If you hand your laptop to someone for a few minutes, they can still open Messages, Photos, Notes, Mail, WhatsApp, browsers, password managers, and other personal apps. I wanted a way to protect specific applications without constantly locking my entire Mac.

I looked around for solutions, but most were outdated, paid, abandoned, or didn't feel native to macOS.

So I built FaceGate.

FaceGate is a native macOS app that lets you lock individual applications and unlock them using Face Unlock, Touch ID, or a password.

A few things I focused on from day one:

• Everything runs locally on your Mac
• No cloud processing
• No accounts
• No telemetry
• No subscriptions
• Fully open source

Features:

• Face Unlock powered entirely on-device using Apple's Neural Engine - little impact on cpu and gpu resources.
• Fast authentication with very low memory and CPU usage
• Liveness detection to prevent photo and video spoofing attacks
• Touch ID and password fallback
• Per-app unlock timers
• Automatic re-lock on sleep, wake, or screen lock
• Custom schedules for automatic lock/unlock periods
• Tamper protection that prevents FaceGate from being quit, disabled, or uninstalled without authentication
• Runs quietly from the menu bar with minimal system impact.

The entire project is written in Swift and designed specifically for macOS.

This is still actively being developed, and I'd genuinely love feedback from Mac users.

Some questions:

• Is app-level locking something you've wanted on macOS?
• Which apps would you personally lock?
• What security or privacy features would you like to see added?

Website: https://facegate-applocker.vercel.app/

GitHub: https://github.com/dweep-desai/FaceGate-Mac

If you think I did a good job, please feel free to leave a star on my github repo - means a lot to me.

Feedback, feature requests, bug reports, and contributions are all welcome. I'd love to hear what you think.

Hey folks, wanted to share the latest update of Steno. Steno is an opensource project for a privacy focused AI notepad that rivals Granola with the added benefit of having opensource code and keeping your data private. No cloud, no usage limits and completely free.

With v0.3.0, you now have the ability to:

1. Query across all your notes across time
2. Have diarised transcripts
3. Have conversational history of all your chats against notes

In our roadmap, we'll be releasing speaker diarisation and live transcription next :)

We have a great community of contributors and always looking for great people to improve and push the boundary on privacy, local LLM and opensource AI.

Codebase @ - https://github.com/ruzin/stenoai
Download @ - https://stenoai.co

I’ve been working on Murmur, a local text-to-speech app for Apple Silicon Macs.

The new feature I’m building is called Projects / Story Studio, and it solves a problem I kept running into:

TTS tools are fine for one-off clips, but messy for actual audio projects.

If you’re making a podcast segment, audiobook chapter, course lesson, ad, or game dialogue, you usually need multiple speakers, multiple takes, pauses, reactions, music, edits, exports, and a way to come back to the project later.

So I built a project-based workflow:

Write a script → assign voices → generate dialogue → edit clips on a timeline → add music/SFX → export final audio.

It supports things like:

• multiple scripts inside one project
• Host / Guest / Narrator / Character speakers
• inline tags like [pause], [laugh], [chuckle]
• per-block regeneration
• timeline editing with waveforms
• media lane for music and SFX
• ripple editing and gap tools
• WAV/M4A export
• transcript and stem export

Everything runs locally on Mac, so long scripts and voice samples do not need to be uploaded to a cloud service.

I’m still polishing the workflow and would love feedback from Mac users, especially people who make podcasts, audiobooks, courses, YouTube narration, or game dialogue.

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/0.27.0

# one-time configuration 
brew tap ad-repo/nullplayer 

brew install --cask ad-repo/nullplayer/nullplayer 

or if already installed manually
brew install --cask --force ad-repo/nullplayer/nullplayer 

To upgrade to a new release: 
brew update 
brew upgrade --cask ad-repo/nullplayer/nullplayer

New Features

• Compact Window adds a free-floating mini player — the Windows menu and main-window context menu now include Compact Window, which uses the same compact Library Browser mini-player as Compact Mode but keeps NullPlayer as a regular Dock/menu-bar app. It hides only the main window, leaves Playlist/EQ/Spectrum/Library/visualization windows where they are, uses normal window level unless Always on Top is enabled, can be dragged from both the player bar and browser area, remembers its frame, and restores across launches.
• Balance control added to Playback menu — the Playback options now include a Balance submenu with a slider and common left/center/right presets, giving modern UI and menu-only workflows access to stereo balance without adding more controls to the player face.

