AppAddict Newsletter

February 19, 2025

Free Downloads from AppAddict

I have a couple of downloads for you in this edition of AppAddict.

Automation

Although I am in no way a developer, I have created a couple of repositories on GitHub and placed some files there you may find useful. I am a big fan of Mac automation apps. There are plenty of tools that are inexpensive and relatively powerful for making the work you do easier and more streamlined. With the help of timed triggers, you can get your Mac to do things for you while you are asleep or away from the keyboard.

Take a minute to look over the tasks I accomplish with just three apps, and then head over to GitHub and download the configuration files for each of the apps. You can download the macros, rules, and triggers I have already written for these three powerhouse apps. Use them. Take them apart and examine them. Improve on them. It won’t be hard! AppAddict Automation Settings

Keyboard Maestro
My Top 10 Keyboard Maestro Macros

Hazel
My Favorite Actions for Hazel, the Preeminent File Management Software for the Mac

Better Touch Tool
Better Touch Tool Favorites

Quotes

I have collected quotes for years. I am still nursing an iOS app that was deprecated nine years ago to manage the portable version of my quotes library. I also have over 500 quotes saved as Markdown notes on Obsidian. You can find various Mac and iOS apps to manage quotes that extra features like tagging, biographies of the authors and room for links to the source material. You can download my collection here

For your Mac, try this - Quotemarks - Quote Notebook

For iOS, this one is great - Thoughts

Inspiration Manager

February 18, 2025

Battery Monitor: Health, Info

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

In the modern era, a time when most people us laptop computers as opposed to desktops, keeping up with your battery’s remaining charge is something we’ve trained ourselves to do. There are apps that let you make extremely detailed plans to carefully manage how your battery charges. These apps provide a wealth of information about your battery’s lifespan and electrical data. In normal operation, they keep your battery from charging past 80% to help prolong its lifespan. They will also run a calibration cycle to allow your battery to come close to fully discharging and the fully charging. These practices are reputed to be necessary to get the longest lifespan for your battery. The two most widely used apps for this type of management are: BatFi and Al Dente.

Not everyone believes these practices are needed or, indeed, are beneficial. They are satisfied with just monitoring their battery’s health. A good free app for providing the information you need is Battery Monitor: Health, Info from Rocky Sand Studio, Ltd. It has a simple but useful feature set.

Features

Charge percent and time in menu bar
Detailed battery information
Configurable low and full battery alert
Configurable Themes

You can get Battery Health Monitor from the App Store.

February 17, 2025

FlexiBackup Solves Real World Problems

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

I faced a concerning issue last year when it was time to replace my iPhone. For some reason, neither Apple nor I could solve. For over two years, my phone had failed to back up to iCloud. Over the 16 years I’ve been using Apple’s flagship product, I’ve had to perform restores on multiple occasions. I’m not comfortable going without a backup of any technology device I rely on. The old school solution when iCloud doesn’t work is to connect your phone to a Mac and back everything up to the computer’s hard drive. The location where the backup is hard-coded, however. You don’t get to choose a location for the save files. It’s going on your hard drive whether you like it or not. My problem was that I only had a 256 GB hard drive and the backup from my phone consumed over 90 GB. After doing a lot of research and doing some hacking, a janked together a system using symbolic links to get the backup on to an external hard drive. It was a pain.

If I’d had FlexiBackup from indy developer, Kah Seng, things would have been much easier. Seng’s new app takes care of setting an external drive as the repository for iOS and iPadOS backups when you do them locally. If you have multiple family members using the same small iCloud storage account, this is an ideal app to add to your Mac, as long as each person has physical access to a computer where it is installed. You can do a backup and a restore by connecting a device to your Mac, launching FlexiBackup and running the native Mac utility.

FlexiBackup requires macOS 14.6 or later and is compatible with all iPhones and iPads, regardless of the iOS version installed. The app is available for $5.99 on Gumroad. There is no free trial, but it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

February 16, 2025

Improve your Google Searches

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

I am in the process of moving all my Internet research to Kagi, but I wrote this for someone who needed these instructions today.

