AppAddict Newsletter

The Mac utility Unclutter has been around for over a decade and is still going strong. Unclutter is three utilities built into one app: a universal clipboard manager, a convenient file shelf and a floating notes manager. I used it for years with rock solid performance. If you are on an underpowered Mac or one with limited RAM, you can use Unclutter to reduce the number of utilities running in the background without sacrificing functionality. Of course, if you don’t need advanced features, Unclutter provides plenty on all on its own.

Clipboard

• Save frequently used snippets for reuse
• Hides sensitive data from password managers
• Three different view options

File Shelf

• View as list or icons
• Search for files on the shelf they begin to accumulate
• Make copies or aliases with keyboard shortcuts

Floating Notes

• View a single note or a list of notes
• Full text search your notes
• Handier than a sticky

The Unclutter interface stays hidden at the top of your screen until you move your mouse there, causing it to drop down and become available. It's possible to sync your files and notes between computers if you configure Unclutter to use iCloud or another cloud service.

Unclutter is a one-time purchase of $19.99 in the App Store. A free demo is available on the developer’s website. It is also available on Setapp.

If you have low resolution images that you’d like to enhance and enlarge, maybe in your Photos library from an older iPhone or older digital camera, you can use Upscayl to enhance and enlarge them up to 4x. The resulting image had added realism and is absent blurriness and jpg compression artifacts. It works on jpg, png, tiff and other common image formats using AI technology that is based on the program files on your computer. No Internet connection is required.

The program is simple to use and works quite well with the default settings. It can enlarge images to 2x, 3x or 4x. Even complex full color images process quickly. You can use it to enlarge and enhance old family photos. Batch processing is also on option. It will make conventionally sized images large and sharp enough to use for prints and posters. Anyone from the casual smart phone user to archivists and historians can find a use case for this application.

Although there is a paid version of Upscayl on the Mac App Store, you can download and use the identical program from Upscayl.org by choosing the DMG download option. Versions are also available for Windows and Linux. The source code is on GitHub. You can file tech support requests there. The developer, Nayam Amarshe, is also available on Twitter and has a listed email address.

Spaces for Mac, a native Apple silicon app, is helpful for setting up your device in a custom manner depending on the task at hand. You can use it it to specify what apps, web sites (in the browser of your choice) and system apps you need to accomplish a certain type of goal. As an example, when I get ready to update my applications, a task I do regularly, I use a space that contains the following:

• MacUpdater 
• Latest 
• App Store
• iTerm2 
• AppCleaner 
• Qspace 

Using a predefined setting in Spaces (there are 16 to choose from), I tile MacUpdater, Latest and iTerm2 and hid the other apps. After I run the programs and update my app portfolio, I close the Space and that quits everything but Qspace and returns my computer to the state it was in before I started.

As a Raycast user, I appreciate the free extension that lets me open or create a new Space right from the keyboard. Using deep links, I can also create macOS shortcuts to turn spaces on and off. (See it on YouTube)

Spaces is $6.99 for students and residents of low-income countries and $10.99 for everyone else. Both licenses include lifetime updates. You get:

• Unlimited Workspaces
• 16+ Custom Layouts
• Layout Switcher 🔗
• Manual Controls
• Siri Shortcuts
• Deeplinks support
• Raycast Integration
• macOS Monterey(M1) or later
• 1 License per device

Other similar apps include Bunch by Brett Terpstra (high learning curve) and Workspaces2, $19.99 in the Mac App Store.

I do love a good single purpose app. Like most sentient human beings in the 21st century, I need to express myself on social media every few hours. Often these expressions take the form of quotes from one of the many blogs I read. Text Shot by developer Chris Hannah lets you take snippets of texts from a web page (or any source you choose) and create attractive and shareable images suitable for social media, blogs or email. You can add title, source, author, and the quote, or any combination of elements. The app allows you to choose a theme font or size to control how your text shot looks. You can style text using bold or italics using Markdown. It even has shortcut support so that you can craft your own automations to make sharing easier.

Text Shot is a universal app, working on the iPhone, iPad or Mac. It is a $2.99 one-time purchase in the App Store. Its privacy policy states that it collects no information. It is part of Apple’s Family Sharing program. The developer is reachable on Mastodon at @chrishannah@fosstodon.org.

