Five Free Single Purpose Apps

I’ve been making my way through some of the recent additions at thriftmac and testing some of the most useful looking apps. Here are five that address some real world issues in a simple and understandable way. You won’t have to spend a lot of time reading documentation or setting up intricate preferences. You can start using these quickly.

Trash Sweep
Trash Sweep

  • TrashSweep - For anyone who churns through a bunch of files, whether you are a chronic downloader. doing video editing or just overworked, automating the size of your Trash can be accomplished with this app that lets you set a certain size limit and when you reach it, begins deleting files on a first in, first out basis. Never be shocked by the size of your trash again.

Speediness
Speediness

  • Speediness — Sindre Sorhus - I'm making a rule that every list of good apps posted on r/MacApps has to include one from Sindre Sorhus. This app uses the macOS network-quality command line tool under the hood to give you better results than Ookla or fast.com. You can pair Speediness with other tools to have it run automatically and display the results in your menu bar. See the app's website for instructions.

JuxtaText
JuxtaText

  • JuxtaText - If you use an AI based grammar and spell checker that doesn't tell you what it changes in your test, use this app to find out yourself. Paste your original text in one pane and the corrected text in the other one, and let JustaText show you what got changed.

QuickRecorder
QuickRecorder

  • QuickRecorder for Mac This free app allows you to record your entire screen, an area of the screen you define, an application, a particular window or a mobile device connected via USB. In addition, it records system audio without the need for any extra drivers or applications.

Keycastr
Keycastr

  • KeyCastr - This free and open-source app is for anyone who does presentations, make videos or shares their screen. It allows your keystrokes to be displayed and you can choose the size, color, time on screen and the fade delay. It also shows mouse clicks.



Gladys - Free Shelf Utility that Syncs With iOS

Gladys Window and Info
Gladys Window and Info

I recently discovered Gladys, a free app that allows you to stash a variety of data types an a shelf on your computer display to retrieve later or to access from another computer or iOS device. I quickly tested:

  • A dragged image from a web page
  • Pasted text copied from the web
  • A URL dragged from my browser
  • An image file from Finder
  • A text document from Finder

All of these quickly synced via iCloud and were available immediately on my iPhone.

Some of the functionality is similar to Yoink, a paid app that also features a clipboard manager and a notes function.

Gladys is a native Mac app that supports standard keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste, handoff, Quicklook, Spotlight, Handoff, service integrations and a share extension for apps that don’t support drag & drop. You can use notes and labels for each item you add if desired. The app has built in search for any element. You can share items from Gladys with other users of the app, helpful on a workplace team or in a family environment. Glady collections can be exported and imported via .zip files.

Gladys has a strict privacy policy and employs no analytics. You can download it on the Mac App Store.


Mac Pilot for Customization and Utilities

Mac Pilot, a customization and utility app from Koingo Software is currently $3.00 on BundleHunt. There are similar apps like Onyx and Tinker Tool out there that are free, but for the price I thought I’d take a look.

Applications

Apps
Apps

Mac Pilot contains settings for several system apps. Here are just of the few things it can control.

  • Calendar - change event duration
  • Dock - single app mode, enable window previews
  • Finder - enable "Quit Finder"
  • Help Viewer - user normal instead of floating windows
  • Launch Pad - Reset contents, control \# of rows and columns
  • Music - enable half-star ratings
  • Quick Time - Remember open movies on quit
  • Safari - Backspace goes to previous page
  • Screen Capture - change file type
  • Spotlight - Reset index
  • System - Disable notification center
  • Terminal - Window focus follows mouse
  • Time Machine - Do not prompt to use connected drives

Disk

Gives info and lets you perform maintenance on individual partitions

  • Disks info
  • Files Info
  • Maintenance

File Browser

Detailed file information and settings

  • General - Includes last backup date
  • Details - Over 30 Unix characteristics on each file
  • Access - Adjust traditional permissions and ACLs
  • Advanced - Allows you to lock files
  • Legacy