Google, the advertising company that also has a search engine, is more interested in having you click on things it gets paid for than it is showing you the information you are looking for. Of course, it is also tracking every breath you take in case it figures out how to extract money from the very air you breathe. There are a couple of steps you can take to generate more useful information from the company’s search results.

Use a Different URL for your searches

Google is the default search engine in most browsers. It pays billions of dollars for that privilege on iOS alone - one of the reasons your choice of search engines is limited on Apple products. Everyone knows the standard address for a Google search is just https://google.com. When you search there, you get a bunch of useless AI crap and ""suggested links". If you want the good old 10 Blue Links of yesteryear, add “udm=14” to your default search URL, so it reads as “https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14” instead of Google dot com.

To set this up in Chrome, go into Settings, then Search engine > Manage search engines> Site search.

You can also do this in other browsers and in launchers like Raycast for Mac. Other search utilities like DevonAgentLite also support it.

Filter SEO Churn With Ublacklist

Ublacklist is an extension that totally blocks certain domains from appearing in your Google search results. You can also get it for other browsers. Once you have the extension installed, head over to this Codeberg page to subscribe to lists of sites to exclude from your search results. These lists were inspired by the article How Google is killing independent sites like ours on HouseFresh and Detailed.com's How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results.

There are more specialized but still helpful lists at Subscriptions | uBlacklist

February 15, 2025

File List Export for Mac

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

One of the apps I recently picked up from the new Bundlehunt sale is File List Export by developer Georgios Trigonakis. This simple but surprisingly powerful utility is available for just a dollar right now. The normal price in the App Store is $7.99. You can get a trial version at the developer’s website.

I tested the app by having it create a spreadsheet of my Obsidian vault containing 9722 files and 1843 folders. You can choose an output file in either csv or xlsx format. By default the app does not calculate folder sizes to speed up the analysis, but you can toggle it on if you want the information. On my M2 MacBook Air, the process was still relatively fast.

The most useful feature of the app is its ability to export metadata from files, particularly helpful for photos, video and music. Because the data ends up in a spreadsheet, you can manipulate and sort it in all kinds of ways. If you have album artwork associated with your music files, it even gets exported into your spreadsheet. You also get the path of every file in your analysis, which can be helpful if you need to operate in the terminal.

For Every File, You Can Get This Info:

File name
Date modified
Date created
Kind
Size
Path (the location of the file)
Comments
Tags
Version
Pages
Authors/Artist
Title
Album
Track NO
Genre
Year
Duration
Audio BitRate
Audio Encoding Application
Audio Sample Rate
Audio Channels
Dimensions
Pixel Width
Pixel Height
Total Pixels
Height DPI
Width DPI
Color Space
Color Profile
Alpha Channel:
Creator
Video Bit Rate
Total Bit Rate
Codecs
md5
sha256

Exif Metadata for Your Photos

Camera Make
Description
Camera Model Name
Owner Name
Serial Number
Copyright
Software
Date Taken
Lens Make
Lens Model
Lens Serial Number
ISO
FNumber
Focal Length
Flash
Orientation
Latitude
Longitude
Maps URL
Camera Make
Description
Camera Model Name
Owner Name
Serial Number
Copyright
Software
Date Taken
Lens Make
Lens Model
Lens Serial Number
ISO
Fstop
Focal Length
Flash
Orientation
Latitude
Longitude
Maps URL

February 14, 2025

My Raycast Extensions

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

A Mastodon friend asked me to list the Raycast extensions I have installed. Raycast is a replacement for Spotlight that has considerable superpowers in its vast extension library. I use Raycast as my clipboard manager, emoji picker, window manager and I do quite a lot of image modification with it. As you can see, there are many more features available.

90% of the feature set is free. The $10 a month pro subscriptions buys the ability to sync your settings between computers, interact with AI advanced features and some more options with Raycast notes. You also get regular backups of your settings.

You can see a categorized list of extensions here.

