Apple

Never see it mentioned in these, lists or videos but Hazel is by far my most important app. You can create rules for folders/files/etc. It makes organization so incredibly simple.

• I preface file names by client and everything gets sorted
• i organize my desktop/downloads/documents folders automatically
• i automatically delete old unused files
• and a lot more

Alfred

Homebrew

My most used essential is BTT(BetterTouchTool).

It's quite expensive. I think $20? But it comes with so many handy software features to make your Mac more like windows a few examples I personally use are

It can independently reverse the scrolling of a mouse wheel, so now the mouse wheel and track pad can scroll in opposite directions like windows.

It can turn the green button into a maximize window button

It can make a Ctrl+click on the red button a quit app button

It can create any type of track pad gesture. IE: 3 Finger swipe down to minimize or 3 Finger swipe right to snap right, etc

It enables window snapping just like windows so you drag a window to the side and it'll snap there or drag a window to the top and it'll maximize

It can make option+arrow key snap the current window to that side. Just like the windows key + arrow on windows.

Wireshark

Mos

I like using the weather radar apps from my phone since M series Mac’s run iPhone and iPad apps. Bring s former science teacher the free planetarium program Stellarium which has been around forever is great.

Sleeves. It does everything Apple Music Mini Player failed to do. It displays now playing info in the corner of your screen. Fully customizable.

Dropover.

When you “shake” an image, text, or file with your trackpad it opens a box to drop the file into and saves it for later use so you can easily remove it from the box. It can also generate links to share the dropped item and has a bunch of nifty tools like reshaping images, converting files and more.

AND ITS FREE

CleanMyMac

dropzone

Arc is a very good browser I use it personally

I used to work by connecting MacBook to the big screen smart TV. And wear special glasses to keep your eyes healthy

AppleCare

My app count is pretty stock. Only 3rd party I have installed is Microsoft RDP for connecting to an xps and that’s about it.

The same ones from the PC haha VLC VS code Spotify

Bartender and magnet

Rectangle or magnet for window management Amphetamine is great but better trust your dorm mate. Go into settings and allow 3 finger dragging of windows, i dont know why this isnt default it feels so natural. Figure out a knowledge graph, note taking, organization app like Notion or something. Its a learning curve but useful if you use it Get an ai whether thats Bing, a chatGPT plus account, or Visual code Blackbox, copilot or whatever Learn about Apple private relay and email generator built in to laptop that forwards to your icloud email. Great for privacy, controlling spam, protects in the least email identification from data breaches Safari has a built-in apple VPN figure out how to leverage it. Set up cmd+spotlight to launch spotlight. Configure spotlight to search all your stuff except your embarrassing private folders. So much easier to do a search than clicking nested folders and scrolling through an alphabetical list. Alfred is an upgrade to spotlight but I dont use it anymore

The FREE for personal use VMWare Fusion 13.5 Player will run Windows 11 ARM now with accelerated graphics and doesn’t limit you on cores and RAM like parallels.

The FREE for personal use VMWare Fusion 13.5 Player will run Windows 11 ARM now with accelerated graphics and doesn’t limit you on cores and RAM like parallels.

Folx: download manager + torrent client
Sniper text: for extracting text from images
Boom: equalizer

I’m looking for an app to easily edit videos. I used to use MPEG Streamclip, but it’s not working anymore. I use it to edit parts of a video out, or to change format, resolution, etc. Any recommendations?

Dropover, Magnet, Arc Browser if you don’t like safari. Noir extension if you indeed like safari. Adguard for ad blocking globally. Best video player so far: IINA. Keka for rar files. Blueharvest if you use external drives and don’t wan’t macOS to fill them with .dstore crap. 🫡