r/MacAppsLaunches

Hi everyone, I’m the developer behind Levl.
I built this because I got tired of macOS still not having a native per-app volume mixer. Every time I jumped on a call, I had to scramble to mute Spotify, pause a browser tab, or turn down a game so it wouldn't compete with the conversation.
I know tools like SoundSource exist, but they are incredibly broad and geared toward advanced audio processing. I wanted something highly focused on automation. With Levl, you set your mix and routing once, and it automatically kicks in right when you need it—like when you open Zoom, plug in your headphones, or start a scheduled focus session. And unlike simpler mixers, Levl actually tells you why an automation ran and lets you pause or undo it instantly.
A few highlights:
0–200% per-app volume, muting, and output routing.
Live meters and automatic call ducking (which restores when you hang up).
No audio drivers: It uses Apple’s native Core Audio process taps, so you don't have to install any clunky extensions.
100% private: No accounts, no analytics, no subscriptions. Everything stays on your Mac.
It’s a one-time purchase of $12.99, but I’m running a launch promo in the US and EU for just €0.99 / $0.99 until August 19. Requires macOS 14.4+.
App Store link & release notes: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/levl-adaptive-audio-mixer/id6798891331?mt=12
I’d love some blunt feedback from you all—especially on the automatic scenes. Do they actually feel genuinely useful in your daily workflow?

The problem

You're listening to something. A call starts on FaceTime, Zoom, Meet or Teams. macOS immediately drops everything else to a whisper. It's called audio ducking, it's on by default, and there is no setting anywhere in System Settings to turn it off.

The threads about this on Apple's own forums are years old. The most-repeated "fix" is unchecking boxes in VoiceOver Utility, which doesn't really work. The apps that do solve it properly cost real money - SoundSource is $49.

What it does

Unduck Pro is a small menu bar app that keeps your media at full volume during a call. The person on the other end still hears only you — your audio is never pushed into your mic.

While it's there, it also gives you a per-app volume mixer and an output device switcher:

- Media stays loud on calls — FaceTime, Zoom, Meet, Teams and others▎

- Independent call volume — turn the call down without touching your music

- Per-app volume mixer, remembered per app

- Output switcher — speakers, AirPods, whatever, without opening System Settings

- Launch at login, update notifications, favourites.

How it works

Built entirely on Apple's public Core Audio process-tap API (macOS 14.2+). No kernel extensions, no virtual audio drivers, no third-party code. It continuously resets the OS ducking rather than boosting anything, so there's no added gain and no distortion.

Free, and actually free

MIT licensed, no paywall, no trial, no account, no telemetry. The whole source is on GitHub — read it, build it yourself, fork it.

🔗 Repo: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Unduck-Pro

Download: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Unduck-Pro/releases/latest

Two things to know before you install

1. It's self-signed, not notarized. Apple's notarization costs $99/year and this is a free app, so macOS will block the first launch with "Apple could not verify it is free of malware". You'll need System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. If that's a dealbreaker, completely fair — build it from source instead, it's two commands.

2. It asks for microphone permission. I know how that sounds for a volume app. The Core Audio tap API Apple provides is gated behind the audio-input permission — there's no way around it. It does not record, store or transmit anything, and since the source is public you can verify that rather than take my word for it.

Requires macOS 14.2 or later. Universal — runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon.

If you find it useful, a ⭐ on the repo genuinely helps — it's how anyone else searching for this problem ends up finding it. And if something's broken or missing, open an issue: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Unduck-Pro/issues — every issue so far has turned into a fix.

I'm the developer. Happy to answer anything in the comments.

Muro: 100% Free Live Wallpapers for macOS

Muro is a native macOS app that plays smooth, looping video wallpapers on your desktop. It supports multiple displays and includes up to 100 live wallpapers, with new wallpapers added every week.

The wallpaper catalog updates automatically inside the app, so you do not need to install a new version to receive new wallpapers. Videos download only when you select them, and you can remove them anytime to save storage.

Muro also includes full-screen previews, playlists, automatic wallpaper rotation, shuffle mode, menu bar controls and the ability to import your own videos. On macOS 26 or newer, wallpapers can also play on the lock screen.

The app is built natively with Swift, SwiftUI and Apple’s hardware video decoder. It does not use Electron or web views. It normally uses around 2% CPU while playing and automatically pauses when the wallpaper is not visible, during full-screen apps, display sleep, Low Power Mode or low battery.

Everything is unlocked. There is no trial, no payment required, no subscription, no account, no license key and no paywall. Muro is completely free and open source under the MIT license.

Requires macOS 14 or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac.

Download and source code:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

Report a problem or suggest a feature:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/issues

Optional support for future development:
https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL

Muro will remain free whether you sponsor it or not.

What it does: Click the Dock icon and a panel pops up holding named "stacks" of your favourite apps, folders, files, and website bookmarks — instant access without cluttering your actual Dock or Desktop.

Some of what's in it:

• Drag and drop to add anything, including URLs straight from your browser
• Password-protect individual stacks (Keychain-backed, auto-lock)
• Global keyboard shortcut to show/hide from anywhere
• Menu bar mode if you'd rather not use the Dock at all
• Multi-select, custom grid sizes, tab colour tinting
• Fully local — no accounts, no tracking, no network access

This is my first shipped Mac app, built from wanting faster access to the stuff I actually use every day. One-time payment 4.99USD or equivalent, no subscription.

App Store: https://apple.co/3Rz9FB6
Website: https://dockstacks.app

Would love any feedback — recent launch, still learning a ton.

Muse is a AI Visual Bookmark Manager for saving everything you find online, links, images, screenshots, videos etc, into one library that lives only on your Mac. We wanted one place we could store and search from quickly, without a subscription.

