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Another 24 tools I recommend for Mac users
There are a lot of other tools I use to extend capabilities of my Mac. Here are some of the ones I use most frequently.
A Better Finder Attributes 6: Terrible name, useful tool. The other day I brought in some images taken from an action camera with an incorrectly set date. This tool allows you to change the created and modified dates, as well as many other Finder file attributes. You won’t need it often, but when you do, it’s a big help.
BBEdit: BBEdit is the patriarch of all other Mac editors. It’s been around and regularly updated since 1992. Yes, 1992. The irony is that BB stands for Bare Bones. This product is anything but bare bones. It is deeply feature rich and has a killer regular expression engine. If there’s text that needs massaging, BBEdit is your tool.
BetterSnapTool: I’m using BetterSnapTool on my main machine because it allows me to pre-define window locations and assign those to keystrokes. I have that tied into my Stream Deck for super-fast window rearrangement when powering through stuff.
ChronoSync: ChronoSync is one of my old standby tools. I’ve been using this for probably ten years, at least, to cleanly sync across the network. What sets ChronoSync apart is the company’s deep understanding of Mac file systems and networking. It’s got good automation, a ton of options, and you can pretty well count on the fact that if ChronoSync says your files have been synced, they have, indeed, been transferred correctly.
CleanMyMac X: While it claims to clean random OS cruft, I find its biggest help is doing full uninstalls of somewhat uncooperative apps. Most Mac apps don’t have an uninstaller, so when you delete them, they leave detritus around. CleanMyMac X is one of a class of tools that cleans that stuff up. At $35 per Mac, this is getting to be a somewhat pricy tool. Many Mac apps are sold to a given user, but this requires per-machine licensing.
DaisyDisk: This program produces a nice, graphical representation of what folders take the most space. You can dive into folders, do scans of external devices, and easily manage your storage. I’ve used this a lot when I need to clear space on a small SSD or to find out where I’m using a lot of unexpected storage. It’s fast, reliable, and pretty.
Displays: This is my most recent discovery and it’s got a killer feature: picture-in-picture. PiP shows the contents of one monitor, live on another. Why would you want this? For me, I have a monitor for broadcast that doesn’t face my main machine and I can move between the two windows. When I was wired in for mic and headphones at the studio monitor and Skype opened facing the other way, Displays let me move it to the screen I could see. It also has a bunch of other display resolution management features.
Forklift and Transmit: These are two pretty FTP programs, both helpful and annoying in their own way. I alternate between them depending on what development task I’m dealing with, mostly moving files between the web servers I manage.
HiddenMe: This little extension simply hides the icons on the desktop. It’s free for one monitor and a token fee if you want it to work across multiple monitors. Not quite as necessary since Mojave introduced Stacks, but still helpful if you want to clear the decks and work without clutter.
HyperDock: One of my most-relied on Windows features since Windows 7 is the taskbar hover peek feature. I find it invaluable to be able to take a quick look at apps before choosing them. While native macOS does not have a peek feature, HyperDock adds it back in. It’s always one of my very first installs after setting up macOS.
Keyboard Maestro: Absolutely bonkers-powerful macro and sequence programming tool. One of the apps that justifies buying a Mac to use. If you need to create workflows, this is an essential tool.
LanScan: This is an indispensable network management tool. It does a fast scan of your local area network and presents a grid of names and IP addresses. Yes, I can accomplish this in my router UI, but since I’m often putting a new device on the network and needing to connect to it, LanScan helps me find and connect easily and quickly.
Magnet: Like BetterSnapTool, this app helps you rearrange your windows. A lot of folks like Magnet because it’s simple and works well. I use it on my side machines and use BetterSnapTool with my Stream Deck on my main machine.
Monosnap: Although Mojave comes with a much-improved screen capture tool, I still find Monosnap to be more effective. My favorite feature is the ability to quickly add an arrow to an image to point out a feature or capability. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s free.
Mountain: SMB/AFP volume mounter that puts all your volumes in a menu on the menubar. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes turned me onto this little gem. With 15 volumes I’m always switching between, it’s a lot faster than going to a Finder window to choose volumes.
NeoFinder: Not Finder-related at all. Stupid naming. Incredibly robust image library management. It’s the only image library that didn’t crash under my load of half a million images. Handles PNG well, and even most .ai Illustrator files. Most image management tools are JPEG and RAW only, leaving folks with illustrations and web graphics without a solution. Another app I’d buy a Mac to use. I called it the Holy Grail of asset management in my review.
NetSpot Pro: I talked about this briefly in my Wi-Fi mesh article recently. NetSpot allows you to build a graphical map of your Wi-Fi coverage. It works well. If you find you have a dead spot, NetSpot can help you decide where to add mesh repeaters to fill in the hole.
ScreenFlow: Very nice screen recording program with pro-level composing and editing features. There are Windows apps that also do screen recording, but I’ve never found one as integrated, functional, and well thought out as ScreenFlow. Of course, with Parallels, you can use ScreenFlow to record both Mac and Windows screens. The Windows-based screen recorders don’t have that option because VMs on Windows won’t run Mac software.
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