89 installed extensions

Basic Bookmarks https://raycast.com/rauno/bmrks

2FA Code Finder https://raycast.com/yuercl/imessage-2fa

Alt-Text Generator https://raycast.com/jack_casica/alt-text-generator

Amphetamine https://raycast.com/gstvds/amphetamine

Apple Reminders https://raycast.com/raycast/apple-reminders

Auto Quit App https://raycast.com/koinzhang/auto-quit-app

Battery Health https://raycast.com/o1y/battery-health

BetterTouchTool https://raycast.com/dnnsmnstrr/bettertouchtool

Bing Search https://raycast.com/maver1ck/bing-search

Bing Wallpaper https://raycast.com/koinzhang/bing-wallpaper

Bitly URL Shortener https://raycast.com/blessanm86/bitly-url-shortener

Bluesky https://raycast.com/dharamkapila/bluesky

Brew https://raycast.com/nhojb/brew

Browser Bookmarks https://raycast.com/raycast/browser-bookmarks

Browser History https://raycast.com/crisboarna/browser-history

Browser Tabs https://raycast.com/koinzhang/browser-tabs

Change Case https://raycast.com/erics118/change-case

ChatGPT https://raycast.com/abielzulio/chatgpt

CleanShot X https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/cleanshotx

Clipboard Editor https://raycast.com/pomdtr/clipboard-editor

Clipboard Formatter https://raycast.com/joshtemple/clipboard-formatter

Close All Open Apps https://raycast.com/guide/close-apps

Coffee https://raycast.com/mooxl/coffee

Color Picker https://raycast.com/thomas/color-picker

CopyQ Clipboard Manager https://raycast.com/andrewcincotta/copyq-clipboard-manager

Day One https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/day-one

Downloads Manager https://raycast.com/thomas/downloads-manager

Drafts https://raycast.com/FlohGro/drafts

Dropover https://raycast.com/jag-k/dropover

DuckDuckGo Search https://raycast.com/tegola/duck-duck-go-search

Easy OCR https://raycast.com/Rafo94/easy-ocr

Emoji Search https://raycast.com/FezVrasta/emoji

Fantastical https://raycast.com/devahschaefers/fantastical

Flush DNS https://raycast.com/rasmusbe/flush-dns

Folder Search https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/folder-search

Font Awesome https://raycast.com/dutzi/font-awesome

GIF Search https://raycast.com/josephschmitt/gif-search

Google Drive https://raycast.com/vishaltelangre/google-drive

Google Gemini https://raycast.com/EvanZhouDev/raycast-gemini

Google Maps Search https://raycast.com/ratoru/google-maps-search

Google Search https://raycast.com/mblode/google-search

Google Workspace https://raycast.com/raycast/google-workspace

Hide All Apps https://raycast.com/peduarte/hide-all-apps

Iconify — Search Icons https://raycast.com/destiner/iconify

Image Modification https://raycast.com/HelloImSteven/sips

IMDb Search https://raycast.com/ryan/imdb

Installed Extensions https://raycast.com/pernielsentikaer/installed-extensions

Keyboard Maestro - List Macros https://raycast.com/eluce2/list-keyboard-maestro-macros

Kill Process https://raycast.com/rolandleth/kill-process

Link Cleaner https://raycast.com/MisakiCoca/link-cleaner

Lorem Ipsum https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/lorem-ipsum

MacUpdater https://raycast.com/kall/macupdater

Markdown Reference https://raycast.com/codedbyjordan/markdown-reference

Mastodon https://raycast.com/SevicheCC/mastodon

Mastodon Search https://raycast.com/daveverwer/mastodon-search

Meme Generator https://raycast.com/timoransky/meme-generator

Messages https://raycast.com/thomaslombart/messages

Microsoft Edge https://raycast.com/KartikKumarSahoo/microsoft-edge

Music https://raycast.com/fedevitaledev/music

My Daily Log https://raycast.com/frugoman/my-daily-log

MyIP https://raycast.com/Kang/myip

Obsidian https://raycast.com/KevinBatdorf/obsidian

Obsidian Smart Capture https://raycast.com/millin_gabani/obsidian-smart-capture

omg.lol https://raycast.com/danpalmer/omg-lol

Open Folders https://raycast.com/timothy_boye/open-folders

Open Link in Specific Browser https://raycast.com/koinzhang/open-link-in-specific-browser

