Little macOS Apps That Make a Big Difference in 2024 | Hacker News Reader

Little macOS Apps That Make a Big Difference in 2024

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41 pointsbehnamoh31 comments

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Two more little utilities that I cannot live without on Mac:

A tiling window manager like https://rectangleapp.com/

Muzzle, which automatically silences desktop notifs when you're screensharing https://muzzleapp.com/

I’ll add:

BetterTouchTool https://folivora.ai/

ItsyCal https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/

I’ll add Raycast, which is a launcher but does so much more (including window management)

https://www.raycast.com/

If you need a menubar calendar, Cron (cron.com) is particularly nice because it gives you a universal keyboard shortcut to join the next meeting.

> Muzzle, which automatically silences desktop notifs when you're screensharing https://muzzleapp.com/

Wow, the fake notifications on the landing page are really something lol.

Definitely gets the point across in an instant. Excellent marketing.

It's insanity that even when Messages.app is closed, the messages still pop up. Even when not screensharing - I still get an audible ding sound when I'm on video conference.

I'm dying here! Thanks for mentioning it or I'd never have clicked the link.

For basic window tiling, I stumbled across Hammerspoon and the MiroWindowsManager spoon.

https://github.com/miromannino/miro-windows-manager

https://www.hammerspoon.org/

You can disable mouse acceleration in the regular system settings in the latest MacOS.

Also I'm not paying to read a ranked list article on Medium.

Wat! How? "Mouse/Advanced/Pointer acceleration" disable, wow. Thank you!

I feel like a gaslit dependent having accepted something that shouldn't have been for so long, and now so grateful that it's available.

TextGrabber is also part of stock macOS. Take a screenshot, click the thumbnail to open the temp window, copy the text you want, click the trash icon to delete the screenshot.

Paletro is also part of stock macOS and has been ever since Spotlight was introduced, which they even mention. I fail to see how this app is more user friendly, macOS shows you visually where the thing you're looking for is in the menu so you can better learn. Maybe if it was one of those all-in-one Spotlight replacements that also does this and 500 other things, there would be a better argument for it.

This is as far as I could get without paying. I'd like these lists better if they weren't padded with utilities that replicate stock OS features. There seems to be a big market in macOS to wait until Apple introduces a new core technology, put a new skin on it, then release it as a stand alone app to people who missed the memo about the built in feature.

Some personal must-haves:

– DriveDx, for storage health monitoring: https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

– Bartender, to control menu bar clutter: https://www.macbartender.com/

– HazeOver, to dim distracting background stuff: https://hazeover.com/

– Raycast, for launcher, window manager, menu search, clipboard manager, etc.: https://www.raycast.com/

cool, but I'm not going to make an account with medium to read the rest of the article

Not sure if it varies, but I did get to see all 5 before the restriction.

I have an account and they won't let me read the whole article without upgrading to a paid account :)

[Edit]: Now I just tried to delete my account but after clicking on delete and being told what I'm going to lose I cannot actually delete the account because the second delete button is disabled.

Heh, dark pattern 2023: "To delete your account, please open the browser developer tools and remove the 'disabled' attribute from the button. Be aware that the DOM tree is very complicated with many many decoy buttons!"

Ha, good idea, thanks! :)

I use BetterDisplay and it's fantastic for tweaking resolutions and rendering on any external display that isn't Apple branded. It also has a bunch of extra features that's likely useful for any display but I'm mostly using it for custom HiDPI rez/rendering.

It's actually hard to find the buy Pro page[0]. Linked from github[1]. I'm not affiliated.

[0] https://betterdisplay.pro/buy

[1] https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/Getting-a-Pr...

For anyone looking for a scientific calculator, I've been building TechniCalc since 2015 (although it was called SciLine back then). It features a visual equation editor; advanced maths features like imaginary numbers, matrices, and summations; and a unit converter and unit-based maths (e.g. 1 meter + 3 yards). It is paid, but it's one up front cost with zero subscriptions, and that purchase will also unlock it on iPad and iPhone.

https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc

Happy to answer any questions!

Raycast does app launching, window management, clipboard history, calculator functionality, and much much more. https://www.raycast.com/

My favourite discovery for 2023 was https://maccy.app/ which provides a Windows-style clipboard history.

It covers off one of the few things I love from Windows.

Edit: One more to mention: I'm obviously biased, but I continue to find my own scratchpad app invaluable https://klipped.com/macos

Oooh, I’ve been using Paste but Maccy is compelling. Thank you for sharing it.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id967805235

https://pasteapp.io

Check out PastePal — I moved after Paste went subscription, have been thrilled ever since.

Huge recommendation, already switched. Thank you!

When I was in grade school the old Macs at the school library had a clipboard history. It was always fun to open it up and see what other users dumped on there. Not sure why that didn't make the cut for macOS after all these years.

https://archive.is/sWF5I

https://www.alfredapp.com/ is like a lot of these, all in one. Clipboard history, launched, scripts, automations (including window management) it’s not free, but it’s amazing.

Highly recommend [shottr](https://shottr.cc).

Screenshot replacement with great ways to quickly annotate.

I’ve found the BetterSnapTool to be essential for working on an ultrawide monitor: https://www.folivora.ai/bettersnaptool/

If only there was a way to move around the notification location- I’m always missing those at the far end of the screen

This looks like FanzyZones on Windows.

Have you considered going further and just using a tiling window manager like Rectangle?

Adding my must haves:

- DisplayBuddy: a more modern alternative to BetterDisplay to control monitors (https://displaybuddy.app)

- Magnet: the simplest and best window manager (https://magnet.crowdcafe.com)

- DaisyDisk: fantastic way to visualise your disk usage and free up space (https://daisydiskapp.com)

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