Have you ever had the suspicion that someone was connected to your Wi-Fi network? Do you ever need the IP address of another device in your home for screen sharing or establishing another type of remote connection? Do you need the address of your router to log in and make some changes. You can do all of that and more with Angry IP Scanner, a free and open source utility available on GitHub. It’s easy to use and provides comprehensive info on 

• Hostname
• MAC address  
• Ports
• Ping
• TTL
• Filtered ports
• Version 

If you have any Windows machines on your network, Angry IP Scanner provides computer name, workgroup name, and Windows user currently logged in from NETBIOS. The scanner works by simply pinging each address within a given range and reporting back on the response. Different pinging methods are available:

• ICMP echo – the standard pinging method used by the ping program
• UDP – sends UDP packets to a port that is likely to be closed
• TCP – makes a connection attempt to port 80 on the host

Angry IP scanning saves results in several formats, including CSV, TXT, XML, or IP-Port list files. There are plugins available for enterprise apps like Lansweeper, or if your Java skills are up to it, you can write your own.

I cross post most of the app reviews I write here to r/macapps on Reddit. I just noticed tonight that the mods over there have listed AppAddict in the sidebar as a “Great Resource”. This is just a hobby blog, not monetized in any way. I try to bring an honest and unbiased opinion to my reviews to help Mac users discover great software. It’s very rewarding to get more reach and I really appreciate being listed. I’ve been a Mac user for 25 years, most of that spent providing technical services to others in the education field. I’ve invested thousands of dollars in software over the years and regret none of it. I’d rather have a full hard drive than a new car. Thanks for reading and feel free to suggest any apps you think I should take a look at.

I bought the disk cloning software, SuperDuper! in 2004 and have been receiving updates for the past 20 years without ever being charged an additional dime. I use it alongside Time Machine to create a bootable backup of my MacBook’s hard drive. It has a clearly understandable user interface where it explains everything in plain language so there is never any ambiguity about what operation you are choosing to do. 

Features

Scheduled backups - set it and forget it
Incremental Smart Backups - No need to clone your entire disk again, just backup what has changed since you last ran SuperDuper!

Snapshots - You can choose to make a copy of your hard drive as it existed at a point in the past based on snapshots created by macOS. This is deal for returning your drive to the state it was in prior to an aborted update or file deletion event.
SmartWake - ensures your backups happen whether your Mac is awake or asleep

You can download and use SuperDuper! to make unlimited disk clones for free. To unlock its advanced features you can purchase it for $27.95 and receive updates forever.

(EDIT: The Rosetta version works on Apple Silicon, but to get a native version if you have a pre-2109 license, there is a charge. If you buy the current version, you can download older versions)

iA writer a markdown/plain text editor designed especially for writing and document creation. It isn’t a text editor in the fashion of VS Code or BBEdit. If you aren’t a markdown wiz, all of the commands are accessible from the menu bar. The simplified interface is its hallmark, but it has a variety of powerful tools behind the curtains.

Differentiating Authors  

iA Writer can tint the text you paste into a document (i.e,. from an AI source) differently than the text you type in so that you can distinguish your writing from that of another author or AI.

Syntax Highlighting  

iA Writer uses color codes to showcase different parts of speech (adjectives, nouns adverbs) and its built-in editor helps you identify and get rid of filler words, cliches and redundancies.

Focus Mode

In focus mode, iA Writer highlights just the line or paragraph you are working on to mimic the experience of using a typewriter. This allows you a distraction free writing experience where you can concentrate on your current idea.

Linking

iA Writer supports wikilinks to connect your documents. You can easily move between documents by following links or using arrow buttons on the toolbar.

Publishing and Export

iA Writer supports direct publishing to Ghost, Medium. Micro.blog, Micropub and WordPress. You can export documents as Markdown, HTML, PDF or Microsoft Word formatted documents. You can insert images into documents via Markdown and as content blocks that can be seen in the built in preview mode.

iA writer is developed by a well established Japan based team. It’s been around for awhile and continues to evolve. A desktop license is $49 and separate license is required for use on an iPhone or iPad. Minor upgrades are free. Major upgrades incur a cost. A free 15-day trial is offered. Their website says subscription pricing for mac and iOS is coming.