Open With App https://raycast.com/fturcheti/open-with-app

Paste as Plain Text https://raycast.com/koinzhang/paste-as-plain-text

Quit Applications https://raycast.com/mackopes/quit-applications

Raindrop.io https://raycast.com/lardissone/raindrop-io

Random Password Generator https://raycast.com/textnav/random-password-generator

Reddit Search https://raycast.com/ewlcheng/reddit-search

Remove Paywall https://raycast.com/tegola/remove-paywall

Screenshot https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/screenshot

Script Commands Store – Find and manage your Raycast Script Commands https://raycast.com/tholanda/script-commands

Search HoudahSpot https://raycast.com/felixthehat/houdahspot-search

Speedtest https://raycast.com/tonka3000/speedtest

System Monitor https://raycast.com/hossammourad/raycast-system-monitor

Things https://raycast.com/loris/things

ToolBox https://raycast.com/Kang/toolbox

Type Snob https://raycast.com/sawyerh/type-snob

Unsplash https://raycast.com/eggsy/unsplash

Vivaldi https://raycast.com/crisboarna/vivaldi

Weather https://raycast.com/tonka3000/weather

Wi-Fi https://raycast.com/koinzhang/wi-fi

Wikipedia https://raycast.com/vimtor/wikipedia

Xecutor https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/xecutor

YouTube https://raycast.com/tonka3000/youtube

YouTube Companion https://raycast.com/sasivarnan/youtube-companion

YouTube Downloader https://raycast.com/vimtor/youtube-downloader

February 13, 2025

Use Calibre to Back Up Your Kindle Books Before February 26

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Amazon just announced that you have until February 26, 2025, to download your Kindle content. After that date, you will no longer be able to access the books you’ve paid for if you have a legacy device or a Kindle that has experienced wireless issues. The only way to load what you’ve paid for onto a device will be through wireless sync.

Thankfully, using the free ebook manager, Calibre, you can convert your Kindle content into formats readable on other ebook readers or into PDFs. You will be protected if Amazon ever removes books you’ve paid for. You do not need to download the Kindle app on your Mac to accomplish this.

Log in to your Amazon account. In the account section, select Content Library>Books. You’ll have to download each title you want to back up as a separate files in azw3 format.

Download Calibre directly from the developer. To gain the ability to convert the books into other formats using Calibre, you will need to download a plugin from GitHub.. Make sure to install and set up the plugin before importing your books into Calibre. You will need the serial number from your Kindle to do this. You can get this information from the Amazon website or from the device itself.

For detailed instructions, see this article.

February 12, 2025

Metadata Lab - Exif Editor

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Modern DSLR cameras and cell phones add extensive data to every photo they take. The information recorded includes camera settings like ISO speed, shutter speed, focal length, and other details. Including GPS location. After a photo is taken, and you’ve downloaded it to your computer, it’s possible to add other information to its metadata, including a description, keywords and licensing/copyright information. Some of this information is more important to professional photographers than it is to regular people, but there are reasons why anyone might want to edit the details of a photo.

Some higher end photo management applications have metadata editing capabilities, but if you are piecing together your own workflow, the free app, Metadata Lab is a quick and easy way to add, remove or change information on any photo you have. The app is compatible with RAW, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and many other formats (including video/audio files). You can import photos from the Mac Photo’s App into the Metadata Lab. Not only can you edit the EXIF data, you can also edit IPTC, PDF, PNG and QuickTime metadata.

Use Cases

Correcting date and time data if it was incorrect on the camera
Adding GPS data for later personal reference
Removing GPS data for images shared with third parties or on the Internet
Adding keywords for cataloging purposes

More information is available on the developer's website. You can download Metadata Lab on the App Store.

February 11, 2025

Librewolf for Security and Privacy

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

If you become more concerned with privacy and surveillance regarding your online activities, moving to a more secure browser is a definite step in the right direction, along with using a reputable VPN, a privacy focused DNS setup and good ad and tracker blocking extensions. The ultimate in privacy for most users is probably using the TOR browser and network. That comes with a significant performance hit. If you are looking for more privacy without the usability issues of TOR, Librewolf is most likely your best option for a daily driver.

