like a minimally viable product than a finished app--despite its $25 price tag. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Review of Notchnook

My second choice in this category is Dynamic Lake Pro, which sells for $15.90 on Gumroad. It has a couple of features Droppy doesn't, such as a weather and calendar HUD and notification support. It's updated frequently, and the developer is very responsive to bug reports and user questions.

✉️ Reply by email

Apps gain new capabilities through updates. Our preferences change, task requirements shift, and workflows evolve right along with them. It pays to periodically reevaluate the tools and methods we rely on. As a writer and blogger, I go through a surprising number of images every day. My goal is simple: images should be optimized for file size, renamed intelligently, and land exactly where I need them for current projects. After 24 hours, they should be archived--still accessible, but no longer cluttering my active workspace.

Start with Downloads

Clotski is a menu bar utility for browsing, tagging, renaming, and editing metadata for images in user-specified folders--most often Downloads, Screenshots, and project folders. Its superpower is the ability to automatically save images from your clipboard to a location you define in the app's settings. In my setup, copied images are saved as JPGs directly into the Downloads folder.

NameQuick Steps In

NameQuick is a powerful automation tool that has improved significantly since I first started using it. Beyond AI-assisted renaming, it can move, tag, add comments to, archive, or trash images based on rules you define.

In my setup, NameQuick evaluates images in Downloads. Screenshots are renamed based on their content and the app that created them, with "Screenshot" appended to the filename. Once renamed, the files are moved into the folder where my current project files live. I use CleanShot X for screenshots for many reasons, but especially for how well it integrates with Raycast, ExtraBar, and CirMenu.

Other images follow a similar path: they're given short, descriptive filenames and moved into the same project folder.

Optimization

There's no reason to work with image files that take up more disk space than necessary. For that reason, I use Clop to automatically optimize every image I work with, unless there's a rare and specific reason not to. Clop watches the project folder and, when a new image appears, runs a process to reduce its file size. Its interface also makes it easy to upload files to cloud services, send images to an editor, compare diffs against existing images, and handle a handful of other related tasks.

Cleanup with Hazel

Most images in this setup exist for an immediate purpose: a blog post or a document I'm actively working on. By the next day, I usually don't need them anymore. To handle that, I use a Hazel rule that moves any file older than 24 hours into an archive folder. From there, another Hazel rule permanently deletes those files after 90 days.

✉️ Reply by email

You don't need wads of disposable income to enjoy new software on a regular basis, and you don't have to rely exclusively on freeware to get useful work done on your Mac. You're the only one who knows what your budget can support. I've been buying independently developed software since before people called them apps--back when you dialed into a local BBS to download shareware from the computer eccentric you met at the last user group meeting. My hometown even had a store in the '90s where you could rent commercial software. This was before Little Snitch mattered, because most home users didn't even have Internet access.

Saving Money Without Being Miserable

1. Look for alternatives before you buy.
   Use AlternativeTo, a site that suggests apps similar to the one you're researching. The listings are rated and reviewed by regular people and clearly labeled as free or paid, open source or proprietary, with links to download or purchase.

   Here’s an example using Hazel as the starting point–I got 19 alternative suggestions in seconds.

2. Cancel free trials immediately.
   When you download an app with a free trial from the App Store, cancel the subscription right away. In 99% of cases, you'll still get the full trial period without the risk of forgetting and getting billed. You'll also get a reminder when the trial is ending, giving you time to decide whether the app is worth keeping.

   If you do subscribe, yearly plans are almost always cheaper than monthly ones. Be especially wary of weekly pricing. I recently tried a translation app that cost 49 cents for seven days–after that, it jumped to $10.99 per week.

3. Use software deal sites you trust.
   Bookmark a few reliable discount sites and check them regularly. The folks at Bundlehunt are building their own app store (currently in beta) with discounted apps like MacPilot, Menubar X Pro, KeyKeeper, Workspaces 2, and Alarm Clock Pro.
   Another solid option is Apps.Deals, where top-shelf apps like Spencer, TextSniper, and ProcessSpy are frequently discounted. All are on sale now.
4. Buy in November if you can wait.
   November is the best month of the year to buy software. In the indie world, offering Black Friday savings has become a tradition with deep discounts. Reddit, GitHub, and tech bloggers usually maintain running lists of deals. With a little patience and research, 40--50% discounts on premium software are common.
5. Use AppRaven to track prices and freebies.
   Appraven is an iOS app that connects you to a community of people who genuinely love software. It tracks current and historical App Store prices across Apple platforms, which makes it easy to tell whether a "sale" is real.
   You can get near-instant notifications when paid apps temporarily go free, browse curated user-created lists, and create wish lists that notify you when prices drop. One of my favorite lists to follow is focused on apps that support Apple Shortcuts.
6. Use educational discounts if you're eligible.
   If you have an email address tied to a K--12 or higher-ed institution, there are a lot of legitimate discounts available. There's even an education-only app store called Student App Centre. Apple also offers education pricing on hardware.
7. Stick to curated sources for free software.
   Curated lists reduce the risk of downloading an unvetted GitHub project that turns out to be malware. A few good starting points:
   • MacUpdate Search -- recent releases of free Mac apps
   • OSS Software -- more technical, but approachable
   • thriftmac -- 400+ quality free Mac apps
   • Mr. Free Tools -- software and web services
   • MacMenuBar -- Recently Added -- one of the best Mac software sites around
   • Today on Mac -- thoughtful reviews
   • Top Mac Apps -- from the MacUpdater app
   • Privacy Tools -- excellent for security and privacy
   • Awesome Free Apps on GitHub -- a long list worth exploring carefully