Login

Login
Login

  • Change many features of your login screen - including the displayed image, which is totally worth the whole purchase price to me!
  • Show or hide any users of the computer on the login screen
  • Enable and disable login items and launch agents
  • Set defaults for window states on login

Logs

  • Built in log viewer
  • Complete list of system receipts for installed software titles that issue them

Maintenance

Maintenance
Maintenance

  • Automated - Enable or disable system cron jobs
  • Update or rebuild launch services database
  • ** Force empty trash and clear print queue - Very Helpful!**

Network

Network
Network

  • Detailed info for every network interface
  • Custom sharing settings including enabling airdrop on legacy machines
  • Shortcuts to hidden utilities: Airport Utility, Wireless Diagnostics
  • Complete Port List
  • Network Optimization for selected broadband connections

Power

Power
Power

  • Hidden settings for system, AC and battery
  • Sleep settings for disks, display, and system. Plus auto-power off settings
  • Hibernation settings
  • Scheduling for wake and sleep

Reference

  • Error Codes
  • Fonts
  • Key Combos
  • Manuals
  • System Profile

In addition there is a section for getting more information and doing some optimization but it requires disabling System Integrity Protection and I did not explore that.

The final potentially helpful tool is one that strips out the files from binaries for either Intel or ARM processors if you are running low in disk space and want to eliminate things you don’t need. I’d make damn sure I had a good backup before using that.


Switch Glass - A Configurable Application Switcher with Per Display Settings

Switch Glass Display and Prefs
Switch Glass Display and Prefs

If you are one of those Mac users frustrated by the fact that the default dock is only visible on a single display, or you don’t like the way it deals with hidden windows, or maybe you wish you could hide certain apps, you might want to try Switch Glass, an app by well known Apple podcaster, developer and writer, John Siracusa.

Switch Glass lets you configure a (hide-able) floating app switcher for each display in your setup.

• Visibility - Set it to be visible, hidden or auto-hidden/visible depending on mouse position 
• Position - Choose from eight positions on each screen 
• Orientation - Horizontal or vertical positioning 
• Background - Choose from four different backgrounds including dark mode toggling 
• Styling - Three different corner styles 
• Icon Size - App icons can be anywhere from 16 to 256 points in size 
• Icon Spacing - Adjust from 0 to 100% of the icons sizes 
• Margin - Adjustable around the switcher itself 
• App Sort Order - Apps can be sorted by name or launch order

You can customize what clicking or shift clicking on an app does, with options to bring all windows or a single window to the front. Using option+click will hide the current front app while opening the app you click on. The app switcher has a context menu for each app and supports dragging items to the icons to open them.

As would be expected from a developer known for having exacting preferences in his workspace, you can fine tune almost every element in the app. Switch Glass is $7.99 on the Mac App Store.


Yonks - A Well Designed Day Counter

Yonks Main Display
Yonks Main Display


Yonks is a well-designed iOS app that works quite well as a standalone app on Apple Silicon Macs. It’s a day counter that determines how many days since and event or how many days until an even with lots of extra special touches. For a one time purchase of $1.99 in the App Store vs. subscription apps at 4X that price just for a year of use, it’s almost unbeatable.

Ever wanted to know how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years have passed since you were born or since you got married? What about counting down to your next vacation or the end of an important project? Maybe you want to count the days since you started a diet, quit smoking or drinking or started a new fitness routine. Do you want a way to count down the time until a new movie or video game is released. Yonks (British slang for “a long time”) can do it for you.

Features

  • Choose between counting minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years and select a custom emoji and color for every counter.
  • Order your counters manually, alphabetically, increasing or decreasing by date or by color.
  • See when a notable milestone occurs (e.g. "When is your 1000 day anniversary?") and add it to your calendar.
  • Need to remember more than just a date? No problem, just add a custom note to your counter.
  • Yonks has a growing list of popular counters from a variety of categories (holidays, sports, movies, games, …) for you to add with one tap.
  • Change the date, time and number formats according to your local or personal preferences.

Yonks does not have iCloud syncing but I had no trouble creating my setup on my phone and exporting a json file via the settings that I easily imported on my MacBook via the same mechanism.