For the past six weeks I’ve averaged about 16-17 posts a week on three different blogs. I’ve also been sharing a photo every day on Micro.blog from a project I did a while back called 100 Strangers. I just started a links blog that I will try to post to every day. I usually write my posts a day ahead of time. I start writing in Obsidian, using Markdown if my post is going on Micro.blog, OMG.LOL or BearBlog. If it’s a post going on Scribbles, then I still use Obsidian, but I leave it as plain text.

Very occasionally I will paste the content into iA writer or use the editing function of the Text Generator plugin in Obsidian to get a grammar and content check. When I first started blogging, I used the online word processor at Lex.page a few times but that is more friction than I want to deal with. Most of the time though, I just paste the content right into the web interface on Microsoft Edge, my choice of browser and use the built in spell and punctuation checks.

A lot of times, I’ll start writing at work on my lunch hour or break and pick it back up at home, relying on Obsidian sync to make the file available in both places. After writing an app review yesterday about an app I’d already written about in April, I have now started a spreadsheet to keep track of what I’ve written about so that doesn’t happen again.

I do not have a file of ideas or prompts or drafts for any of my online endeavors. For app reviews, I literally look in my Applications folder for ideas. I have over 400 apps installed, so I have a lot to choose from. For my tech blog, where I only write long form posts a couple of times a week, I just have to pick up ideas from reading or online forums. For my personal blog, just start brainstorming in the morning until an idea occurs to me.

Every platform I use allows you to schedule posts ahead of time and I use that feature each night to schedule everything for the next morning. I get up at 4:30am and by that time the folks in Europe are already awake and online. By 8am, everything I’ve written the previous day is posted and the whole process starts over.

If you spend much time in a browser (and if you are reading this, I know that you do), the time invariably comes when you want to find an article you read last week so you dive into your browser history and you start guess at search terms. It can get frustrating pretty quickly. If you use more than one browser or a browser and an RSS reader. You have to jump from one to another hoping you can remember the title of whatever it is that you are looking for. You don’t have to live this way. 

HistoryHound, a utility from St. Clair Software, keeps a single database using your history from almost all major browsers and the RSS reader NetNewsWire. Browsers with built in support are Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Arc, Orion, Opera, Vivaldi, NetNewsWire and URL Manager Pro, but you can add history and bookmark folders from other apps manually. Not only does it do the normal thing, remembering page titles, it also keeps a full text index of each page you browse too, making keyword searches much, much easier. To top it off, it does the same thing for your bookmarks collections. You can even create an index of sites you want to remain searchable whether you visit them regularly or not. You can set the length of time you want HistoryHound to keep track of your browsing independently of your browser settings. You can summon HistoryHound with a keyboard short cut and search for any or all of your search terms, use a Boolean search, or take advantage of the include/exclude notation to quickly find what you want. If you have certain sensitive sites that you don’t want recorded or indexed, you can set filters to make that happen. The app has a webkit based browser built right into its interface so you don’t even need to go into your main browser when searching.

HistoryHound has a 30-day free trial and is a one-time purchase price of $14.95. It is compatible with Mac OS 10.13 - 15.x.

Whether you know who Sindre Sorhus is or not you still may be using one of his many popular and mostly free apps. Sindre is a full-time open-source developer currently based in Thailand who is responsible for more than 1,000 packages at npm, the world’s largest software directory. In his spare time (LOL) he creates wonderful macOS and iOS apps. According to a statement on his website, if you’re a student who can’t afford one of his paid apps, he will give it to you for free. He’s released mora apps than I can cover in one review, but I will list the ones with which I am most familiar.