Improvements

• Modern and Metal UI now use a modern system font — the retro low-fi bitmap font (Departure Mono) has been replaced throughout the Modern and Metal windows — Library tabs and headers, the main window, playlist, EQ, and spectrum — with the crisp macOS system font. Time and track digits stay monospaced so they don't jitter. Skins that ship their own custom font still render it as before.
• License and branding terms clarified — the project license notice and README now state GPL-3.0-only distribution terms and clarify that modified distributions must not reuse the NullPlayer name, icon, logo, bundle identity, or other branding without permission.
• Compact Mode player bar reads like the main window — in Modern and Metal, the Compact Mode display now splits into two distinct LCD "windows" with a padded gap: a single elapsed/remaining time counter on the left and the scrolling track title on the right (previously the title sat left with a cramped "elapsed / total" reading pinned to the right). The counter matches the title's size and weight, and the transport buttons are slightly larger.
• Larger Library tab and control fonts — the Library Browser's tab labels and control text render at a slightly larger size in non-compact mode for better legibility. Compact Mode is unchanged.

Changes

• Window shade mode removed — double-clicking a window's title bar no longer collapses it to a title-bar-only strip ("windowshade"). This legacy Winamp feature was the source of recurring layout glitches when combined with Large UI, Compact Mode, and live UI-mode switching; removing it makes window sizing and position memory behave consistently across every window in Classic, Modern, and Metal.
• Library source menu lists only sources — the Library Browser's source picker no longer injects local-library settings ("Manage Folders…" and the "Clear Local Library" submenu) when the local source is active. Those are settings, not sources, and already live in the Library menu-bar item, so the source menu now lists sources only.

Bug Fixes

• Metal skin transport icons are now fully filled — the previous/next (and eject) icons in the Metal finishes no longer show a stray light vertical line: the icon bars now draw in the same transport-button color as the rest of the glyph instead of the skin's light primary color.
• Plex Artists no longer show duplicate same-name rows — the Library Browser now groups Plex artist records with the same display name into one visible artist row in both classic and modern UI. Expanding, playing, or queueing that row still fans out across every underlying Plex ratingKey, so albums and tracks attached to duplicate server-side artist records remain accessible instead of being hidden.
• Compact Mode art ratings fit the small UI — the modern Library Browser's art-view rating stars now shrink in Compact Mode, preventing them from crowding or overlapping the source/library picker row.
• Compact Window no longer reopens the main window after Space switches — returning from another desktop or fullscreen app now focuses the floating compact mini-player instead of treating the hidden main window as something to restore, so Compact Window stays a one-window main-player replacement until you exit it.
• Library window remembers where you put it — after unlocking the connected windows and moving the Library/browser window, it now reopens at the exact position and size you left it — across closing and reopening it (via the menu or the red close button) and across full app restarts, even when it was closed at quit. First-ever opens still dock to the right of the window stack, and the position survives Compact Mode. Playlist, EQ, and Spectrum still intentionally snap back into the column below the main window.
• Classic Large UI toggles instantly — no restart — turning Large UI on or off in the classic skin now resizes the windows in place, matching the modern UI, instead of asking you to relaunch. The player, EQ, playlist, and other windows redraw crisply at the new size (no leftover "ghost" of the old size), and switching between Classic, Modern, and Metal while Large UI is on no longer distorts the new look.
• ProjectM visualizer recovers from a preset that crashes mid-playback — a rare bug inside the MilkDrop preset engine could crash the app while a preset was on screen — including minutes into a track, not just when the preset first appeared. The crash-guard now watches a preset for its entire time on screen (previously only its first frame), so the offending preset is automatically skipped on the next launch and the crash never recurs. Normal quits never flag a good preset.
• Metal playlist and Library highlights are now clearly visible — in Metal skins, the playlist's now-playing track and the Library Browser's selected/expanded row were indicated by text color alone, which several metal finishes render nearly identical to normal rows, so the active row was easy to miss. Both now draw a translucent green backlit-LCD highlight bar (matching the hi-fi display panels) as the cue. The metal playlist's row text is also unified at the Library window's brightness — previously it was dimmer — and the current track no longer recolors to the accent tone that clashed with the new highlight.

I know. I KNOW. Another dictation app. You've seen forty this month. Somewhere a VC is funding the forty-first as we speak.

But hear me out, because I did a dumb thing: I didn't stop at dictation.

The boring part (that every app has): hold a key, talk, clean text appears at your cursor. Except this one is fast as fuck — text lands in about a second, filler words gone, and it actually spells your weird jargon right (say "Kubernetes", "Postgres", "lisper" — it nails them instead of writing "cubernetties").

The part nobody else has: a second hotkey talks to an agent that actually operates your Mac. Not "here's a helpful suggestion 🙂" — it does the thing. "Tidy up my desktop" → it sorts your files. "Open the latest invoice and tell me the total" → done. It reads your screen, your files, your calendar, picks its own tools, and asks before it touches anything.

Can your dictation app do that? No? Weird.

And for the nerds: plug in any MCP server (GitHub, Notion, databases, whatever) and its tools instantly become the agent's tools. I stopped writing integrations by hand like a caveman.