According to the developer, Stefan Grund, a new update is scheduled to drop on 2024-10-14 and version 2 of the app is in the works.

Yonks Prefs for an Entry
Yonks Prefs for an Entry


Marta - A Free Dual Pane File Manager

Marta Action Panel
Marta Action Panel


Marta is a free, dual-pane file manager for macOS written entirely in Swift, making it fast and responsive to both keyboard and mouse commands, although it specializes in the former. Under development since 2016 by software engineer Yan Zhulanow of Jet Brains, Marta may move to paid model in the future but for no it can be downloaded for free at the dev’s website.

Some of Marta's key features include:

  • Extensive keyboard support
  • No user tracking
  • Ability to edit files inside archives and nested archives
  • Documentation to guide users in customization
  • Theme supprt (plus you can add your own)
  • Plugin support through a custom Lua API
  • Actions panel (instead of layers of menus)
  • Quick search
  • Uses Mac's Quicklook and plugins
  • Toggle hidden files
  • Built in terminal
  • Disk usage analyzer
  • Multiple tabs and windows to create workspaces

Keysmith - Record Automation Macros With Ease

Keysmith Macro
Keysmith Macro


Keysmith is an automation app that works in any other app on your Mac to record actions you can later trigger from a menu or with a keyboard shortcut. I’ve been a Keyboard Maestro user for many years. I have over 800 macros within that application and a lot of experience using it, but after working with Keysmith for just a short while, I have to admit it makes some actions easier to record and activate. It’s not a replacement for Keyboard Maestro, but it will certainly supplement it.

Keysmith detects buttons, lists, and page loads automatically. The first macro I created with it was able to Open Obsidian, copy my daily note, open Day One, create a new entry and paste the content from Obsidian. I assigned it to HyperKey+D and was able to trigger it while I was in my web browser. I tinkered with it a little and was easily able to get it to close Day One after the entry was created.

The process is simple. You start the recording of a macro from a button on the menu bar. Your perform the action you need and Keysmith records your clicks and keystrokes. When you’re done, you save the macro, give it a name and assign a hotkey if you want to.

Some of the example macros available for download on the Keysmith web site are:

  • Refresh extensions in Chrome
  • Share screen in Discord
  • Eject external hard drive in Finder
  • Assign and submit a pull request on GitHub
  • Enable Dark Mode in macOS
  • New note with template in Apple Notes
  • Switch to a specific Slack channel
  • Switch to Zoom gallery view
  • Quit all apps with AppleScript
  • Close Notification Center in macOS

You can use the total functionality of Keysmith for free to make up to five macros. The full version is $54. It is also available as part of Setapp.


Licensed - A Nice Single Purpose App for Keeping Track of Your Software

Licensed Database
Licensed Database


One of the reasons that I go to r/MacApps every single day is the prospect of discovering news apps and developers. This week I found out that an ancient app (well, 17 years), Licensed, has been updated and is compatible with macOS 15. Licensed is a simple database to keep track of your software purchases. It has fields for:

  • Maker
  • Product
  • Version
  • Owner
  • Email
  • Code
  • Date
  • Notes

The database is searchable. From the app's file menu, you can identify the data file for easy backups, and you can export your data as a CSV file so that you can be assured you aren't locked into any proprietary format.

Licensed is a free app from developer Amar Sagoo. You can download it on his website.


The Zen Browser

Zen Browser
Zen Browser

I’ve found myself in a small and unpopular minority over the past couple of years as user and sometimes advocate for Microsoft Edge, mostly because I use it for work where I’m required to use Microsoft Admin Center and the suite of Microsoft 365 apps. I still stand by my opinion that it doesn’t suck, but I’ve been looking for a more privacy focused alternative to use outside of work, so I decided to take the Zen browser for a spin. Zen’s promise on its website is

"Beautifully designed, privacy-focused, and packed with features. We care about your experience, not your data."

Development is community driver and open source. You can go to GitHub and explore to your heart's content.

