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I spend a lot of time watching the free-software sites, and for a couple of years now one name keeps earning a click: WidgetWorx. There are currently 17 "unquestionably niche, but surprisingly useful apps" on offer, some free, some paid, none of them more than $4.99. In a throwback to yesteryear, a few are fully functional donation-ware. Every app is signed and notarized. No subscriptions, no telemetry, no Electron bloat.

The developer answers support quickly and keeps the apps current with bug fixes and new features. You can tell he put real thought into each title, and I've used enough of them long enough to speak to whether they hold up. They do.

My Favorite WidgetWorx Apps

Command Keeper - A searchable, personal library you build over time: command-line snippets, shell scripts, SQL queries, even AI prompts, all a click away. That single click can insert a command or script straight into macOS Terminal, iTerm, Warp, Ghostty, or Alacritty. It lives in the menu bar, but it's useful enough that you'll want to memorize the keyboard shortcut. Once you've invested some time building your library, take advantage of the export (JSON or CSV) as a backup. A lifetime license is $4.99. If you're a try-before-you-buy person, you can use it as long as you like; it just shows a time-delayed nag screen on each launch until you enter a key.

Butterfly Collector - A well-thought-out app for tracking your software licenses, and a lot more than just license keys: version, publisher, category, cost, architecture, minimum OS version, platform, and plenty of other fields. If you use something like Hazel that relies on license files, you can attach those to the entry. Automation fans get 10 built-in AppleScript actions, and there's an import function from another WidgetWorx app, Revok. Once it's populated, you can crunch some sobering numbers on what your software habit actually costs. The nicest touch: renewal reminders, which double as a prompt to re-evaluate your stack. A lifetime license is $4.99, with the same try-before-you-buy mechanism as Command Keeper.

Revok - I'm a little meta about my software; I keep apps about apps, and this is the one I reach for most. Point it at your Applications folder and it scans in a few seconds, returning an almost absurd 171 attributes. Want to see how many Electron apps you're carrying? (I'm down to four.) Curious which framework a developer used? Short on space and looking for what can go? Revok has a "seldom used apps" category for exactly that, and it'll show you which apps installed login items. The user guide is worth a read for use-case ideas. One caveat: you need the Xcode command-line tools installed to use it. Revok is $3.99, works without a license, and gains features once you buy one.

Book 'em Danno - I have the ebook collection of a true data hoarder: 28K titles and counting. I manage my collections with a mix of tools, so when WidgetWorx released Book 'em Danno I imported everything just to see what would happen. TL;DR: it didn't break. Drag your ebook files right in; it handles EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, CBZ, and PDF, extracts the metadata, and builds a searchable database. You can add notes and ratings. If you think Calibre is too ugly to live with, Book 'em Danno covers a good chunk of that ground. Pair it with a free reader like Readest and you've got a genuinely capable setup. The app is free to use, but the developer asks for a donation.

Notcho Libre - There are some clever apps that put the notch to work, but that's cold comfort if you just want to be rid of the damn thing. Notcho Libre is a recently released free app that redraws your display so the notch disappears, and it does it without invasive permissions. Set it as a startup item and get on with your (notchless) business.

Other Free Apps

You can find all of these on the WidgetWorx website.

• DoD - Get word definitions on demand with this pop-up dictionary
• Stim - Keep your Mac awake on a schedule or while specific apps are open
• Disk-O - Monitor your built-in storage
• Menu Snappr II - A screenshot utility for capturing your screen, windows, and selected areas
• Menupedia - Bring Wikipedia into your Mac's menu bar
• A.B.M. Command - A retro-styled arcade defense game for players who like frantic action

DonationWare

• File Fingerprints - Run hash scans at scale with a security angle
• Quill - A menu bar-accessible notes app

Paid Apps

• MountBatten - Apply rules to external drives and disk images before they can mount on your Mac
• Trash Buddy Plus - A shortcut-friendly trash management app
• Unibrow - A task manager focused on speed, structure, and flexibility
• Breakin' - Break reminders throughout the day

Developer Q & A

How did you get started in app development?

During the winter 2020 COVID lockdown. I built a Spotify player that ran in the menu bar to pass the time. It leaked memory like a sieve, but the sense of accomplishment and creative fulfillment was addictive, so I kept at it.

WidgetWorx isn't your full-time job. What else do you do?

I'm a Product Manager at Unity, where I lead a small team focused on mobile game monetization. Over a long, unremarkable tech career, I've worked on everything from simple video games and ad systems to Google's contract management platform and tools supporting US national security.

Which developers do you admire?

Double-Click Software, a long-defunct Atari ST developer from my teenage years who built many elegant, lightweight tools. More contemporary inspiration comes from The Low Tech Guys, who make some really well-designed apps.

Which of your apps do you take the most pride in? Why?

I take pride in all of them to a degree, but if I had to choose: Notcho Libre, for being a surprisingly simple fix for the MacBook's notch; Book 'em Danno, because it does a good job managing your ebook catalog if you invest the time to learn it; and Revok, for the genuinely useful insight it gives users into what's installed on their Macs.

What are you working on next?

I'm trying to work up the motivation to start on Video Cat, a video cataloging app that will share a codebase with Book 'em Danno. That's on top of fixing bugs and adding features to my existing crop of apps.

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Apple's Cmd+Tab has real blind spots. It works on apps, not windows. It doesn't know about Spaces. It has no search, fuzzy or otherwise. Several independent developers have recently taken a crack at fixing it, each with a different idea of what "better" means. I'm not picking a winner here -- just laying out what each one gets right and where it falls short, in case you want to try one yourself.

GroupCtrl: Free, Open Source (GPL-3.0)

Instead of assigning a different hotkey to each app, GroupCtrl walks you through building app groups that match your actual workflow -- Bloom, BBEdit, and Preview under "Files," say, or BBEdit, Sublime Text, and Visual Studio Code under "Text Editors."

What I like: Git-friendly YAML config -- a real advantage for dotfiles fans, since setup is versionable and shareable as plain text.

Price: Free and open source (GPL-3.0) -- no subscription, no paid tier.

Sources: GroupCtrl on GitHub

Switch: Free, Source-Available

Switch fixes the "apps not windows" limitation of the native Cmd+Tab switcher. It cycles through every open window -- or just the current app's -- with inline type-to-filter.

