Small Mac apps I love

Recently I switched to a new laptop and had to set it up to my likings. (This comic describes my setup pretty accurately.) My setup includes a bunch of small apps I found over the years. It seems that most people are not aware of these, so I decided to share a list.

All of them are free (with the exception of TotalFinder), and if you like them, consider donating to authors.

So here they are in the alphabetical order:

AppCleaner

AppCleaner website

AppCleaner is a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.

AppCleaner window

CopyClip

CopyClip website

Simple clipboard manager, stores what you copied allowing you to quickly find it.

CopyClip clipboard history

HapticKey

HapticKey website

This is a weird one. I already ranted about the touch bar, and this app makes it a little bit more bearable. Tapping on touch bar will make your trackpad vibrate(?!) to give you haptic feedback. Give it a try and decide for yourself.

HapticKey

Itsycal

Itsycal website

If you ever were annoyed by the fact Mac has no built-in calendar in the menu bar, you'll love Itsycal. It is a tiny calendar with option to show your calendar events.

By default it displays small calendar icon, with current date in it.

Itsycal with default date icon

Custom date formats are supported as well, allowing you replace Mac's clock completely.

Itsycal using custom date format

Spectacle

Spectacle website

Simple window manager - move windows around, across workspaces, resize them. All that by using using customizable global shortcuts.

Spectacle main window

The Unarchiver

The Unarchiver website

Well, this is probably the most popular (I just realized Unarchiver was acquired by MacPaw, hopefully they'll keep it free and simple.) on this list. Unarchiver does exactly what it's name suggests. It supports all of the archive formats you'll ever need.

TotalFinder ($12.00)

TotalFinder website

I always felt Finder is missing a lot of features. TotalFinder and XtraFinder both fix that to an extent, by adding things like tabs, dual mode, cut and more.

TotalFinder dual mode

There is a catch - both application require system tweak to install. You need to disable System Integrity Protection (don't worry, you can enable it once app is installed).

XtraFinder

XtraFinder website

Pretty similar to TotalFinder, but free. I had some problems with it long ago (can't remember what it was) so I switched to TotalFinder. Haven't used in a long time, but you may want to give it a try.

Requires same system tweak as TotalFinder.


Bash

As a bonus here are my two favorite bash tools.

Bash-it

Bash-it website

This is a clone of oh-my-zsh for bash. Includes autocompletion, themes, aliases, custom functions and more. I have been using for a few years now and migrating my config to every new machine I use.

autojump

autojump website

This is pure awesomeness.

autojump is a faster way to navigate your filesystem. It works by maintaining a database of the directories you use the most from the command line.

Using provided j command, you can jump around filesystem using fuzzy search. Autojump is smart, and it will favorize directories you visit more frequently.

For example j stanko will take me to my blog directory (/Users/stanko/stanko.github.io) instead of my home folder (/Users/stanko) because I navigate to the prior one more often.

Note that directories must be visited first before they can be jumped to.


Hopefully some of these will make your daily workflow easier.

Comments (2)

Serdar
24. Aug 2018, 06:31

I've recently come across Magnet which allows you to pin windows to areas of the screen etc. - might not be for everyone but worth checking out.

Stanko
24. Aug 2018, 06:39

Hello Serdar,

Nice find, thanks for sharing! It looks similar to Spectacle.

Cheers!