Aiko (free) - High-quality on-device transcription. Easily convert speech to text from meetings, lectures, and more. You can export the transcription as subtitles too. Link
Hyperduck (free) - Quickly send a link from your iOS device to your Mac. Works even id either device is offline. Can share from any app, not just Safari. Opens the link directly in the browser on your Mac. Link
AmazingAi (free) - Local only image generation via the Stable Diffusion engine on Apple silicon. Simply describe the image you desire, and the app will generate it for you like magic! Link
Velja Browser Picker (free) - lets you to open links in specific browser or browser profile, switch between browsers effortlessly, and directly launch desktop apps for specific websites, like opening Zoom links in the Zoom app. Link
One Thing (free) - Put your most important task or goal in the menu bar. Its presence there will help remind you without being annoying. You can achieve almost anything if you focus on one thing at a time. Link
Actions (free) - Useful actions for shortcuts. It adds over 50 useful actions not built in natively to the Shortcuts app and is a must have for anyone who uses them. Link
Shareful (free) - Shareful makes the system share menu even more useful by providing some commonly needed share services:
- Copy — Copy the shared item to the clipboard and so you can quickly paste it into another app.
- Save to Downloads — Quickly save a shared item to the Downloads directory.
- Save As — Choose a directory to save the shared item to.
- Open In — Open the shared item in any app. Link

PopClip is a highly configurable app that lets your perform an amazing number of actions on any text you select on your display. I immediately miss it if I am working on a strange computer and on my 18-month exile to PC land at work, I searched in vain for a PC alternative. Due to Apple’s stringent sandboxing rules, PopClip is no longer available in the App Store, although it is still under active development. If you have an App Store version, it will be recognized and converted when you download the update from the developer’s site. New extensions are being added constantly. If you are a developer, there is a guide available to creating your own custom extensions.

My personal PopClip actions are:

• Correct Spelling
• Search in Google
• Open Link
• Bookmark Link in Raindrop.io
• Send link to Omnivore
• Send to Day One
• Send To Email
• Create TextExpander snippet
• Create Message
• Add as task to Things3
• Send to Drafts
• Copy as Markdown
• Send to ChatGPT
• Slugify Text
• Send to Obsidian

There are many, many more extensions available to download in the extensions gallery in the following categories: 

• Text editing
• Text transformation
• AI tools
• Markdown
• Text stats
• Text lists
• Text display
• Text to speech
• Language and translation
• Notes and knowledge management
• Writing apps
• To-do apps
• Calendar apps
• Contact apps
• Drag and drop
• Launcher utilities
• Native macOS apps
• Search engines
• Maps
• Social networking
• Music
• Link shorteners
• Phone numbers
• Dictionaries
• Developer tools
• Clipboard tools

For new users, a two-year license is $12, and a lifetime license is $22. PopClip is also available as part of Setapp. 