What I like:

• Lightweight: 1.7 MB
• Actively maintained
• Licensing converts to full MIT in May 2028
• Can replace the AltTab + DockDoor combo a lot of people already run

Price: Free, source-available (FSL-1.1-MIT, converts to plain MIT in May 2028). No subscription, no paid tier.

Sources: Switch on GitHub · switch-dev.sanyamgarg.com

Dory: $9.99 Lifetime (App Store)

Dory swaps the switcher for a tiny search menu: hold the middle mouse button or the right Command key, then type. It does smart search -- first letter, middle letters, acronyms, even names that just sound similar -- and tracks which apps you switch to most, so your muscle memory builds around how you actually use your Mac instead of a fixed list.

What I like: Broader adoption than the other apps in this roundup. The developer is responsive -- after Dory landed on Product Hunt (where it hit #6), he shipped almost every user suggestion in the very next release, v1.3.

Cons: No free trial.

Price: $9.99 one-time purchase. No subscription.

Sources: Dory homepage · App Store · Product Hunt

Sxitch: $10 Lifetime (3 Macs) or $2/Month

Sxitch is a variation on the Right-Cmd launcher pioneered by the Low-Tech Guys. Right-Cmd opens a popup; type letters and the list narrows -- "tree-based navigation" -- until one app is left, which auto-focuses. No cycling.

What I like: The tree-based, letter-narrowing mechanic is the clear differentiator versus Cmd+Tab's unpredictable cycling. The free tier includes tree-based switching and themes; Pro adds window switching, a Hide/Quit mode, overrides, blacklists, and priority support via Discord. The developer is responsive to user feedback and has already shipped a list-view feature based on Reddit requests.

Cons: May not be enough of a difference from Raycast or Alfred to justify a separate tool for some users. If you install via Homebrew, double-check the formula -- some users have reported it lagging behind the latest release.

Price: $10 for lifetime access on up to 3 Macs, or $2 a month, cancel anytime.

Sources: Sxitch homepage · Sxitch vs rcmd vs Dory

Scopo: $1.25/Month Subscription

I really hope the Scopo developer rethinks the pricing strategy, because there's a lot of resistance to paying a subscription for an app that doesn't carry ongoing costs to maintain. That said, Scopo fills a real niche: it scopes Cmd+Tab to the current Space, so a project's windows don't get buried under Slack, email, and browser tabs from other contexts.

What I like: 30-day trial, no card required. Native Swift, not Electron -- and it only needs Accessibility permission.

Cons: Subscription only, no lifetime option.

Price: $1.25 a month.

Source: scopo.app

None of these replaces the others outright. Pick based on what's actually broken for you: free and hackable (GroupCtrl, Switch), a fast one-time purchase (Dory), tree-based muscle memory (Sxitch), or Space-scoped (Scopo).

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RegexPilot

RegexPilot, from developer Kristof Polleunis, is an app designed to protect you and your work from the hallucinations and miscalculations AI can inject into the regular expressions you ask it to build.

Not Voodoo

It took a while, but I finally realized that regular expressions are not the computer voodoo I always assumed them to be. In 2026, even regular (non-developer) users are managing and searching large data sets: movies and TV shows, music, ebooks, or just collections of documents piled up over the years. If you do find-and-replace in BBEdit, Nova, or Obsidian; clean up messy CSV exports; build filters in Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, or Alfred; or wrangle a marketing list full of inconsistent phone numbers, you are using regex whether you call it that or not.

Regular Expressions for Regular People

Although RegexPilot was built for people who already know how to write regular expressions, it has turned out to be a good tool for teaching the rest of us a thing or two. The way it works clicks quickly. You describe what you want in plain English, get a draft, and then see it drawn out as a railroad diagram: anchors as start and end markers, character classes as colored pills, groups as bracketed branches. You fix the part that is wrong by dragging it, not by counting backslashes in a text field. Hovering over any node tells you what it does, and watching matches appear and disappear as you tweak teaches the difference between \b and \B, or what a lookahead actually does, faster than any reference page.

Why It's Better Than AI Alone

AI models are particularly good at writing regex, until they aren't. They fail, predictably, in a couple of ways. They lean on training data that does not distinguish a public IP address from a private one, or that reads every 10-digit number as a US phone number. AI does pattern recognition. It does not think.

AI models are also prone to handing you the wrong flavor of regex. You ask for something that works in Python and get a JavaScript-friendly version instead. If you are making a living doing this, you cannot tell your customers, "It worked in ChatGPT."

The honest fix for both is a verification loop: paste the draft into a tester, run it against the real engine, throw your edge cases at it, watch what lights up. RegexPilot is that loop collapsed into one window. The AI is built in (bring your own key for OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and others, or run a local model through Ollama or LM Studio), and anything it generates renders on the canvas and executes against the selected language's actual engine immediately. The "did it hallucinate" check happens before you ever paste back into your code. You are not replacing the AI; you are giving yourself somewhere to catch it.

Worth Exploring Further

Although I've worked in tech for a long time, I'm not a developer qualified to speak on the pros and cons of this app for that kind of work. Suffice to say, the documentation describes broad compatibility with many flavors of regex and says pattern matching runs in milliseconds.

The Regular Details

Privacy - No analytics, no telemetry, no account, no email list, nothing leaves the machine by default. The voice dictation runs entirely on-device via a bundled Whisper model, and if you point the AI at a local model instead of a hosted key, the app never touches the network at all. The only thing phoning home is license validation.

Pricing - RegexPilot needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer; the core app is about 8 MB, closer to 72 MB once the bundled engines are included. The JavaScript and TypeScript flavors are free forever, which for a lot of web work is the whole job. A single €19 one-time purchase unlocks all 21 flavors with their authentic engines, AI, voice, the full library, and every export format. There is a 30-day trial of everything, and no subscription, which in 2026 still deserves to be said out loud. Download it from regexpilot.com.

Roadmap - A VS Code extension and a Raycast plugin are on the v1.1 roadmap, with a step-through debugger slated for v1.2. Bug reports go to his GitHub issues page, and he means it when he asks for them.