Zen Browser is built on the Mozilla framework and is compatible with the existing suite of plugins for Firefox. You can still use the good version of Ublock Origin with it. The testing I’ve seen shows that Zen is slightly speedier than base Firefox but not as fast as Chromium based browsers. To me the speed difference is negligible, and I am not going to split hairs or get out a stopwatch. It’s fast enough for daily use.

The developers of Zen tout how easy it is to customize, and they are not lying. It has a theme store, and you have your pick from a variety of looks. Similar to Edge, among others, Zen has a split view feature to allow you to run two web pages side by side. It’s uses vertical tabs by default and that took me some getting used to.

The side bar is like a mini browser which you can keep open to your favorite social media or news site or use with Wikipedia or other research material. Zen Browser’s compact mode hides all superfluous design and interface elements and leaves you just the data you need to focus on getting work done.

I was able to find the extensions I needed: Ublock Origin, Raindrop.io, Archive Page, Keychain Passwords, Toby, Aboard, Omnivore, Mark Download


CurrentKey Stats - A Triple Threat App


CurrentKey Stats has several target audiences.

  • Time tracking your app usage and time spent working. Unlike Apple's Screentime, CurrentKey Stats only tracks an app when it is in the foreground, not the whole time it is open to give you a more accurate view of your time.
  • Controlling movement between spaces. CurrentKey Stats lets you name each space with a descriptive name and lets you move between them with a menu bar icon or a hot key combo.
  • Automators who want to trigger certain actions tied to individual workspaces.

For time trackers, you can dedicate a task to a certain space/desktop on your computer and the app will give you a dedicated report for just what happens within that space. You use your browser for work and play, so just getting stats on your usage wouldn't necessarily be helpful unless you could tie that usage to a certain project. You can get reports that give insights into your last month, past two weeks compared hour-by-hour, and get you the ability to export your data in over 10 different reports! You can even set up automatically-generated weekly reports.

For those wanting more control over their spaces (the app calls them “rooms”), CurrentKey Stats lets you choose a different icon, color and name to be shown in your menu bar for each room. macOS lets you have up to 16 per display. With hotkeys you can move between them using the keyboard.

For automators, you can trigger AppleScripts whenever you enter a certain room. The workflows you could generate this way include automatically bring a specific app to the front, take a screenshot, mute the volume, toggle macOS dark mode, activate LED desk lights, trigger an IFTTT routine, selectively start/stop a timer based on what Room you are in or App is active. You can even pass parameters along to a Python script.

There is extensive information on Applescript usage and automation on the developer’s website.

CurrentKey Stats is available on the App Store. It offers a one month free trial. It is a subscription app costing $2.49 a month and there doesn’t appear to be an option for a yearly subscription or a lifetime purchase.


Apple Password App Is OK I Guess

Apple Passwords
Apple Passwords


I have been using the Apple Passwords App instead of a third-party alternative for a few weeks. I’ve managed to get my work done and not get locked out of any apps, so it’s OK, I guess, but it does not have all the features I’m used to and it has presented some frustrations.

To set up the app, you need to use a Mac and not an iPhone. You will probably already have some passwords in the app but you can download and import from your current password manager or browser and it will do a pretty good job of skipping duplicates.

The passwords app saves login information for web sites and apps, wi-fi networks, 2FA One-Time Passwords and passkeys. You can share passwords easily with people in your family or with others with just a few extra steps. If you have any weak, reused or compromised passwords, the security tab in the app will let you know and guide you through fixing the problem. One feature I like is that if you have one account that uses multiple websites, like Microsoft 365 for example, you can group them together so that the security algorithm doesn’t think you are reusing passwords.

To enable the Passwords app on your Mac go to Settings > General > Autofill & Passwords and enable AutoFill Passwords and Passkeys, along with Passwords.

The drawbacks to the app are plentiful. Unlike other password managers, the app doesn’t have a secure notes feature for storing things like backup codes for 2FA sites or your partner’s SSN pr passport data. If you use a browser other than Safari, it won’t suggest  passwords when you add a new site or change an existing account.  In my case, as an Edge user, it turned off the ability to fill forms with my name and address and it won’t allow me to add any credit cards to the form fill function in the browser.