LibreWolf is a privacy-focused fork of Firefox. Its primary benefits include:

Tracking Protection

Strict default settings protecting against trackers, ads and scripts
uBlock Origin included by default
Fingerprinting resistance, including protection against canvas, font, and WebGL fingerprinting.
Encrypted SNI:preventing your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing which websites you visit.

Privacy

No telemetry or data collection
Privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo enabled by default, although you can change it to Kagi or the engine of your choice:
Cookie AutoDelete to automatically purge tracking cookies after each browsing session
HTTPS-Only Mode on by default

Security

Blocks known malware sites through disconnect.me's list of over 5000 tracking and malicious domains
WebRTC disabled by default to prevent IP address leakage
Strict default settings for website permissions for your location, camera, and microphone

Open Source

Open Source
Ethical community members
Removes sponsored content, distracting elements on the home page, and search suggestions
Wide range of customization options

The most important element in your security setup is you. No amount of consumer technology can protect you as much as limiting what you share online. Making use of encryption technology to share highly sensitive data can be a necessary step if you are engaged in conduct that hostile actors could intercept.

The recommended way to install Librewolf is using Homebrew. You can download a DMG, but you will lose access to automatic updates.

brew install --cask librewolf

Download site.

February 10, 2025

Applite Updated with New Features

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Installing software using the package manager, Homebrew, makes it much easier to update than downloading installation files manually. It isn’t necessarily difficult to find the commands to download apps, but it does require a certain amount of searching around. The free and open-source utility, Applite, provides an App Store like interface for Homebrew, allowing you to browse what is available through a GUI. Anything you download through Applite can also be updated through the same interface.

When you install Applite, it will offer to install Homebrew . If you don’t have it installed already, you’ll want to do that. Otherwise, just choose the option to use your currently installed version, which will be detected.

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. Not all apps available through Homebrew are FOSS. Some are trialware of commercial products.

The following categories of apps are available along with info on some of the apps I have tested:

Browsers like Edge and Vivaldi
Communication
Productivity - Raycast, Obsidian,Better Touch Tool, Hazel, Cleanshot X, Unclutter
Office Tools
Menu Bar - Stats, BarTender
Utilities - ImageOptim, Downie, Upscayl, Permute
Maintenance - AppCleaner. PearCleaner, Onyx, Daisy Disk
Creative Tools
Media - IINA
Developer Tools
IDE Tools
Terminals
Virtualization
Gaming
VPN
Password Managers

New Features in version 1.3.0

- Casks from third-party taps are now available
- Detailed cask info window (token, version, tap, etc.)
- Dedicated App Migration tab (app import/export)
- Deprecated/disabled apps are now highlighted in the UI

February 9, 2025

Use KIWIX to Access Wikipedia and Other Resources Offline

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

You should use this free and open-source tool to secure a personal copy of Wikipedia and other resource information valuable to you. KIWIX believes that access to knowledge is a fundamental right. That’s why they’re dedicated to providing free and open access to it for everyone, everywhere.

KIWIX enables you to have the whole of Wikipedia (and many other websites like TED talks, Stack Exchange, Gutenberg Project library, WikiHow, Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp, YouTube channels) Data downloaded on a Mac can be transferred to mobile devices.

The source code for the Mac and iOS versions is on GitHub.

You may have seen the recent stories about attacks on Wikipedia. Certain parties have:

Some of these same parties have been responsible for the removal of publicly funded databases from government websites. If you are concerned about censorship or data altered to fit a certain narrative, download KIWIX to avoid issues. It is still currently available on Mac App Store..

The most reliable way to get the Wikipedia data is to use a Mac to download the small peer-to-peer seed file for the large non-indexed ZIM file you want (not the pre-indexed package for Windows) from http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages, then use a peer-to-peer client (such as Folx) to download the actual ZIM data file to your computer. You can then transfer the ZIM file to your iOS device using iTunes/Apple Music File Sharing.

February 8, 2025

Geofency - Location Based Time Tracking

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

I have used various location tracking apps over the years. Most of the ones I’ve tried have had issues. Either the company behind them folded or the apps had poor privacy policies or were strictly for iOS and drained my battery faster than I liked. These apps are often subscription-based. Google will gladly track your location for free using your device if you let them, but what sane person wants Google of all companies knowing their every move?