Process Spy

You know the Activity Monitor moment: something's pinning a CPU core, you open it up, and it cheerfully tells you the offender is named java. No version, no path, no command line, no clue which of your running Java apps it actually is. For a tool that ships on every Mac, it's weirdly bad at answering the one question you have — what is this thing and why is it doing that?

I've been using ProcessSpy for about a year now and it's mostly taken over that job for me. It's the first Mac app I've found that genuinely scratches the Sysinternals Process Explorer itch that Windows folks have had forever. The dev (Robert, @rob3rth) built it because he was juggling multiple JDK versions and couldn't tell the java processes apart in Activity Monitor — which tells you exactly who it's for.

It's pitched as developer-focused, but don't let that put you off if you're "just" a power user. If you install/test/uninstall a lot of software, or you like to know what a mystery background process actually is before you trust it, you'll get plenty out of it.

Stuff I actually use

• Click-to-identify — hit a shortcut, click any window on screen, and it jumps to the process behind it. Stupidly useful, use it constantly.
• Inspector pane — command line + path, code signature, sandboxed/hardened-runtime, native vs translated, memory footprint with peak tracking, live disk read/write. This is the part that makes it a real diagnostic tool.
• Advanced tree view — groups an app's helpers/XPC services (links them by responsible PID) and rolls up CPU/mem/thread totals so you see the app's actual footprint, not just its polite-looking main process.
• Finished process recall — it remembers processes after they exit (command line, env vars, history) with a countdown till it forgets them. Great for catching something that flashes up and disappears before you can inspect it.
• History + CSV export — logs CPU/mem/threads over time on timelines, exports to CSV. Transient spikes stop being a "reproduce it live" problem.
• Regex + multi-property quick search (/java|node/ style) and JavaScript filters for anything more complex.
• Menu bar dashboard + status bar CPU/GPU/mem/disk readouts.
• Run a Shortcut on process start/finish — niche, but cool if you're into automation.

Free vs. Paid

• Free version is fully functional for core monitoring, but it makes you sit through a startup countdown screen and locks the deep stuff.
• Paid unlocks environment variables, entitlements/Info.plist/bundle ID inspection, and the history/CSV features, and kills the countdown.
• (I know this is steep, you don't have to tell me.)License is a one-time $34.99 on Gumroad — one user, unlimited personal devices, lifetime updates. No subscription. Heads up: it used to be $24.99 and some listing sites still show that, so the price has gone up.

Runs on Intel + Apple Silicon, macOS 14+, already supports Tahoe. Apple-notarized signed app in a ~4MB dmg, or via Homebrew:

brew install --cask processspy

It's an indie app from a solo dev, so it hasn't had the benefit of a marketing campaign. The native-Mac feel is real (built on native APIs, not a cross-platform wrapper) and the update pace over the last year has been steady.

If you arwe looking for an Activity Monitor Replacement and this app isn't for you. Here are three more you can try.

• htop
• Stats
• iStat Menus

SmoothCSV

If you've ever had to search for "how to make Excel quit removing leading zeroes," I have an app for you. SmoothCSV won't turn some random number into a date and then refuse to change it back. In fact, it won't format anything unless you expressly tell it to. It doesn't try to be a lightweight spreadsheet; it's a grid editor, first and foremost. It leaves your data as it is, with no helpful "guesses" at what you might be trying to do. That's the pitch, and it's enough to make this my CSV editor for most tasks.

Here to Stay

The first version of SmoothCSV shipped in 2011. The current v3 release came out last year; it's a complete rewrite built on Tauri, which is why it weighs in under 80 MB and opens a 100 MB file remarkably fast. The dev claims it's 12x faster than Excel. I can't verify that number, but I have some genuinely huge CSV files and it never blinked when I threw them at it. Cheers for speed, and for not being another Electron monstrosity.

The Features That Actually Matter

Most of the feature list is what you'd hope for and rarely get in one place:

• A real grid editor with row and column tools: insert, delete, move, hide, dedupe.
• Find and replace with regex support.
• Filtering through either a visual condition builder or SQL-style expressions.
• Multi-column sorting by text, number, date, or length.
• Multi-cell editing, the way multi-cursor works in a code editor.
• A command palette, so you can drive the whole app without hunting through menus.

For those who live in CSV files, it also has extras that make it more than a text editor with a few tricks:

SQL Console: Run SELECT queries directly against your CSV. If you've ever exported a table just to ask it one question, this collapses that round trip into the editor.

Customizable file formats: Control delimiter, quotes, encoding, and line endings per file, with rules you can save and apply automatically. This is the fix for the semicolon-delimited, Latin-1-encoded, Windows-line-ending file that some other tool flatly refused to open correctly.

Copy/Paste As: Copy a range as Markdown, HTML, JSON, SQL, or LaTeX. Handy for documentation or moving tabular data between formats.

Excel import/export, aggregation, transpose, auto-fill, and a CLI: These round out the functionality. The CLI lets you launch a file and jump straight to a specific row and column, and smoothcsv:// deep links let you wire it into larger workflows.

Licensing I Respect

You can download and use the fully featured version of SmoothCSV from the dev's website, for as long as you'd like, with no limits. The occasional nudge to buy a license is non-modal on purpose, so it doesn't interrupt your work. Like a few other stalwarts (Shottr and Immich come to mind), it's the kind of app you end up paying for because you're grateful and want to support the developer.

Who It's Not For

It's closed source, though that may change one day. If you're FOSS-only, this isn't for you. And if you're after spreadsheet functionality, look elsewhere: formulas across a living workbook, charts, pivot tables, collaborative editing. This is the wrong tool, and it isn't pretending otherwise.

See Also

A few other CSV editors worth a look if this one doesn't click:

• Delimited
• EasyCSV
• ModernCSV

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Cache Out, a free new single-purpose utility from veteran Mac developer Jim Mitchell, fits right into an app category that is severely underrepresented - utilities that work across multiple browsers from a single interface.

What It Does

Cache Out's superpower is selective data removal from a variety of popular macOS browsers with the click of a single button. It removes five categories of information - cache, history, downloads, favicons, and cookies. You select the browsers you want cleared from a list. You select the categories of data to remove. Then, you click a single button and BOOM. It's done. After the files are removed, you aren't left in the dark about what happened since you get a report on the number of files and MBs that were removed.