Recently Added | MacMenuBar.com

1. Keep it Shot - This menu bar app uses AI to evaluate and rename your screenshots, either in bulk or as you take them. (Freemium)
2. Easy Move+Resize - This menu bar app adds “modifier key + mouse drag” move and resize to your MacOS. (Free)
3. EasyDict - This menu bar app lets you look up words or translate text. It can automatically detect the language of the input text, supports input translate, select translate, and OCR screenshot translate. (Free)
4. MenuBar Next - This menu bar app displays the first line of a text file in your menu bar (Free)
5. DynamicLake Pro - DynamicLake transforms your dynamic island into so much more. It lets you effortlessly control essential system functions such as volume, brightness, and keyboard backlight. Take control of your music, scheduling, weather, and much more. (Paid)
6. PasteKit - PasteKit lets you record sound (system sound, microphone, etc.), video, and screenshots in one simple, all-in-one solution. And any recordings you make are automatically copied to the clipboard, allowing you to put them wherever you like. (Paid)
7. GlimpseEase - This menu bar app automatically monitors your Stripe transactions, keeping you informed without the constant need to glance at your phone during work hours. (Feemium)
8. MenuBar Weather - MenuBar Weather displays all major weather information for your current location at a glance. It updates hourly or every significant location change. (Free)
9. Text Workflow - Text Workflow lets you automate text transformations. The program has a menu bar app that allows users to choose a workflow to convert the text from their clipboard.(Paid)
10. Week Number - This menu bar app shows the week number. The prefix is customizable. (Free)
11. HueMenu - With a single click in your menu bar, you can change the color and brightness of your Philips Hue lights, as well as turn them on or off. (Paid)
12. Steecky - Steecky is the text editor located in your menu bar. It’s always accessible, whether you’re working on something important or browsing the web. Steecky stores your entries as you type, ensuring that all information is retained. (Free)
13. Hammer - Hammer is a menu bar Icon app that assist its users in converting their clipboard data from one form to another quickly. (Paid)
14. HistoryHound - This menu bar app lets you do a fast keyword search on the entire content of all web pages you’ve visited recently, plus all those that you’ve bookmarked. (Paid)
15. Pomodoro Timer - This menu bar app is a minimalistic pomodoro timer and todo tracker. Stored data never leaves your device. (Paid)
16. Battery Charge Reminder - This menu bar app lets you set an upper battery limit and a lower battery limit and even the frequency of the reminder notifications. (Free)
17. QuickFindler - With QuickFindler, you can add your frequently opened folders, files, apps, and websites to the icon, and then open them conveniently using shortcuts. (Freemium)
18. Finicky - This menu bar app allows you to set up rules that decide which browser is opened for every link or url. (Free)
19. Brew Service - This menu bar app lets you (re)start and stop homebrew services. (Free)
20. Icon Preview - Preview how your app icon will look in the menu bar. You can also drag and drop an image onto the menu bar icon to preview it there. Ideal for developers and designers to perfect the look of their app icons. (Free)
21. Glinet Wireguard - This simple menu bar app allows you to quickly switch wireguard peers. (Free)
22. Turnip - Turnip is a time tracker for freelancers and small businesses that integrates with the tools you already use. It also comes with stats and charts to visualize your time by day, week, and month. (Freemuim)
23. Pin Frame - This menu bar app is a stick-on-top file viewer. It lets you place a window on top of anything else, but also adjust the window opacity and interactive mode. (Freemium)
24. Zonerly - This menu bar app lets you find the correct time across multiple zones for traveling, planning meetings, calling abroad and so on. Offline mode is supported. (Paid)
25. NeSleep - This menu bar app prevents any Mac from entering sleep mode, providing hassle-free protection against unexpected sleep cycles. (Free)
26. AudioBuddy - If you are dissatisfied with the default Mac text-to-speech voices, this menu bar app replaces them with OpenAI. There’s a max limit of 4096 characters. (Free)
27. Folderizer - This menu bar app allows you to create custom folder icons by selecting your preferred color, icon and even your own photos to accompany it. (Paid)
28. iBlurred - This menu bar app allows you to blur out sensitive information. You can resize each blurred part of your screen to meet your preferences. (Free)
29. Hot Corners Toggler - With this small menu bar app you can quickly toggle hot corners on and off. (Free)

I’ve owned Better Touch Tool  for years  and only used it for a few things but since getting an iMac and a Magic Track Pad a few months ago, I have been making more and more use of it. Along with Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, PopClip and Hazel, it is one of the core Mac automation tools in my Applications folder. You can user the supported triggers and inpiut actions to automate almost any task. Additionally, it has :

• A clipboard manager
• Screenshot tool and editor
• Customizable window snapping & resizing & moving tools
• Window switcher

The developer is so confident in the abilities of his app, his website contains a challenge; If you find something you can't do with Better Touch Tool, let me know. He offers a 45 day free trial and only charges $12 for a license with two years of updates or $24 for a lifetime of updates. The app is also available on Setapp. There is a whole library of actions you can download if you set up a free account on his website.

1. F4 = ⌘+space, which triggers Raycast
   2. fn+e = Raycast emoji picker
   3. fn+v = Raycast clipboard manager
   4. ⌘+Q = runs Apple Script asking "Are you sure" before quitting programs
   5. shift+shift = opens/closes Notification Center
   6. CTRL+CTRL = reveal desktop
   7. option+option = Mission Control
   8. esc+esc = start screen saver
   9. three-finger click = MissionControl
   10. four-finger click = lock screen
   11. one-finger click, bottom left = Google Search
   12. Microsoft Edge - three-finger swipe left = previous tab
   13. Microsoft Edge - three-finger swipe right = next tab
   14. Microsoft Edge - three-finger swipe up = new tab
   15. Microsoft Edge - three-finger swipe down = close tab
   16. Microsoft Edge - three-finger force click = ⌘+click (middle button replacement)
   17. Hyper Key+Letter to launch Edge, Drafts, Path Finder, Ivory, Obsidian, Things 3, home folder, trash