The one app that consistently delivers added features, accuracy, and unsurpassed privacy is Geofency by developer Karl Heinz Herbel. It is a universal app for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. I use my iPhone as the default for tracking my location and use the Mac version to pull reports and see my data. Geofency is currently at version 9 and has been in the app store for 12 years. Geofency does not do route tracking, so look elsewhere if that’s what you need. Instead, it tracks the amount of time you spend at the locations you visit. I used it for years when I worked in a rural county, traveling between schools. When I needed to complete my expense report, I could pull all my data from Geofency as well as for my time card. If, for some reason, it fails to accurately record a visit (rarely) you can manually edit the data.

It is accurate enough that today I use it to determine which buildings on the campus of the university where I work I have visited during the current reporting period. I am able to add notes to any visit to a particular building for later reference. For visits to commercial locations, Geofency connects to Apple Maps to pull phone, address and website data. I can automatically export visits to any location to any calendar. The app will even generate a CSV time sheet for any time period I specify for any location. I can customize the locations by renaming them or resizing the spatial radius Geofency recognizes, helpful for separate locations near one another.

None of your Geofency data is collected by the developer. It all lives in your iCloud account only.

The iOS app features live activities and widgets. I would gladly pay a higher price for this app I have now used for over a decade, but it is still only $4.99 as a one-time purchase in. the App Store.

February 7, 2025

Acorn Image Editor Provides Great Value

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Through the years, I’ve used multiple versions of Adobe Photoshop, Pixelmator add even GIMP for layered image editing and graphic design. The most user-friendly yet powerful app I’ve ever used in that category is Acorn, by the developers at Flying Meat, Inc. For less than $20 you get a Photoshop compatible application, either from the developer’s website or the App Store.The feature set is long and varied, but the interface isn’t overly complicated, and you don’t need to buy an 800-page book to explain the ins and outs of using it. A two-time Apple award winner, it’s a one-time purchase of $19.99, 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.

New Features in Latest Version

AI subject selection
Live text tool
Data-driven graphics
On canvas ruler
JPEG-XL support
Look up tables (LUTs)
Super resolution (upscaling)
Extensive export support
Apple shortcut support

Basic Use Cases

Design logos and custom typography by adding text to paths or shapes.
Remove backgrounds using Magic Wand and Instant Alpha Eraser.
Combine images to create collages and layouts.
Retouch images with Clone, Dodge, and Burn.
Adjust contrast, highlights, and shadows with Levels and Curves.
Export professionally with customizable color profiles, file formats, and precise size control.

Extended Feature Set

Layer capabilities
Filters, effects and styles
Basic and custom brushes (including Adobe imports)
Magic Wand shapes
Vector support
Supports multiple file types

If you only need basic features, like image conversion, compression and resizing, there are programs with smaller feature sets to accomplish those tasks. If. However, you want something full-featured with batch processing capabilities (using Automator support), Acorn is a good tool to have.

Limited Purpose Tools

February 6, 2025

Vivaldi, My Favorite Browser Just Got Some Updates

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

I switched to using Vivaldi late last year after being all in on Microsoft Edge because of work. I am trying to leave as many big tech companies behind as possible, and I grew tired of having AI shoved in my face all day. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser designed for the technically proficient, who form the core of its 3.1 million user base.

Through the years I’ve used Netscape, Internet Explorer, Camino, Safari, Chrome and Edge. None of them ever provided the customization options that Vivaldi does. The ability to group tabs and save them as browsing sessions is a real game changer. The iOS version is great too and getting to my bookmarks, tabs and history works well between platforms. Version 7.1 was released recently and these are some of the new features.

Bring Your Tabs Along

If the thought of abandoning the open tabs in your current browser gives you anxiety, Vivaldi now has you covered. It can import them all so you can get right back to doing what you were doing without having to set things up again.

Speed Dials

Vivaldi has a mechanism for setting up link collections called Speed Dials. You can reach your Speed Dials right from the new tab page. I have several, including one with the websites I use for posting to my blog and another for research. The process for adding sites to them has been redesigned and is no easier than ever to manage.