There are currently seven supported browsers:

• Safari
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge
• Brave
• Opera
• Orion

I'd like to see a few more on the list, including Vivaldi, Arc, and Atlas. Thankfully, Mitchell indicates that more browsers are coming.

Cache Out punches all the right buttons for a privacy-focused app. It doesn't phone home or collect analytics. It doesn't require an account or registration. It's Apple-notarized. Everything happens on your machine.

Why You Need It

Don't think that an app like this is the ultimate Boss Button. Most corporate-owned computers track Internet traffic in real time, so your IT department can still track your history if this is your only precaution. Still, most undermanned and overworked support workers don't care where you go as a general rule. Likewise, your home ISP can track your DNS requests for almost every site you visit unless you use a no-log VPN or a service like NextDNS that offers name resolution over HTTPS. Even then, you have to be savvy enough to set it up correctly.

Still, there are a lot of reasons for running clean browsers. In a world where browser fingerprinting is maximally invasive and pervasive, one defense is using multiple browsers to make yourself harder to track for the data scrapers of the world. You'll quickly build up GBs of data for almost every browser you use. If you're stuck with a small hard drive you can't upgrade (like my brand-new M4 Mac Mini's 256GB), you always have to be careful with space. Cache Out is the perfect app to do that.

Also, many countries, including my own, are seeing a rollback of civil liberties. To make matters worse, areas where people travel with their computers offer less privacy than you'd have at home. If you gave the slightest concern about the TSA, ICE, or the CBP looking through your browser history, use Cache Out before you travel.

I am not the developer. I am a guy on Reddit who reviews software.

Other Cross Browser Utilities

Here are utilities that operate across multiple browsers on macOS:

History & Data Aggregation

• HistoryHound a Must Have Research Tool | AppAddict St. Clair Software — Indexes and searches browsing history from multiple browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and more) in one place. Lets you do full-text searches across all your browser histories simultaneously. Useful for finding pages you visited without remembering which browser you used.

Macro & Automation Tools

• Keyboard Maestro, The App That Makes Everything Better - Tips for the Automation Curious | AppAddict Stairways Software — A powerful macro utility that can trigger actions in any browser. You can build macros that work in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Arc, and others — filling forms, clicking elements, navigating pages, or switching between browsers automatically.
• Alfred Running with Crayons — Launcher and automation tool with workflows that can interact with multiple browsers. Can open URLs in a chosen browser, search history, and trigger browser-based actions via custom workflows.
• How to Get The Most from Raycast | AppAddict A launcher and productivity tool with extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Arc. Extensions let you search tabs, bookmarks, and history across browsers from a single interface.

Password Managers (Cross-Browser)

• 1Password Works via browser extensions in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Brave. The Mac app itself manages credentials centrally regardless of which browser you use.
• Bitwarden Open-source password manager with extensions for virtually every major browser. The Mac desktop app serves as a central vault across all of them.

Ad Blocking & Privacy (System-Wide)

• AdGuard for Mac Filters ads and trackers at the system level, meaning it works across all browsers without needing individual extensions installed in each one.
• Little Snitch Objective Development — Network monitor and firewall that works at the OS level, so it monitors and controls outgoing connections from any browser equally.

Developer / Inspection Tools

• Proxyman A macOS proxy tool that intercepts HTTP/HTTPS traffic from any browser (or app). Useful for debugging web traffic regardless of which browser made the request.
• Charles Proxy Similar to Proxyman — a web debugging proxy that captures traffic from all browsers at the network level.

Bookmark Management

• Raindrop.io Gets a Significant New Feature | AppAddict Cross-browser bookmark manager with extensions for all major browsers. Centralizes bookmarks saved from any browser into one organized collection.
• GoodLinks | AppAddict Read-later and bookmarking app with Safari extension built-in and support for sharing from other browsers via the share sheet.

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The mark of a good Internet citizen is whether they star the GitHub repositories they like and whether they upvote helpful posts on Reddit. As someone who devotes a lot of time to online communities, racking up a few Internet points always feels good. I used to be slightly intimidated by GitHub. For the most part, it's full of indie apps by individual devs, so there isn't a marketing department designing websites and writing copy. It's just the same dude who coded the app you want to try. If you spend time looking around, you find that GitHub also contains plenty of goodies that aren't apps. There are repositories for scripts, app settings, Black Friday deals, and more. I'm not a dev, but even I have a couple of public repos. On one, I share my collection of 800 Keyboard Maestro macros, plus Hazel rules and Better Touch Tool actions. My other public repo is a collection of markdown documents with quotes from people wiser than me. I added over 300 new notes there last week.

One obsessive soul created a repo where he documented 1,600 Obsidian extensions AND another for 1,700 Raycast extensions. It's impossible, I think, to keep something like that up to date, but both are good resources.

You can see a list of 81 repositories I felt worthy of being added to my Raindrop collection here. Here are a few highlights. I'm always looking for more, so hit me up if you have anything to share.

macOS Apps & Utilities

MAS

Command-line interface for the Mac App Store. Search, install, update, and manage App Store apps from the terminal. Easy to use as part of a launchd item or cron job to force updates when the Mac App Store is being stubborn about doing it for you.

Mole

Terminal-based tool for cleaning, uninstalling, analyzing, optimizing, and monitoring your Mac. This is the free version that does almost everything the GUI (which is not free) does.

Cardinal

Fast macOS file search app using Everything-compatible syntax with filters for file type, size, tags, and content.

Obsidian

Obsidian Webclipper Templates

Customizable Obsidian Webclipper templates with LLM integration that automatically organize and categorize clipped web content into structured notes. I've tried every way known to mankind to get selected web content into my vault. This is the way.

Automators Vault

Obsidian vault for the late great Automators Podcast community, containing automation-related notes, show notes, and resources.

Raycast

script-commands

Official Raycast collection of community-contributed script commands you can install and run directly from the launcher.

raycast_extensions_by_downloads

Auto-generated, regularly updated ranking of Raycast extensions sorted by download count.

Automation and Scripting

Tools for automating tasks on macOS and the command line.

Gum

Charm tool for writing interactive shell scripts with styled prompts, spinners, and formatted output.