There is a new app from a third party called Access Passwords Companion for people who want to use Apple’s Passwords and still have access to their other data. It’s a paid app with both a subscription and lifetime purchase option.


Daily - A Dead Simple Free Task Manager

Daily Interface
Daily Interface


The Mac ecosystem is not at a loss for task managers. Apple’s own Reminders app has steadily added features over the years, incorporating things like grocery shopping and adding items via Siri. There are full blown GTD systems for executives and others with super complicated lives like Omnifocus. Then there are wonderfully designed apps like Things 3 that you can make complicated if you want to. But what if you don’t have complex needs and don’t need areas and projects and subtasks and repeating tasks and all the other bells and whistles that come with those systems? What if you just want something to mimic the ease of pencil and paper?

If that’s you, then I suggest taking a look at Daily, a personal task manger designed to help you succeed. Its keyboard focused with just a handful of easy to memorize shortcuts designed to help you plan a day’s work without having to fiddle with an app. There is no carry over feature. the app is designed to help you plan a single day at the the time, although you do have the ability to refer to past days ir to skip ahead and add tasks to future days. It’s free and in active development with a few unobtrusive features coming in the near feature like:

  • iOS version
    - iCloud sync
    - Search
    - Appearance customization

Daily is available from Mac App Store.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts


Surfed - Fell Off, Drowned

Surfed Interface
Surfed Interface


I recently saw an announcement for the release of version 3.0 of the Internet history and bookmarking tool Surfed. Previous app store reviews of the app stated that it had a lot of potential but that it wasn’t a mature product. I had hopes that a new version would correct that.

I downloaded the app and purchased the pro version. I was disappointed to find out that the iOS version only works with Safari as I am an Edge user. After downloading the browser extensions needed for the app to work I opened a new tab in my browser to find that Surfed had taken over that feature and that if I disabled it, Surfed would not work.

One of the primary features of Surfed is recording your browsing history. It does this on a joint and per device basis. I have a desktop, a laptop, an iPad and an iPhone. Surfed consistently creates duplicate copies of both my computers causing me to constantly merge the browsing history of the copies with a master record and then delete the extras. Surfed also randomly stops or fails to record my browsing history for hours at the time.

After the 3.1 update, the new page browser feature is no longer working as it was before. I use my new browser page to hold shortcuts to frequently opened web pages and not having the ability to access those is a serious impediment to my workflow.

I imported about 1000 favorites from Raindrop.io into Surfed. The bookmarks are organized by the tags I had assigned in Raindrop and the tags in Surfed are case sensitive, which means that for many categories, I have for example, a #Blogging and a #blogging collection. There is no way to drag and drop multiple bookmarks onto the correct tag, nor is there a way to rename tags to merge them, making it necessary to retag the bookmarks one at the time. There is a workaround available that involves making a tag group I eventually discovered but the process was not intuitive and featured disappearing and reappearing tags. It was very confusing.

I plan to spend more time with Surfed to try and figure out how its logic works and to troubleshoot the reasons why it stops recording web history and why the browser page isn’t functioning properly. One of the things I discovered today was that the sync function has to be run manually from the menu Like previous reviewers have noted, the app has a lot of potential, but it is still not mature enough to recommend.

The developers website explains some more of the claimed functionality of the program.


Find Usernames from 400 Different Social Networks

Sherlock Search
Sherlock Search

The username I employ here on Reddit is one that I first used on my AOL account back in the 90s before you could even get a real Internet account in my area. Until recently, I had no idea how many times I’d employed it over the years, at least on services that are still in business. Well, thanks to a simple Homebrew app called Sherlock, I can search for my own or a friend’s username across 400+ social media networks. I tried it with a couple.