Seamless Tab Sharing

If, like me, you use your browser on multiple devices, four in my case, the ability to send tabs to my phone, iPad or work computer is easier than ever. I can continue to read or research anything without using third-party software or cumbersome workarounds.

New Default Search Engines

Vivaldi doesn’t track you, profile you, or sell your data. It's monetized by defaulting to one of three search engines, although you are free to use anything you want. Vivaldi features Startpage, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Qwant. It's built in tracker blocking and the availability of ad blockers routinely give me a score of 99 to 100 on sites that grade privacy.

Weather Widget

There is a new custom weather widget for Vivaldi's new tab page, which it calls a dashboard. The dashboard already has widgets to display your email inbox, top stories from your choice of RSS feeds, your calendar and more.

Dashboard Customization

You can now customize the look of your dashboard with themes ranging from minimalist styles to bold and colorful. The page background is adjustable to fit your style, and you can color your widgets to match the overall them you've chosen for the browser as a whole.

February 5, 2025

Tapestry by Iconfactory on Day 2

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Announced a year ago on Kickstarter, Tapestry by Iconfactory was released on February 4. Tapestry is an aggregator that creates a combined timeline from a long list of possible sources including :

RSS feeds
YouTube channels
Podcasts
Mastodon
Bluesky
Micro.blog
Tumblr
Reddit

Items in your timeline are shown in chronological order. There is no algorithm. Searching within Tapestry searches across all feeds. Likewise, setting a mute filter for terms such as "Elon Musk" will block content from every source. Content from different sources is color coded to make readily apparent which resource your information is coming from. If you install Tapestry on a phone and an iPad, your reading position syncs across devices via iCloud. You can combine sources in any way you want to have your own custom feeds. I am still experimenting, but so far I created the following:

Personal bloggers
Hard news
Tech news
Combined Mastodon and Bluesky home feeds
Favorite individual social media feeds, since you can add a feed for a single account holder (e.g. Kottke, AOC, Joan Westenberg)

The settings allow you to choose an icon, a theme and a font for the timeline. You can use the in app browser or your default browser to view content. I recommend doing that so you can view content using reader mode. Reddit links open in the Reddit app. Mastodon links open in my browser, although I can use the share sheet to open them in my preferred app. Tapestry also has bookmarks.

The privacy policy states that all searches take place on your device. The developers do not collect any data.

Iconfactory offers monthly subscriptions for $1.99, yearly for $19.99 and a one time purchase for $79.99. A Mac version is in the works, but is not here yet. There is a free version with limited features. Get it on the App Store

February 4, 2025

Privileges - Operate Your Mac Safely

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

As much as you may not want to hear it, using an administrator account on your Mac as your daily driver is absolutely not the best practice. It’s bad because it provides full access rights across the system to every application and process running in that account. If malware or a bad actor gains control of the administrator account, they could potentially install unwanted applications, alter system settings, or access or delete sensitive data. Limiting the use of an administrator account helps to mitigate these risks. Unfortunately, most people consider it a huge hassle to use the standard Mac method of temporarily elevating the privileges of a standard account. So they just accept the risk and use an admin account anyway. You don’t have to be like them.

Use the free app, Privileges, a macOS application that lets users perform daily tasks as a standard user while easily requesting administrator rights. Users can set a specific timeframe in the app’s settings to handle tasks like installing or uninstalling applications. To request admin rights, just click the Privileges icon in your Dock or menu bar. Using a standard user account instead of an administrator enhances your Mac’s security and is a best practice. All users, including developers, can benefit from using Privileges. The app is compatible with macOS 11.x - 15.x. It has recently been updated.

Features

Easy install
Perfect for day-to-day use
Turn on admin rights anytime
Enjoy standard user security
Command line use supported

New Privileges 2.1 features

Installer package
Revoke admin rights at login
Unified expiration interval for administrator privileges
Renew expiring administrator privileges
Run actions on privilege change
Status item
Command line tool now also supports Touch ID
AppleScript support

You can download the Privileges installer on GitHub.

