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Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

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Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#231

Post by tra3 »

muzani wrote: post #63

Shottr - someone on HN recommended it, and I use it several times a day at work (FE here). It screenshots to clipboard quickly, and you can paste these right into Slack or Facebook or ChatGPT etc. It also does text & QR recognition, so you can copy text from images and such. BetterSnapTool - lets me move windows into other screens easily, the main feature that I miss from windows. BetterTouchTool - mostly just mappin…

There's also https://www.snipaste.com with very similar functionality. I dont understand how it's free.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#232

Post by telotortium »

mike_hearn wrote: post #202

Shortcat: https://shortcat.app/ It makes it VERY easy to keep your fingers on the keyboard almost all the time, which really helps things fly. It's an equivalent of the AceJump plugin for IntelliJ if you've used that, but it uses the accessibility tree instead of the contents of the editor.

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks for the rec.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#233

Post by leipert »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #224
rswail wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually broke down and I'm paying the exorbitant Apple tax for the extra iCloud storage for photos etc to deal with syncing between phone/mac/ipad etc.

Oh i'm paying that as well, i'm talking about backing up the photos stored in iCloud, and preferably in an automated way. Apple's official documentation[1] simply says to login manually to icloud.com, select the photos you want to backup, and download a ZIP file. I have 3.5TB photos in iCloud... It's enough that i can't even purchase a Mac that has the needed amount of storage, nor should it be necessary to mirror al…

I like this one for syncing from iCloud Photos on my NAS: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#234

Post by andrei_says_ »

master_crab wrote: post #189
andrei_says_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongbox seems similar to 1Password. I’m considering both. Could you share some of the reasons that had you choose the former?

Strongbox had a one and done purchase option at the time (14.99). They came out with an option a year or two ago for an upgraded version that was $99 for its lifetime. But I was migrated to that new product without paying. Loved it so much I paid $99 for a copy for my wife. And have also tipped them a few times over the past few years. Not sure if 1pass has something similar but I do remember a sub model which I didn…

Perfect, appreciate your response. I have been paying for 1password but don’t like the idea of losing access or functionality in my credit card expires for example.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#235

Post by slipwalker »

- homebrew

- 1clipboard

- kitty terminal

- raycast

- yabai tiling WM ( i still prefer it over magnet or rectangle )

- icemenubar ( i prefer it over bartender )

- busycalendar ( expensive, but so good )

- trillium notes

- iina video player

- bitwarden

- speedcrunch

- firefox

- jetbrains IDEs

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#236

Post by out-of-ideas »

al_borland wrote: post #102
out-of-ideas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i disabled spotlight after it stopped searching the system preferences and also they reordered some items where apps which used to be at the top of the list (after entering a few chars in search) became 3rd place by default-apps that are part of the read-only system that macos provides... took me only a day to forget i ever used apple+space for apps (though for non cli apps i still open finder to app-window to find s…

I just tried searching for a few things the system prefs with Spotlight and it worked, I guess they brought it back. I'm not always a fan of the order, but it's good enough for me. I used to head down the power user road for everything (I used Quicksilver in the pre-Spotlight days, used LaunchBar for a bit, PathFinder, etc), but I like being able to use a system without having to do a ton of setup. It also seemed lik…

> but I like being able to use a system without having to do a ton of setup

i agree on this; i used to try to automate settings on macos but gaveup well over 10years ago as each os version changed plist files, and some settings only changeable via mouse-clicks; im sure there's been improvements nowadays but i wont hold my breath (just disable features i dispise now like notification-spam and auto-index/search "features")

the reason i use finder is finder is always open; apple+tab to it, then some hotkey to open Applications. if i can avoid the mouse (on the laptop) i will - although since mac keyboards are tiny they have been giving my hands cramps lately - so ive just slowed down a little lol.

launchpad: ive rarely used, typically disable its hot-corner thing too (i often prefer having layers of stacked windows vs "fresh desktops" or even tiling wm's)

ps nice handle lol

edit: i forgot to mention, i also use `open /Applicatons/bla` but going into Applications and seeing icon + list of names triggers some memory of why that app is there) - going to Applications is basically an edge case that happens rarely (use dock for terminal/browser) and thats about all i open

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#237

Post by jaredsohn »

rewgs wrote: post #186
veidr wrote: post #159

iTerm2[2] and I'm astonished there's less mention of it on this thread (though there is some). That is mainly because I switched mostly to Linux a few years ago, and you'd think the lack of a good terminal app wouldn't be the biggest pain point of switching from Mac to Linux, but it absolutely is. There's no terminal app on Linux even close to as good as iTerm2. [2]: https://iterm2.com/ but it's v3 tho ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

I'm an iTerm user as well, but I hardly use any of its features -- I stick with it primarily because its font rendering is better than any other terminal I've tried on macOS. My needs are pretty minimal and aren't terminal-dependent, e.g. tmux, neovim...that's about it. I just need the terminal to display text, really. What features from iTerm make you love it so much?

Also not GP.

I create profiles for starting up each part of my work tech stack (backend, frontend, workers, specific ssh connections, etc.) and I can run/switch to them in separate tabs via shift-cmd-o and typing a few characters of the name. Can also start up all of them at once via an 'Open All' command for a group of profiles.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#238

Post by noltncy »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #205
ZeroTalent wrote: post #173

- Arc Browser – a complete game changer in terms of productivity – this app alone is worth switching from Windows/Linux (They have a Windows version, but it's lagging behind, not to mention there's no Android version and sync) - AeroSpace Window Manager since i got to know it this week (replacing Wins, which replaced free Rectangle) - Sensei for hardware checks/cleanups - Yomu for ebooks - Xnapper for beautiful scree…

Interesting that Arc Browser is reason enough to switch from windows or Linux. I see a people love it, but it doesn’t do well for my ADHD brain.

I'm yet to try it out, thus curious. Why it wouldn't work for ADHD. Also what other browser do you suggest? I currently use Safari and Librewolf.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#239

Post by 8fingerlouie »

leipert wrote: post #233
8fingerlouie wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh i'm paying that as well, i'm talking about backing up the photos stored in iCloud, and preferably in an automated way. Apple's official documentation[1] simply says to login manually to icloud.com, select the photos you want to backup, and download a ZIP file. I have 3.5TB photos in iCloud... It's enough that i can't even purchase a Mac that has the needed amount of storage, nor should it be necessary to mirror al…

I like this one for syncing from iCloud Photos on my NAS: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...

Sadly it doesn't work with Advanced Security enabled in iCloud :/

Ultimately this is a problem for Apple to solve.

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