Topgrade

Single command to upgrade everything on your system -- The Mac App Store, package managers, Homebrew apps, runtimes, and more -- all at once. See also Topgrade - Upgrade All the Things | AppAddict and How to Use Topgrade Silently and Automatically for Multiple Update Protocols (Free) | AppAddict

Privacy, Networking and Security

DNS Easy Switcher

Simple macOS app for quickly switching between DNS server configurations.

Betterfox

Firefox user.js configuration file for optimal privacy and security hardening without breaking normal browsing.

Curated Lists & Directories

Awesome lists, resource hubs, and community-maintained directories.

awesome-mac

High-quality, community-curated list of macOS software, tools, and resources organized by category.

open-source-mac-os-apps

Comprehensive list of open-source macOS applications available for free, organized by type.

Black-Friday-Deals

Community-maintained list of Black Friday deals on macOS/iOS software and books, updated annually.

AI & Language Models

Tools for running, hosting, and working with AI and local language models.

apfel

Exposes Apple's built-in on-device language model as a local OpenAI-compatible API server on macOS. Enables AI capabilities without cloud APIs or API keys.

llamafile

Distribute and run LLMs as a single self-contained executable file. Removes the complexity of setting up local models across platforms.

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In trying to be open-minded, I recently agreed to try Ejectify (€6,99), an app that performs a task for which I already had a solution: to automatically eject external disks from my Mac before it goes to sleep and to remount them when it wakes. I worked off a MacBook for a long, long time, and I needed a way to just shut it, unplug, and move on without getting nagged to death about thumb drives and external volumes. I've been using Jettison ($6.95) to do that since I saw it in Macworld in 2011. The developer, St. Clair Software, also makes Default Folder X, History Hound, and App Tamer, all good apps in their own right.

The reason I opted to try Ejectify is that it ticks some boxes that are pretty important in 2026. It's open source and on Github, meaning you can essentially get it for free if you have the chops to build it. You can also see how the developer, Niels Mouthaan, responds to issues, both in troubleshooting and in planning for additional features. I've used other apps from Niels, and he has provided me with good support.

Aside from philosophical differences with Jettison, there are also some features added by using Ejectify.

• Volumes are managed individually, not as one size fits all, so you have more control.
• Provides a way to force unmount a disk on a case-by-case basis.
• Allows you to mute "Disks Not Ejected Properly" messages if you and macOS can't reach an agreement on what that means.

The full Ejectify feature set (from the website):

• Helps prevent "Disk Not Ejected Properly" notifications after wake.
• Helps reduce the risk of data loss or corrupted volumes by safely unmounting them first.
• Lets you choose which supported volumes Ejectify manages, including external volumes, ejectable internal volumes, and disk images.
• Supports automatic unmounting when the display turns off or the system starts sleeping, then attempts to mount volumes again after wake.
• Includes force unmount, force mute notifications, and instant "Unmount all" actions, plus a global keyboard shortcut for manual unmount-all.

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It's been a couple of years since I wrote a roundup of free and low cost apps that enhance Apple Shortcuts, so I'm going to update it to the 2026 edition.

Free Plugin to Create Shortcuts with Natural Language

I like using Apple shortcuts when it makes sense for my workflow, but configuring some of the advanced features breaks my brain. I can muddle through simple loops and variables, but it's not easy for me and I don't set any speed records. That's why I was pretty happy this week to see Fredrico Vittici release Shortcuts Playground, a FOSS plugin for the big two coding assistants that allows you to describe what you want to happen in natural language to start a process that produces a genuine Apple shortcut you can adopt or share with others. It's absolutely free.

Best Stand Alone App for Triggers - Shortery

Most of the powerful and well know Mac automation apps like Keyboard Maestro, Hazel and Better Touch Tool can trigger shortcuts through hotkeys and system events, but not everyone wants to invest the time to learn those apps. Thankfully, Shortery exists. At $29.99, it's not the low cost option it once was, but it is pretty easy to use. Apple also added some automation triggers to macOS after resisting for a long time.

• macOS Shortcuts covers the basics
  • Apps
  • Files and folders
  • Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth
  • Displays
  • Focus
  • Time
  • Wake/sleep
• Shortery adds the extras
  • Audio
  • Camera
  • Clamshell
  • Calendar
  • Keyboard hotkeys
  • Login/logout
  • LAN
  • Power details
  • Screen lock/unlock
  • Sunrise/sunset
  • More granular device triggers

Best Deep System Control: Shortcutie

For $10, you can get Shortcutie by Sindre Sorhus. It provides 70+ system-level operations Apple won't allow through ordinary channels. Examples include changing your default browser without confirmation dialogs, clearing all notifications with one action and quitting every running application all at once.The app scrapes active browser tabs, runs JavaScript directly and it can grab selected text from whatever window you're in.

Best for Extra Shortcut Actions: Toolbox and Actions

Sindre Sorhus has an older and free Shortcut enhancement app called Actions that has 170 Shortcut actions encompassing every Apple platform. You can see a partial list here.

Another app that's been around for a while but is still insanely useful is Toolbox Pro.It's still getting regular updates and new features for anyone who's paid the $5.99 lifetime unlock cost. It considerably deepens the functionality of several areas:

• Date and time
• Dictionaries
• Contacts
• Files
• Media
• Reminders
• System tasks
• Text

Best for Persistent Data: Data Jar

Shortcuts efficiently passes data while running but struggles with memory retention. Data Jar (donationware) addresses this by storing structured data that shortcuts can read and update later, making it ideal for workflows that require tracking state over time. Data Jar is what can make a shortcut feel like an app.

Useful for:

• Settings
• Preferences
• Counters
• Lists
• Saved variables
• Workflow state

Best for Notes Centric Workflows: Actions for Obsidian

Actions for Obsidian - Adds missing functionality to Shortcuts that allow you to do things like import content from the web, import from your calendars and contacts, integrate health data with notes and more.

Other Useful Shortcuts Enhancers

• BarCuts: A macOS Shortcuts Launcher - a menu bar app that shows you shortcuts available in your current app without cluttering things up
• Menu Box - Universal app to create custom shortcut menus

Useful Shortcuts Sites

• Routine Hub
• Matthew Cassinelli
• Shortcuts Gallery
• MacStories Shortcuts Archive

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Brett Terpstra has released Marked 3, and this is not just a routine update. It’s one of those releases that makes you stop and think about where a tool actually fits in your workflow. If you write in Markdown on a Mac, there’s a very good chance Marked has been the missing piece all along.