February 3, 2025

Latest Apps of Note from Mac Menu Bar

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

Luuk over at Mac Menu Bar has been busy as usual, keeping up with the latest releases of new Menu Bar apps for the community. Here are my favorites from the recent additions:

AutoShot - Automatic screenshots in set intervals - This app automatically takes a screenshot of your workspace at intervals you specify and even if you are using multiple monitors. You can choose the file format you want to use for the screenshots and where they are kept in your file structure. You can alleviate concerns about excessive disk usage by setting auto-delete parameters. (Free)

Sprinkles – Customize any website - One of the features that Arc browser users like is the ability to apply custom CSS to websites. With Sprinkles, you can bring that functionality to Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Sprinkles runs a tiny webserver on your machine. When you visit a website, the browser extension asks this server for scripts. The server looks for 4 files in your Sprinkles scripts directory:

global.js
global.css
github.com.js
github.com.css

When there's a hit, the extension adds the provided JS and CSS. (Free)

Mackernews - If you frequent Hackernews to see the latest goings-on in the tech world, this tiny app makes it easy to see and connect to the latest hot stories. Just choose the headline from a dropdown menu and instantly load the story. (Free)

AutoRun

Run Apps. Mac App Store - This simple app can be used to launch apps or run scripts at a specific time or at regular intervals. Some possible use cases:

Run Applescript to eject backup disk before you wake up so you can just disconnect it
Launch a file synchronization app once a day to back up folders to cloud drives
Run scripts to start and stop apps you don't want running simultaneously on two computers
Automatically launch your task manager, calendar, email and browser every morning just before you wake up (Free)

February 2, 2025

Quick Reviews - For Sharing and Reference

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to share you general opinion and ratings of movies, TV shows, games, books or whatever, Quick Reviews, a new app by Indy developer, blogger, YouTuber and podcaster, Matt Birchler can generate a graphic for you in just a few clicks.

The free version lets you create unlimited reviews and allows you the leeway to control all the design elements: accent color, font, theme, rating icons, light/dark mode, default review type.

Quick Reviews also has clipboard detection and will use the graphic you’ve copied to automatically illustrate your review. You can also set it to automatically copy your review text out to your clipboard when saving the finished graphic.

The paid version, a $9.99 subscription, offers to populate your review metadata, including art from The Movie DB, allowing you to even import a suggested rating if you like. You can also import movie reviews from your Letterboxd account.

Both versions of the app feature filtering by media type, year and rating.

The current 1.0 release of Quick Reviews is not yet Mac compatible, but it’s on the developer’s roadmap. As for now, creating a quick graphic to share on social media or on a personal blog is supremely easy and quick. Matt is also the kind of thoughtful developer needed in the Mac community.

Get Quick View in the iOS App Store.

February 1, 2025

Rego - An App for Bookmarking Places

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

I’ve been using Rego to bookmark locations for the last eleven years, using seven different iPhones. I have over 600 places saved in various categories, including:

Restaurants
Coffee Shops
Accommodations
Parks
Residences (friends and family)
Bookstores

Whenever we travel, it's easy to find places where we've enjoyed eating in the past. The same with coffee shops and hotels and rental properties. Adding a new location can be done onsite, from an address or pulled from the metadata from a photograph. Bookmarks contain GPS coordinates, street address where applicable, notes, date added and a stock photo or one or more of your own. You can also use custom pin colors and designate any location as a favorite.

You can also use Rego when hiking or fishing offshore.

Rego provides plenty of navigation options, with internal maps or working with external apps like Google Maps or TomTom. Your bookmark collection stays on your device. If you opt in, you can back up to Dropbox. There is not an option to use any other cloud provider, including iCloud.

You can get a free trial of Rego that allows you to add up to 10 locations. To add more, you can subscribe monthly for $2.99, yearly for $9.99 or opt for a lifetime purchase for $24.99.

January 31, 2025

AppAddict Free App List #3

Subscribe to the AppAddict Newsletter

This is the third collection of free apps reviewed on AppAddict. Links to the first two collections are posted below. I’ve downloaded and installed each of these on my own laptop. In many cases, I’ve added them to various workflows for my day job and blogging pursuits.