Saving Money the Dumb Way

Don't download cracked or pirated software. It's easy to find sites with massive catalogs of apps, usually delivered at glacial speeds unless you pay for "premium" access (Bitcoin preferred). Even when the apps are recognizable titles, they're often modified in ways that break Gatekeeper, Apple's built-in malware protection.

To compensate, these sites usually provide a mysterious Terminal script you're told to run. None of this is smart. Even if nothing immediately bad happens, you're often left with an app you can't update without breaking it.I don't lose sleep over Adobe's or Microsoft's profits, but stealing a $4.99 app from an independent developer who built something genuinely useful is just low-class.

I also have mixed feelings about asking developers for freebies or discounts. Some--like Sindre Sorhus--openly encourage students and users in low-income countries to reach out, which makes sense. I'm privileged enough not to need that. On the flip side, I regularly get emails from people who assume I'm the developer of an app I reviewed. Most are polite; some are pushy. Decide where you land, and act accordingly.

✉️ Reply by email

Complex, multi-purpose apps with a zillion functions can be fun to learn, even if you never quite feel like you've mastered them. Every time I tinker with my Raycast setup or my collection of Keyboard Maestro macros, I get the nagging feeling that I'm not making the best use of those apps. To remedy that feeling, it's refreshing to discover a few simple apps that do one thing well--and that's all. Here are a few I've been tinkering with lately.

• Clean Links (Free) -- Although there's a useful Raycast extension to strip tracking info from links on your clipboard, Clean Links--a universal app that also works on iPhones and iPads--offers a bit more functionality. It can show you the URL embedded in any QR code, and it can also generate QR codes you can share or print. It works with Apple Shortcuts for anyone who enjoys a little automation, and it has a robust privacy policy: no ads, no trackers, no telemetry.
• Photo Sort ($4.99) -- Try this: open Apple Photos on your Mac. Select an album--or your entire library--and try to sort by file size. I'll wait… As you've probably discovered, that's not a feature Apple offers, for some strange reason. I had some huge (100MB+) TIFF files and a lot of RAW images in my library, and while finding them was possible, it wasn't simple. With Photo Sort, it's as easy as clicking a button to identify the biggest files and start saving iCloud storage. Photo Sort can also identify high-quality images, helping you spot the keepers (in focus, properly exposed, good white balance) and ditch the blurry, dark, out-of-focus junk.
• Russet (Free) -- If you want to use agentic AI tools for your calendar and contacts, or extract data from PDFs without having to search manually, check out Russet. It's a well-designed front end for Apple Intelligence (Apple Silicon only) that requires no API keys and no accounts with third-party AI companies. Russet also has a few whimsical touches that are fun to explore in your downtime, including a feature that collaborates with you to create text-based adventures and immersive stories. You can also take advantage of Apple Intelligence writing tools for proofreading and revision, with an additional option to use a biometric lock to keep your work private. Everything Russet does stays on your device. It doesn't require an internet connection.
• Float Tube ($2.99) -- If you use Safari with YouTube, you can't natively scroll through comments and watch the video at the same time. Scroll down, and the video disappears. With Float Tube, a Safari extension, a floating picture-in-picture window appears as you scroll, allowing you to keep watching while reading comments and notes. Float Tube will also display the video's subtitles.
• Floxtop ($19.99) -- For years, I've used the same organizing structure for my ~/Documents folder. I created a Hazel rule that sorts files by extension, and while I've made it work, I'd never claim it's the most efficient approach. When I'm looking for an image, I don't always know whether it's a JPG or a JPEG. If someone sends me a Word document, I'd better hope I gave it a descriptive name, because otherwise I'm scanning files until something looks familiar. Floxtop offers a better solution. It uses on-device AI to analyze files and group them into related subfolders. I had dozens of PDF receipts, and it sorted them instantly--without my having to create manual rules like I would with Hazel. It recognizes text and images, and it gives you a chance to review everything before applying changes. Sorting a folder with 100 documents goes from 100 tiny decisions to a single step. And I have to say, I really enjoyed interacting with the developer.