To install Sherlock, use the following Homebrew command from the command line in Terminal or your terminal app of choice: 

brew install sherlock


To use the app, type the following at the command line 

sherlock "username"

Notenik - A Well Designed Plain Text Notes Plus App

Notenik Collection
Notenik Collection


Anyone looking for a well-designed notes app that’s free and open source, native to the Mac platform and based on plain text files would be well served by checking out Notenik by independent developer Herb Bowie.. Within Notenik you can create numerous types of collections of notes including but not limited to:

  • Basic Notes
  • Links
  • To-dos
  • Sequenced list
  • Zettlekasten
  • Blog
  • Commonplace Book (with or w/out lookups)
  • Outline
  • Web Book
  • Website
  • Contacts
  • Travel Planner
  • Code snippets

Each collection of notes lives in a separate folder. The default location for the notes is iCloud but you can store then anywhere you want. You can save them as txt or Markdown files. Even though there isn't a native iOS app, you can use iOS text editors like Taio, iAWriter or 1Writer to access and edit your notes on that platform.

Each copy of Notenik comes with a complete knowledge base in Notenik format to help you use the application. The knowledge base is updated when new features are added and it is available offline.

Like other modern plain text notes apps, Notenik supports tags and other metadata. You can use double bracket wikilinks to connect your notes. For blind and visually impaired users, Notenik is fully voice over compatible.

This is an app that you need to download and experiment with to fully understand its power when it comes to things like creating websites and databases and all the options you have to incorporate personal productivity options into your note taking. The developer is very responsive and publishes a constant stream of new and improved features as well as squashing any bugs. Because Notenik is available from the App Store, it is easy to keep it updated.



A Folder Plugin for Quicklook


A Quicklook folder
A Quicklook folder


I've previously covered Quicklook plugins that let you use your spacebar in Finder to view things like package contents, videos, source code, compressed files and more. Recently the developer of the popular bookmarking app, Anybox, released a free Quicklook plugin for folders, which seems like a feature Apple should have included from the very beginning.

When you have a folder highlighted in the Finder, pressing the spacebar opens a window showing the folders contents. Pressing the spacebar a second time closes the window. When the window is open, you don’t have full Finder access to the contents, but you can use the mouse to open subfolders. You can also set up the default column display with only the columns you want. I tested the plugin with two Finder alternatives, Path Finder and Qspace and it worked with both of them. The contents of the folder display one level deep. The Quicklook interface displays the folder size and gives you access to the macOS share sheet.

The plugin is free and available on the App Store.


MacUpdater is Multifeatured

MacUpdater
MacUpdater


One thing I know about apps designed to identify and download updates for the applications on your Mac, none of them are 100% effective. I use a combination of MacUpdater, Latest, CleanMyMac and Topgrade to come as close as possible to updating my Macs. Of those four, MacUpdate has the most features.

MacUpdater maintains a database of over 100,000 Mac apps. The information you can get from within the app includes:

  • File size
  • Version number
  • Release notes
  • Developer website
  • Price
  • User rating
  • OS requirements - and much more.

MacUpdater does not require an account to use the program. No data is collected or reported on its users. If you have apps that you do not want to update, you can filter them from appearing in your results. You can automatically back up the apps you have installed so that they are not overwritten, making it easy to go back to a previous version. You can use MacUpdater to identify if which apps on your Mac are Apple Silicon native if you are trying to eliminate any Rosetta apps. Each day MacUpdater reports on all of the programs in it's database that have recently received updates, providing a good opportunity to download new apps to try out. It also has a categorized set of lists of the the most popular apps, all of which you can download directly from within MacUpdater or the App Store.

MacUpdater can be used for free to scan for outdated apps. Updating more than 10 apps requires a license, which cost $8. There is also a pro edition that cost $18 and allows you to automate the identification and installation of updates. You can use it on up to seven Macs. It supports updating audio plugins and there is an Alfred workflow for it. Support is promised on all versions through 2026-01-01.


EagleFiler

EagleFiler Icon
EagleFiler Icon


I wanted to create a central repository for all the personal data I’ve generated over the years in one location, searchable within a single program. I have a Gmail account that’s 19 years old with 144K messages. My Evernote account goes back to 2008 and has over 7K notes. In addition I have an Obsidian vault with another 7K notes plus an archive from Facebook beginning in 2008 and one from Twitter beginning in 2009. I have over 1K bookmarks in Raindrop.io and hundreds of personal documents primarily in Microsoft Office and PDF formats dating back to the mid-90s. The app I chose to create my personal database is EagleFiler by Command-C Software.