Other Automation Apps

• My Favorite Actions for Hazel
• My Top 10 Raycast Use Cases
• My Top 10 Keyboard Maestro Macros

A new program was just added to SetApp and I decided to take it for a spin. Keep It Shot is an app that uses AI in the form of OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Azure API. SetApp users can opt for an AI plan with that service. Keep It Shot is a tool that can evaluate and rename your screenshots, either in bulk or as you take them. You can use plain language to describe your naming preferences if you have any (e.g., Don’t use underscores)Once scanned and renamed, you can use a fully private, local search to find screen shots containing keyword related images.

If you aren’t a Setapp user, you can use the app for free to generate 15 renamed screenshots per month. The standard plan is $8 a month and affords you 300 renamed screenshots and for $24 a month heavy users like designers and product mangers can get 2000 renames.

On the privacy front, Keep It Shot does not store your images. The app is under continuous development with an ambitious roadmap on its web site. The developer seems open to user feedback based on a previous Reddit thread from when the app was first released.

While trying out a new file manager today, I discovered that Google Drive had created two copies of itself on my hard drive, including several folders of files I’d designated to maintain locally. Because of the mysterious voodoo Apple has cursed cloud storage with, I decided to use a disk analyzer to see how my disk space was allocated and the tool I chose was Daisy Disk.

Daisy Disk is an app that needs little introduction to seasoned Mac users. It is a disk space analyzer so well designed that it has won Mac App Store awards in three different years. For under $10, you get a best in class utility that’s fast and reliable. If you’ve ever had a case where seemingly large chucks of your hard drive were showing up as mysteriously in use, you can use Daisy Disk’s power of scanning as an administrator to track down the culprit. Daisy Disk scans internal and external drives whether they are SSD or HDD. It scans local and network physical and virtual drives. You can also scan cloud storage. Only you get to decide what to delete, System files are automatically safeguarded.

Did I mention it’s fast? Other long time Mac disk scanning utilities like Grand Perspective and Omni Disk Sweeper may be free, but they are slow, very slow. They work OK, but no one would consider them best in class.

A single license lets you install Daisy Disk on up to five Macs. The developer offers educational discounts.

OpenCore Legacy Patcher is a free and open-source tool designed for individuals who want to run newer versions of macOS on older, unsupported hardware. It achieves this by patching macOS and modifying it to work with these older models. It is based on OpenCore, a modern and versatile bootloader for macOS. This is what the developers have to say about compatibility with the Sequoia beta: “I am going to say this preemptively:

• No, OCLP does not support macOS 15 yet
• No, I don't even know if it still supports Intel yet
• No, there are no ETAs
• No, please do not install it on release and then complain that it doesn't work

No ETAs for Sequoia support. Don't ask, don't try installing it. If you try installing it, we won't help you." 
Source: OCLP macOS Sequoia Beta Status Update & WARNING!!! (youtube.com)

Having established that, if you aren’t familiar with OCLP and you have an older Mac you’d like to upgrade past its supported version of macOS, you are in luck. I recently had to turn in my 2023 M2 MacBook Air for AppleCare support and was left with a 2014 MBP as a backup. It only had the latest OS it would officially support on it and when I tried to install a few of my most used programs, I got shut down because things like Raycast and DropOver didn’t work. Luckily, OCLP exists and I was able to get past the constraints imposed by Apple.

Here’s how it works:

1. The first step of ensuring whether your model is supported is by checking the Supported Models page.
   2. Download and build macOS Installer
   3. Run the OpenCore-Patcher.app
   4. Reboot and boot OpenCore

Once you've installed macOS through OpenCore, you can boot up and go through the regular install process. To boot without the USB drive plugged in is quite simple:

• Download OpenCore Legacy Patcher
  * Change Patcher settings as you'd like
  * Build OpenCore again
  * Install OpenCore to internal drive
  * Reboot holding Option, and select the internal EFI

And voila! No more USB drive required.