For years, I lived in Microsoft Word for anything that wasn’t email. That was the EdTech world: Word was the standard, `.doc` and `.docx` were the expected formats, and no one wanted to hear about alternatives. Never mind the huge app footprint, the licensing mess, the cost, or the absurdity of the entire Office suite when all you really needed was a word processor.

And whenever someone in tech tried to suggest something leaner — OpenOffice, Google Docs, anything that didn’t come with Microsoft baggage — the pushback was immediate and emotional. In 2015, we were literally one day away from canceling our Microsoft contract when the superintendent made a late-afternoon phone call to my boss with a $100K purchase order to renew. That was the kind of environment it was.

So yes, I value the freedom to choose my own tools now.

Plain text has become the backbone of the way I work. Obsidian handles notes and longer writing. Drafts is where quick capture happens. Blogging tools and publishing platforms fill in the rest. Markdown wasn’t hard to learn, and once it clicks, it’s hard to go back. But Markdown has one weakness: the writing experience is only as good as the tools around it.

That’s where Marked comes in.

Marked Defined

Marked is not an editor. That’s the first thing to understand. It works alongside your editor, taking Markdown and rendering it live so you can actually see what your writing looks like without breaking your flow.

It also works with HTML and OPML files, which makes it more flexible than a lot of people realize. And beyond rendering, Marked can convert documents to PDF, HTML, DOCX, and RTF. It also brings prose analysis, syntax checking, and integration with all sorts of writing and outlining apps.

Who It’s For

The short answer: anybody who writes.

If you’re a coder or a technical writer, you get a lot of useful extras:

• Syntax highlighting for code blocks
• MathJax and KaTeX support
• Mermaid diagrams
• MultiMarkdown, YAML, and Pandoc metadata support
• CriticMarkup

That’s useful, sure, but it’s not really why I care about it.

For the kind of writing I do, the most valuable features are the ones that help me clean up my prose before I hit publish:

• Spelling and grammar checking
• Sentence simplification tips
• Word count, sentence count, and sentence complexity
• Reading time
• Grade-level scoring

That’s the real value. Write where you’re comfortable, then let Marked tell you what the page actually looks like.

The Little Things That Make It Better

Marked has a bunch of features that sound minor until you actually start using them regularly. Flexible search. Automatic table of contents generation. Bookmarking. A visual document overview. Collapsible sections. Keyboard access almost everywhere.

It’s also a very nice Markdown reader, even when you’re not editing. Auto-scroll is there. So is distraction-free mode. And if you want to read faster, there’s even an RSVP-style overlay with adjustable WPM.

If you work with outlines or mind maps, Marked supports embeds from popular apps and can even turn an outline into a mind map directly. That’s a niche feature, but a genuinely useful one if your brain works that way.

There are also browser extensions for sending page URLs or selected content straight into Marked 3, which is a nice touch if you spend any time collecting notes from the web.

Integrations Matter

Marked works the way good Mac software should: it gets out of the way and plays well with the tools you already use.

That means it fits alongside Scrivener, Word, MarsEdit, Bear, Ulysses, Obsidian, and other writing apps. In v3, Scrivener rendering with live preview is new, and Bear and Obsidian callouts are now fully supported.

And for the automation crowd, there’s CLI support and AppleScript. That alone makes it much more interesting than a typical “pretty preview” app.

Final Thoughts

If you have a Setapp subscription, Marked 3 is already there. Otherwise, you can download it directly for a free trial or pick it up from the Mac App Store.

The lifetime price is $69.99, which is a little steep, though not outrageous for a serious utility you’ll keep using. The subscription option is $2.99 per month, which is much easier to justify.

Marked 3 is the kind of Mac app that quietly improves everything around it. It doesn’t try to replace your editor. It makes your writing workflow better by giving you a clearer view of what you’ve actually written, and that’s a pretty compelling trick.

And in classic Brett Terpstra fashion, it’s built by someone who clearly understands the people using it.

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Making a decision about the right price for an app has to be one of the hardest parts of releasing something new.

Some of the most versatile and useful apps in the Mac ecosystem are priced absurdly low. I am looking at you, BetterTouchTool. On the other hand, we have all seen apps with plenty of competitors that still carry what I consider an absurdly high price. My favorite example is the clipboard manager, Paste.

In reality, every software purchase comes down to what we value. Some people have strict requirements around aesthetics and would rather pay for polish than use something more functional. I think the ebook manager Calibre fits that description perfectly. I love it and use it every day for its incredible versatility, but it certainly is not easy on the eyes.

Two of my favorite notch apps show how wide the pricing spread can be. Droppy, which is not just a notch app but a full suite of utilities, costs 10 euro. Dynamic Lake, another app I like in this space, costs 40% more, still a fair price. It is well thought out and nicely designed, but it is much more narrowly focused on the notch.

There are personal factors, too. I live in the United States. I am retired. I have disposable income that I dedicate to buying software. I compensate by driving a 2005 Toyota and not playing golf like some of my contemporaries. But there are plenty of tech enthusiasts in less prosperous countries, students on tight budgets, and people for whom software pricing is a much more serious decision point than it is for me.

Here is a case in point.

Airspace, an app I downloaded today, has a lot going for it. It removes a classic Apple friction point by letting you name your virtual desktops, customize their appearance, and assign keyboard shortcuts to jump between them.

Features

Custom Naming
Instead of Desktop 1, Desktop 2, and so on, you can have Writing, Development, Social, or whatever names fit the way you actually work.

Visual Personalization
You can choose custom colors for the menu bar indicator and switcher menu, making different Spaces easier to recognize at a glance.

User-Defined Shortcuts
You can assign your own shortcuts to switch between Spaces. If your writing tools live on Desktop 3, make Cmd+Option+3 the shortcut that takes you there.

Multi-Monitor Support
If you use a Mac mini or a laptop with an external display, you will appreciate that Airspace works across displays. It also handles selected full-screen apps, with one important exception noted below.

HUD Overlay
The current release supports a heads-up display switcher that shows your custom Space names and colors.