✉️ Reply by email

Rather than trying to consolidate all the image tools I use into one giant app with hundreds of features, I prefer to use smaller, specialized apps that are single-purpose or that have a small feature set. They are easier to learn, faster to launch, and often maintained by a very experienced developer with years of experience. Here's a collection of such apps that you might find useful.

Toyviewer, My Default App for Opening & Viewing Images

Dating back to the 90s, Toyviewer (free) can open just about any image format you throw at it, including ones that Preview won't touch. You can view images one at a time or use its slide show mode. For simple, one-off edits, ToyViewer can adjust the brightness, contrast, and color tone of images, and perform enhancements, embossing, etc. It does file conversions, and you can also print from it.

ImageOptim, My Go-To for Shrinking File Sizes

ImageOptim (free), a powerful compression app, can be accessed by dropping images on its icon in the dock, through integration with macOS services, or by opening the GUI and dropping a single file or a batch of files into the interface. It is essentially a wrapper for a powerful set of compression tools. It's capable of reducing file sizes by up to 90% with no discernible quality loss. It does its work quickly, even on older Macs. If you are a Qspace user, you can add ImageOptim to the right-click menu. You can recover the original files without losing access to the converted ones.

XnConvert for Batch Image Operations

If you come across a folder of RAW photos, a collection of giant TIFF files, or maybe some PSD files that never got finished in Photoshop, you can use XnConvert (free) to turn them into something manageable and useful all at once. Not only can you batch convert them into a new format, but you can also do resizing, renaming, adjusting colors, applying filters and effects, and editing metadata all in one go.

Digikam for Management

I keep one canonical collection of photos for myself and my wife in the file system of my daily driver that gets synced to other computers, a couple of backup drives, and two cloud services. I still use iCloud for the photos I take with my phone, but just for the sake of convenience in viewing and sharing; I don't try to make it the comprehensive, go-to source for my entire photo library. Digikam (free) is a huge app with more features than Adobe Lightroom. I use it for facial recognition, tagging, filtering, and file management, but it can do a whole lot more. I installed the Linux version on two old 24-inch iMacs just to use them as extra-large digital photo frames.

Immich for Sharing and Remote Access

I use Immich (donationware) in a Docker container that reads the file structure I maintain in Digikam. Using the companion iOS app, I can remotely access my entire photo collection on my phone using its powerful search features, albums, and tags. I can also use its built-in web server with a domain I own to get to my photos from any Internet computer. The Immich developers give you access to the entire feature set right off the bat, but they do ask that you help support the app financially if you continue to use it.

Some Other Useful Tools

• Better Finder Attributes ($24.95) - I am relentless about the way I organize my photos. All my file names contain the date the photo was taken. I have digital photos dating back to 1995 that have lived on many, many computers, drives, and servers through the years. Periodically, the EXIF data gets corrupted or missing or overwritten, but I can always fix it with this app.
• Better Finder Renamer ($29.95) - This is the most powerful and fastest renaming utility in the Mac world. If you can come up with a renaming concept in your mind, the chances are that you can accomplish it with this app. Like I said, my naming system is at the heart of my whole management workflow. This makes it easy.
• Parachute Backup ($4.99) - If you stay in the Apple Photos world, but you want a good backup option, this is the one to use. Remember, iCloud is a syncing service, not a backup service.
• Syncthing (free) - If you manage your own photos in your file system like I do, this is the tool to use to sync them in real time to other computers (e.g., a self-hosted server) within your network.
• PhotoSweeper ($15) - The fastest and most full-featured duplicate manager for Macs.
• PowerPhotos ($39.95) - If you want to use Apple Photos but need features it doesn't provide, this is the tool to get to manage multiple iCloud libraries, to batch edit metadata, to search multiple libraries at once, and to copy and move files between libraries. If you don't use PhotoSweeper, the PowerPhotos duplicate finder is also pretty solid.
• Acorn ($19.95) - If you want to do real editing work on images but don't want to buy an 800-page book of instructions or get an Adobe subscription, the app I suggest is Acorn. A two-time Apple award winner, it's a one-time purchase and you get access to extensive online documentation, a user forum, and tech support. The current version is a universal binary compatible with macOS 14 and 15, but earlier versions can still be downloaded.

✉️ Reply by email