I recently saw a recommendation for MagicMenu from iBoysoft on Reddit and decided to try out the app. According to my records, it’s the 1663rd app I have purchased from Apple, and it is the first one that I have ever requested a refund on. The app actually works as described, but the information on its free trial and cost of a yearly subscription was wrong. As soon as I installed the app, I received a message that the free trial was expired. I’ve never installed it before, so it wasn’t a case of previously using it. When I decided to purchase a one-year subscription, I was billed $19.99 rather than the $9.99 it clearly states as the price in the product description on the app store.

The app is designed to add functionality to the right-click context menu in Finder. It only works in Finder and nowhere else. It adds the following functions.

• Add a shortcut to create a new file
• Add a folder shortcut to Copy To
• Add a shortcut to Quick Access to an Item
• Quickly move or send files to a certain location
• Completely uninstall unwanted applications
• Find duplicate files and clean up
• Detect similar photos and clean up
• Find junk files and clean up
• Compress files to archive them

Almost all of these actions are found in my preferred file manager, Path Finder or in single purpose utilities like App Cleaner, the native Photos app, Duplicate Detective and Keka. Other Finder replacements, like Commander One offer custom right-click menus as well. If you just want right click actions in the finder, Qmenu is only $.99, and 2menu is $2.99, although both are from Chinese developers if that gives you pause.

I don’t ordinarily write negative reviews but there were just too many red flags on this app and not enough value for something with a relatively high subscription price.

In Windows, when you press the ALT+TAB key combination, you are presented with all of the open windows on your machine, and you can cycle through them by repeatedly pressing the tab key. On a Mac, the equivalent, COMMAND+TAB functions as an application switcher, not a window switcher. No matter how many windows your apps have open, they only show up once on the resulting display. The free and open-source Mac utility, AltTab, offers a solution to this lack of functionality. It offers a highly customizable way to customize your experience, mimicking what Windows does and more:

• Switch focus to any window
• Minimize, close, full screen any window
• Hide, quit any app
• Customize AltTab appearance (e.g. show app badges, Space numbers, increase icon, thumbnail, title size, etc)
• Custom trigger shortcuts with almost any key
• Blacklist apps you don't want to list or trigger AltTab from
• Dark Mode
• Drag-and-drop things on top of window thumbnails

I don’t really care about having the Windows experience, but I want more than what macOS offers natively, so I use the Application switch built in to Keyboard Maestro, which allows me to have not only open apps appear when I press COMMAND+TAB, but also my most frequently used apps. I use this in combination with Mission Control Plus which allows me to combine the built in Mission Control feature with the ability to close apps. Keyboard Maestro offers the following shortcuts:

• Press "q" to mark (or unmark) an application to be quit.
• Press "k" twice to mark an application to be force quit.
• Press "s" or "h" to mark (or unmark) an application to be hidden.
• Press "l" or "z" to mark (or unmark) an application to be launched.
• Press "a" to hide (or show) "always included" applications. Press "e" to show (or hide) "always ignored" applications.
• Press "c" to select the current application.
• Press "f" to select the Finder.
• Press "d" to switch directly to the current app and hide other applications.

Other keyboard driven application switchers include:
HyperSwitch
WindowSwitcher
Switch
Witch
Contexts 

Applite is a free application manager using a graphical user interface for apps installed using the CLI Homebrew package manager. Applite allows you to download, manage and update your Homebrew installed apps, even the ones you installed prior to using Applite. It has a clean and simple user interface and is designed for non-technical users. It is free and open source. There are no trackers.

Every application in the Homebrew Catalog  is available through Applite. When you launch an app downloaded with Applite, the built in Mac security apps, Gatekeeper and Xprotect will examine it to make sure it is safe to run. Most of the apps in the homebrew catalog are notarized but not all of them are sandboxed, meaning that some may run with elevated privileges. Be careful when downloading applications that few others have downloaded. 

You can use your existing version of Homebrew or you can install a separate version just to use with Applite.

The following categories of apps are available:

• Browsers
• Communication
• Productivity
• Office Tools
• Menu Bar
• Utilities
• Creative Tools
• Media
• Developer Tools
• IDE Tools
• Terminals
• Virtualization
• Gaming
• VPN
• Password Managers