Selling Points

• No AI used in development, backed by documentation such as GitHub history, Figma files, and browser logs. Whether that matters to you depends on your stance on AI-assisted development, but it is refreshing to see the work documented transparently.
• Full-featured seven-day trial.
• Fully sandboxed and App Store approved, while still delivering the core functionality many users want.
• No tracking or data collection.

Caveats

• Because of public API limitations, Airspace does not track Spaces created by clicking the green traffic-light full-screen button. Those Spaces exist outside the normal Space registry and are not visible to Airspace. The developer is upfront about this.
• Onboarding is a process, not an event. If you use as many Spaces as I do, it takes a few minutes to get Airspace configured.
• There is no Mission Control integration. Custom names will not appear in Mission Control. That is an Apple limitation; Airspace cannot modify that UI. The workaround is to use Airspace's own menu bar indicator and HUD instead.

Similar Apps and Solutions

You can achieve some of what Airspace does with a Hammerspoon script or a Keyboard Maestro macro. There are also direct competitors like Spaceman and Contexts.

Aerospace, a tiling window manager beloved by people who like to fiddle, offers virtual workspace emulation that is similar in spirit, but it is not a true Spaces replacement.

Details

• Developer's website: https://hazels.garden/airspace
• Privacy policy: https://hazels.garden/privacy
• Price: $9.99

Bottom Line

Airspace is not trying to reinvent window management on the Mac. It's not a window manager at all.It is trying to make Apple's existing Spaces feature more usable, more readable, and faster to navigate. That is a narrow job, but it is a real one.

At $9.99, the price feels fair to me, especially if you already rely on Spaces as part of your daily workflow. If you only use one or two desktops, this probably will not change your life. But if you live across several named work contexts, Airspace turns a vague row of numbered desktops into something much closer to an actual workspace system.

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When the free app DockDoor was released in 2024, it was the first time I had seen a developer add window previews to the Mac Dock in much the same way that other operating system from Redmond handles them. For kicks, it also included a Windows-style application switcher, also free.

I have been updating some older reviews, so I went back to check on DockDoor. Not only does the original free version still exist, but the developer has also added a paid Pro version with a much larger feature set.

The splash page for DockDoor Pro puts its claim front and center:

DockDoor Pro - The Dock macOS Deserves

The official native Mac dock replacement with profiles, live window previews, media controls, a file tray, magnification, and everything Apple left out.

That is bold, but defensible.

What It Does

The real question with any Dock utility is whether it replaces the native Dock or merely augments it. DockDoor Pro can do either. I hid the native Dock completely and did not run into any problems.

The other killer feature, and one Apple will probably never give us for fear of waking the ghost of Steve Jobs, is the ability to exclude a running app from the Dock. You no longer have to stare at every app just because it happens to be open.

Dock Profiles - I work in multiple contexts. Some of my time is spent testing software and writing reviews. For that, I need quick access to a file manager, an uninstaller, Activity Monitor, Drafts, Obsidian, my Downloads folder, the folder where I keep rough drafts, the folder where I keep archives, and Reddit.

DockDoor Pro profiles can include:

• Pinned apps
• Folders
• Files
• Widgets
• URLs
• Design elements, including separators and spacers

When I switch to media management, I need a different setup: Calibre, Swinsian, Yate, digiKam, & ToyViewer.

When it is time to do research or just relax, I want Inoreader, FreeTube, Plex, Radarr, Sonarr, and websites like Mac Menu Bar and AlternativeTo.

DockDoor Pro gives you two ways to switch profiles. The easiest is to associate a specific app with a profile. When you open an app tied to another workflow, the Dock profile changes automatically. If you work with multiple monitors, you can also assign different Docks on a per-display basis.

One welcome feature is the ability to export Dock profiles as JSON. That makes it easy to move a setup to another Mac or keep a restorable backup in case an experiment goes sideways.

Control Panel - Each Dock contains a tiny icon that opens a control panel when long-clicked. It consolidates an app launcher, profile switcher, volume slider, audio device picker, and power controls. It is a well-designed bit of UI rather than a pile of bolted-on buttons.

File Tray - If you keep your Dock at the bottom of the display, scrolling on it reveals a file tray. You can drop files there temporarily, drag them back out when you need them, or send them via AirDrop directly from the tray.

Widgets - DockDoor Pro also includes small widgets that add live tiles directly to the Dock, including weather and system stats. They stay compact at rest and expand with more detail on hover. They also adapt to the Dock's design, so they do not look like afterthoughts.

The music widget is almost an app within the app. You get album art, a seek bar, and synchronized lyrics with a karaoke-style anticipation offset. Whether that is useful or just fun depends on how you work. I do not need lyrics in my Dock, but I understand the appeal.

Customization

This is the least opinionated Dock app I have used. If you are not inclined to fiddle, it looks fine out of the box. If you like to experiment, you can control almost every visible part of the UI, including:

• Color
• Spacing
• Padding
• Background
• Shape

Conclusion

DockDoor Pro is still in beta, and there is a warning not to use it on a mission-critical machine, so do not install it on your boss's MacBook and blame me if something gets weird. That said, I have not encountered any instability after two weeks of constant use.

This is an app best suited for power users, especially those with multi-monitor setups or workflows that shift throughout the day. If you use the same five apps all the time and do not care about customizing your workspace, you can probably skip it. But if you have ever wanted the Dock to be more useful, more contextual, and less stubbornly Apple-like, DockDoor Pro is worth a look.

DockDoor Pro Website - DockDoor Pro - Official macOS Dock Replacement

Privacy Policy - DockDoor Pro | Privacy Policy & EULA

Price - $20

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After many requests, I've finally created a categorized index of AppAddict. The index organizes apps into categories and provides a short description and a link to the review. All of the reviews have links to the developer's website or the App Store. I'm in the process of updating older posts on apps that have new features or price changes, but I still have work to do, so make sure to check the developer's site as the definitive source.

AppAddict is an independent Mac software review blog. I launched it in April 2024 where I've published over 500 reviews covering mostly Mac apps across every category (with a few universal and iOS apps). I emphasize honest, practical reviews from my perspective as a power user and productivity enthusiast - not a marketer. I have a particular fondness for indie Mac developers, privacy-respecting software, open-source tools, and workflow automation. I also cover self-hosting, the de-Googling/de-Apple-ification of digital life, and the art of building efficient Mac workflows with the right combination of small, focused apps. My posts range from single-app deep dives to multi-app roundups, workflow walkthroughs, and developer spotlights.