Here's what it does:
- Works from anywhere - drag, paste or screenshot to save instantly, or press a customisable shortcut to search and file something without switching apps
- Bookmarks/links - import your existing links from Raindrop, Eagle, browser bookmarks or a Pinterest export, and every new one gets a title, favicon and preview pulled automatically.
- Every format together  - links, images, screenshots, GIFs, video and notes, all in one searchable library
- Collections and boards - nest collections as deep as you like, and file one item into more than one without duplicating it.
- Search everything - by the text inside an image, a colour name, or plain meaning, like typing "dark moody UI" and it finds it
- Find similar images - one click finds visually similar items already in your library, on-device, or searches the web for more, without leaving the app
- Live X bookmarks - use the browser extension and pull in your x bookmarks automatically, without paying for API access
- Real files, no server  - stored as an actual folder on your Mac. Open it in Finder, export or back it up whenever
- AI art prompts - reverse-engineer any image into a detailed art prompt, using your own Claude key (optional)

Native Swift, on-device AI, no account, no cloud database. $29 once, no subscription, free for 30 days to try it properly first.

Take a look here: https://www.theodorehq.com/muse/

We built this ourselves so if you hit a bug or want a feature, tell us here, we read everything!

Describe the picture you're after "the team photo from the beach shoot," "orange soda can on white" — and it finds the file. No filenames, no folder-digging.

It's actually two small, free Mac apps with a clean Teenage Engineering-ish look. One scans your image folders once (overnight is fine, it's resumable) and builds an index, the other lets you search that index instantly and pull the files you want. RAW files even come out color-corrected on export.

Two tiers: Core runs on any Mac including older Intel machines; Full (Apple Silicon) adds the RAW correction and a conversational mode you can talk to about your library, all running locally, no cloud, no account, no subscription.

Fair heads-up on two things: the scanner needs LM Studio running a vision model to do the looking, so it's a small stack to set up, not one-click. And since the apps aren't notarized, on first launch you'll do System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway once. After that they just work.

Built it to solve my own problem at work. Free. if you want it, it's yours.

The following link has is the Architecture i used, The Setup Process and The How to Use docs along with the actual installation file to searchparty and scoopparty.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1A6BF1bhkdq_EaVu-kqS0SkHI--1Pt5Pd?usp=sharing

cheers!

App name: Flyout

Platform: macOS 14+, universal binary (Apple Silicon and Intel), native Swift/AppKit, 3.7 MB download

Price: $18 one-time (list $24), 7-day trial, no account, 5 devices, lifetime updates

Source: https://getflyout.app (direct sale, not on the App Store)

What it does: Rest your pointer on the screen edge, or press ⌥⌘N, and the editor slides out over whatever is in front of you. Move away and it slides back. It's a real editor rather than a scratchpad: slash commands, syntax highlighted code blocks, tables, images, file attachments, and reminders you can attach to a single line.

Why I built it: It started with Slack calls. Someone asks for something mid conversation and I either hunt for pen and paper or cmd-tab to a notes app, which loses the window I was actually looking at. Two more things I wanted: enough room to actually write instead of a small scratch box, and a way to leave what I promised on the call as a reminder on that exact line. The side panels I tried either kept the writing area small or had no way to tie a reminder to one line. In Flyout the panel opens full height, 460 pixels wide by default and up to 820 if you drag the edge, and a reminder attaches to a single line rather than the whole note.

What's in this release (1.1.0): The app first shipped in July, so this is an update rather than a day-one launch. New in 1.1.0: file attachments in any format (the file is copied into the note rather than referenced, so it doesn't break on a second Mac), export to PDF, Markdown and plain text, drag to reorder tabs, and PowerShell syntax highlighting.

What feels rough: There is no iOS app. Notes live in a local database rather than loose .md files. There is export and Copy as Markdown, but you can't point Obsidian at a folder of them. Sync runs on your own iCloud account and uses the private database only, which rules out shared or team notebooks permanently.

Watch out for (network and permissions): The app only talks to two places: getflyout.app for license validation, and the appcast file on the same domain for update checks. No analytics or telemetry calls. Notification permission is only requested when you set your first reminder. iCloud sync is off by default, and while it's off nothing touches CloudKit. Your notes never reach my server. On disk it uses ~/Library/Application Support/Flyout plus an App Group folder the widget reads, and the license sits in the Keychain.

My own impression: The thing I use every day is exactly what I built it for: writing something down mid call without losing the window I'm looking at, and leaving what I promised as a reminder on that line so it comes back to me on its own. The panel opening full height at 460 pixels, wider if I drag it, is what made it stick for me where the smaller scratch panels I had tried before didn't. The trial doesn't ask for an account. I'm the developer, happy to take questions or criticism.

Watchflows (https://watchflows.app) is a automation builder that lets you create visual workflows (like n8n) that react to events happening on your mac. It's all fully local, and no subscriptions are required to use it. It comes with a 14 day free trial and a one time purchase after that if you like it. It does of course ship with a ton of AI native features (while totally optional to use, is part of the magic) and we have subscriptions that include AI usage for your flows and our flow builder or bring your own LLM (local or otherwise, video here shows flow builder doing it's thing, triaging a bug and opening a ticket in linear). Subscriptions also include a public relay so your external webhooks can trigger flows on your mac.

There are a million use cases, and I find it's as fun to build automation (especially with flow builder) as it is to have them happily running in the background. Your creativity is the limit, and Watchflows is adept at coding around it's own limitations (as flow builder to build you a flow that tracks the international space station 🤯). It writes it's own scripts you can use in flow, and hooks into tons of local events your mac already makes available to you, as well as external links via Watchflows Relay.

Happy to answer any questions and welcome any feedback. Thanks for taking a look!