Using Google Takeout, I got an .mbox with all my old emails. I requested archives from social media sites. I created export files in Evernote and in Raindrio.io. The initial import process was fairly quick. Subsequent imports have been easy. Eagle creates a folder where you can place any type of document you want to have imported. When you open the program, everything in that folder is added to your primary database aka library.

Some of the things I really liked:

  • All my tags from Evernote imported along with the original creation date of the notes
  • Eagle created web archives for all of my bookmarks, giving me a static copy of many, many articles
  • Bulk edits to imported documents make organizing easy
  • Folder structure of notes is easy to manage
  • I can edit text and RTF files within Eagle Filer
  • I can search with Spotlight or using the app's native search
  • Built in encryption


EagleFiler is $59.99 on the developer's website, but keep your eyes peeled for sales. It was recently included in Bundle Hunt for under $10.


Opening Batches of Apps, Documents, Folders and Web Pages

There are several ways to batch open workspaces for various projects. The built in Apple tools, Shortcuts and Automator can do it for you if you know how to use them and don’t mind doing a bit of fiddling. Commercial apps like Workspaces ($19.99) have lots of features and a price tag. There are a couple of free options that are pretty easy to set up that support batch opening a variety of elements all at once.

Bunch

Bunch Menu
Bunch Menu

Bunch by Indy Developer Brett Terpstra uses plain text files to create collections of elements you want to open. On individual lines within a file ,you simply add a list off apps by name, files and folders via their path and web locations via their URL or as .webloc files. To name the workspace, you just enter a comment with a hashtag at the top of the file e.g., #Blogging. If you want to close certain apps when you open the workspace, you add them to the list preceded by an exclamation point, e.g. !Safari. You save the text files into a folder that defaults as a subfolder in your ~/Documents. The primary interface for Bunch is the menu bar icon. It has a few extra features like scheduling, hiding open apps and the ability to create a bunch from elements already open on your computer. Bunch is free and seems to be perpetually in Beta. There is extensive, helpful, well written documentation.

Stapler

Stapler Document
Stapler Document

A recent addition to the field is Stapler, although it’s based on a 32-year old classic Mac app of the same name. Stapler provides you with its own blank interface where you can add elements via drag-and-drop or from the menu bar. You save that list as a .stapled file and open the included elements by opening the file and pressing enter. Stapler is currently free.


Permute - Powerful, Easy to Use Media Converter for Images, Video and Audio

Permute Preferences
Permute Preferences


Permute by Charlie Monroe (developer of Downie) makes media conversion simple regardless of whether you need to manipulate images, video or audio. Its simple drag and drop interface instantly identifies the media you are working with and uses presets to convert the file to the format you want.

Permute does not require you to download any plugins for video conversion. It can convert FLV or MP4 files natively into dozens of other formats and vice versa. The current version of Permute is 3x faster than previous versions. If you have multiple videos to convert, the app has a scheduler so that you can do the conversions during off hours instead of pegging out your CPU while you are trying to do other work. Another valuable feature is Permute’s ability to merge videos so that if you have a part one and a part two, a simple right-click > Merge is all you need to make a single file.

Audio files can be turned into Apple Lossless or FLAC using the same simple drag and drop interface. If you have a video that you want to save just the audio portion of, Permute can easily do that as well.

Permute can turn PDFs into multiple image files, one per page if you need that functionality. It can also do the opposite, turning a folder full of image files into a single PDF.

There are so many other great features in Permute - adjust volume of an audio file or an audio track in a video. Batch-resize, rotate and flip images and videos, convert images to text. And more. When used in conjunction with Downie, you can auto format the downloaded videos for the device where you intend to watch them.

Permute is available on the developer’s website and from the App Store for $14.99. There is no current difference in the two versions. It is also available from Setapp.