My Mac app gold star list
A list of the apps I immediately install on any Mac I own!
I have a full Google Sheet here, and I've just done an audit for 2024!
I also have a full breakdown of the different Shortcuts I use in iOS and watchOS - have a look here.
Please add suggestions as issues!
App name |
Description |
Link |
Raycast |
A much better Spotlight, with lots of 3rd party integrations |
External Site - Raycast |
shottr |
Great screenshots and OCR text |
External Site - shottr |
Rocket |
Type emojis using a colon (:) anywhere e.g. :rocket: = ๐ |
External Site - Matthew Palmer |
UTM |
Securely run operating systems on your Mac in virutal machines |
External Site - UTM |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Hidden Bar |
Allows you to hide menu bar icons (replicates Bartender) |
App Store - Hidden Bar |
Stats |
View stats about your system including CPU, remaining battery etc in your menu bar (like iStats) |
Github - Stats |
The Unarchiver |
The best tool for opening .zip/.rar/.7z files |
App Store - The Unarchiver |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Arc |
The browser I use for all work stuff - Chromium and just innovative in every way |
External Site - The Browser Company |
Velja |
The only way to juggle Safari and Arc in the best way - choose where links and apps open! |
App Store - Velja |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Sublime Text |
A lightweight, really nice text editor |
External Site - Sublime Text |
Visual Studio Code |
A good place to code, especially for a newbie like me |
External Site - Visual Studio (Microsoft) |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Lossless Swticher |
Switches your current audio device's sample rate to match the lossless song on your Apple Music app, automatically |
Github - Lossless Switcher |
Shazam |
Click the menu bar to find out what song is playing around you, or set it to just identify everything playing around you |
App Store - Shazam |
Shazam Scrobbler |
Integrates with Shazam to scrobble everything (works great with auto shazam) that's playing around you |
External Site - Shazam Scrobbler |
NepTunes for last.fm |
The last.fm app is really bad on Mac โ hereโs a better one! |
App Store - NepTunes |
App name |
Description |
Link |
VLC |
The go to for playing anything that doesn't play in QuickTime, including conversion |
External Site - VideoLAN |
HandBrake |
Convert video to any media (finally out of beta!) |
External Site - HandBrake |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Bitwarden |
The best free password manager in my opinion, I use it in conjunction with iCloud Passwords |
External Site - Bitwarden |
App name |
Description |
Link |
ImageOptim |
Strip out non-essential data in images and reduce their file sizes, or enable minification to compress them |
External Site - ImageOptim |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Notion |
Notes but on a different level - my life is here! |
External Site - Notion |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Onyx |
General maintenance tasks for your Mac |
External Site - Titanium Software |
AppCleaner |
Fully uninstall apps |
External Site - FreeMacSoft |
Grand Perspective |
FView all your files (and what's using that 'Other' space visualised into squares, and manage them |
External Site - Sourceforge |
App name |
Description |
Link |
Rewind |
A personalised, locally running AI, with a free plan! |
External Site - Rewind |
Aerial |
Want the screensavers from the Apple TV on your Mac? Look no further (no longer needed with Sonoma) |
Github - Aerial |