There's a special section for free, and freemium apps with a meaningful free tier.

I've been posting those reviews to r/MacApps regularly for over two years (except for that time in 2025 when I had an inconvenient heart attack). Testing software and writing about it is my passion. Interacting with fellow Mac enthusiasts and developers is the highlight of my day.

AppAddict is a free site with no paywall or paid subscriptions. It offers a free newsletter. It's 99% non-monetized. I've used affiliate links for two sites you've certainly heard of, but I don't have any backroom deal with developers or companies and I am just as likely to cover a FOSS app as I am a commercial one.

I can be a grumpy old man sometimes, but I'm mostly harmless and welcome questions and feedback. I honestly just enjoy helping people find the right app for what they want to do.

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An update to Droppy by developer Jordy Spruit dropped this weekend. What started as a free notch app has evolved into a paid, but still inexpensive, suite of Mac productivity tools.

The licensing recently changed so that Droppy's one-time payment now gets you a license for two Macs instead of one. The change is retroactive and applies to all users. From now until May 31st, the price is €6.99. After that, it will be €9.99. Both prices include lifetime updates, including major version releases.

Droppy is written in native Swift. It's signed and notarized by Apple, runs on macOS 14 and later, and ships without analytics or third-party trackers.

Spruit says, "v14 contains more than 100 user-visible bug fixes and dozens of performance improvements, all driven by feedback from the Discord testers I've been working with daily for months."

My Personal Use Cases

In previous versions of Droppy, I've used the notch based shelf, the menu bar manager, and the heads up displays extensively while dabbling with the other features. With the extensive additions in the new version, I plan to see what else feels like a good fit for my work style.

Five Functions, One App

You can roughly classify what Droppy v14 does into five areas.

1. Drag-and-drop shelf that lives in the notc -Drop files onto it to stash them temporarily, then drag them back out when needed or run quick actions like move, copy, share, zip, unzip, compress, or convert.
2. Clipboard Manager - Includes live previews, pinned and favorited entries, OCR, a built-in screenshot editor, custom tags, and more.
3. Floating Shelves - Droppy calls them "baskets," but the concept is similar to the shelf in the notch. You can designate watched folders that automatically populate baskets with files, and the interface supports multiple baskets at once.
4. Heads-Up Displays (HUDs)
5. You can selectively enable notch-based HUDs for things like:
   • Volume or brightness changes
   • AirPods connections
   • Internet connectivity loss
   • VPN connections
   • Low battery warnings
   • Music playback
   • Notifications
   • Caffeine activation to prevent sleep
6. Extensions - Droppy calls them "Droplets." These are add-on features that plug into the notch interface.

There's no extra charge for extensions, and several of them realistically replace standalone apps.

Included extensions include:

• Voice transcription, including live transcription feedback while speaking; something many competing apps still don't offer (new)
• Mechanical keyboard typing sounds routed only through headphones during meetings so you don't blast everyone else on the call
• An AI coding companion that surfaces activity from Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex directly in the notch, with one-click return to the active app
• A major overhaul to menu bar management via an internal version of Thaw, a fork of Ice, bundled directly into Droppy
• Clipboard manager
• Droppy Cloud; a temporary file-sharing service that generates 24-hour share links (new)
• Meeting controls for Zoom, Teams, and similar apps
• Pomodoro timer
• Tiny terminal, and more

Replacement Suggestions

Dedicated apps will usually go deeper in specific areas, but if you mainly need solid day-to-day functionality, Droppy v14 could realistically replace:

• MacWhisper or similar transcription apps
• Bartender, Hidden Bar, or Barbee for menu bar management
• Yoink, Gladys, or Unclutter for shelf-style workflows
• Clack or other mechanical keyboard sound apps
• PastePal, Paste, Copy 'Em, and similar clipboard tools
• Dropover or DropShare
• A separate Pomodoro timer app

Some Notable New Features

Droppy Cloud

The sharing limits are generous:

• 100 MB per file
• 1 GB per share
• 25 files per share
• 1 GB of active shared data per installation at a time

The generated links open into an iCloud-style interface with:

• Image previews in a grid with click-to-expand
• Inline video and audio playback
• Inline PDF viewing
• Individual downloads plus "Download All" ZIP support
• A clean, mobile-friendly layout

Lock Screen Display

When playing music in Apple Music, the lock screen now displays expanded album artwork. Synced lyrics scroll over a soft blur effect that keeps them readable even against busy animated art.

New UI

According to the developer, every animation in the app has been rebuilt by hand. When the shelf opens, a HUD appears, a widget swaps, or the notch reacts to your cursor, the motion now shares one consistent spring-based feel.

The small floating pill below the notch expands similarly to Dynamic Island on iPhone, and the shelf physically drops down from the notch instead of simply fading in.

Feedback on the Update

Droppy makes reasonable demands on system resources based on what it does. At idle it consumes about 5% of my M4 CPU and around 275 MB of RAM, about the same amount as the apps, Drafts and Mona for Mastodon use on my system.

The new interface is subtle, but well executed. Nothing feels over-designed just for the sake of animation demos.

Since Droppy Cloud runs on the developer's own infrastructure, the 24-hour expiration window makes sense. Features with ongoing hosting costs usually end up behind subscriptions sooner or later, so it's refreshing to see this included in a one-time purchase.

I was accustomed to the previous menu bar manager, so the switch to the integrated Thaw-based system took a little adjustment. But after using it for a bit, it feels like a real upgrade rather than a cosmetic replacement. It exposes more functionality than the older implementation and fits better with the rest of the app.

Droppy already does an almost unreasonable number of things, but I still have one request: I'd love to see a lightweight notes or scratchpad interface added somewhere in the ecosystem. Nothing elaborate; just a quick place to park temporary text while working.

Wrap-Up

Droppy v14 feels less like a "notch utility" now and more like a modular productivity platform that happens to live around the notch. Some people will absolutely think it's trying to do too much. Fair enough. But if your workflow already overlaps with clipboard managers, shelf apps, menu bar utilities, lightweight sharing tools, and small workflow helpers, there's a good chance Droppy consolidates more of your setup than you'd expect.