EU-hosted, keys stay server-side, native Swift, no Electron (you're welcome).

Try it: https://lisper.io — 24h trial, no signup, no credit card, no soul required. macOS 14+, Apple silicon.

Roast me in the comments. That's why I'm here.

Edit: to be clear — this isn't local, and it's not just dictation. The second hotkey lets you control your Mac with your voice: "move my screenshots into a folder", "reply to this email" — it actually does it

Version 2.6 just dropped on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301

Problem: You want the most realistic simulation of AnalogTV possible for nostalgia, video effects, retro gaming, watching retro video or even just to learn how AnalogTV worked. A simulation that includes all major standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) as well as more esoteric standards like HD-MAC, MUSE or even the formats used on the Apollo Lunar Missions. A simulation that also includes pre-electronic era Mechanical TV.

Comparison: There is nothing quite as comprehensive as this app, but there are some excellent simulators such as https://ntsc.rs/ and various filter apps including https://myretromac.app/

NTSC-RS is limited in the formats it supports and the effects are not *strictly* in the signal domain, it relies on 2D shaders for some of the effects. Most other apps (including myretromac) are pixel domain shaders that add effects (scan lines, blurring, etc.) over the top of existing video. AnalogTV operates fully in the 1D signal domain. Every effect emerges from the simulation of the physics, electronics and even the chemistry of the phosphors. The complete technical detail is available here: https://analogtv.net/ including an honest assessment of the limitations of this type of simulation.

Pricing: US$4.99. All features except NDI. No subscription. No ads. There is an IAP for NDI support which is something that would be mostly for professional use to integrate with external equipment.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301

The latest version has incorporated tons of feedback since the last time I shared it in this forum. It also includes some additional features such as Mechanical TV, Apollo TV and tons of additional Easter Eggs and controls like Pay TV scrambling, Mismatched Decoding (PAL in NTSC), VHS Copy Protection, new Cameras, Text Overlays, Integrated retro games, etc.

This is a labor of love rather than a business, so the price is low to reflect that. The funds are used to purchase original documents (many behind paywalls that have to be purchased) or even original equipment to test on real hardware. The level of obsession into the detail is ridiculous, for example the camcorder titling effects are simulating the Fujitsu MB88303 chip from its technical data sheet and verified with an actual Panasonic PK-958 in our lab.

AI Disclosure: XCode natively includes support for AI and it is part of the IDE to help with certain coding tasks, testing, test cases, etc. The app itself is created from the original source documents as well as physical access to original period equipment (all of which are cited on https://analogtv.net/ ). AI can't directly play with the original equipment (yet). The web site is built using Claude with access to the code repository and is updated when features are released. The app icon is generated by AI.

We just added this to our app. Might be a huge nerd about this stuff, but I really think it's neat. You can now scrub through your photos and watch each one snap exactly into place on the 3D model <3

Hey r/macapps!

It's been a while.

A lot of you have been here since the start, so let me begin with the history, because the history is the point.

• We started as Dinoki, a 5MB desktop dinosaur. You showed up with 461 comments of honest feedback. Link
• Then we launched Osaurus here, and you carried it. Link
• Then Agents landed, and you told us what to build next. Link

Every one of those chapters happened because of this sub. Thank you for that.

We're five people now. Contributors send PRs, translations, and bug reports from all over the world. What began as one person and a dino is a small community building in the open, and that's because of you. We even ended up in TechCrunch, which still feels surreal for an open-source project that started as a desktop dinosaur. TechCrunch

Now we're back with our biggest update yet.

The biggest thing here isn't a feature. It's stability. We spent this cycle making local models actually work, and work well. If a local model let you down on an earlier build, this is the one to come back for. 24GB of RAM gets you started with smaller local models.

What Osaurus is: fully offline with local models, private, open source. Nothing leaves your Mac unless you choose. Native Swift for Apple Silicon, no Electron, no account, no subscription.

Problem: Most AI assistants run on someone else's server. Your files, memory, and context live in their cloud, behind a monthly subscription, and leave your machine every time you use them. Osaurus keeps all of it on your Mac. Local models run fully offline, and even when you pick a cloud model, your context and memory stay yours.

Comparison:
- vs Ollama and LM Studio: those run through Python bindings. Osaurus is pure Swift on Apple Silicon, no Python runtime, plus a full agent layer (memory, tools, sandbox, scheduling) they don't have.
- vs ChatGPT and Claude desktop apps: those are cloud-only and subscription-based, and your data leaves your device. Osaurus runs local models offline at no cost, and scrubs sensitive data on-device before anything reaches a cloud model.

Pricing: The app is free. MIT licensed, fully open source, no account or subscription, no API key needed to run local models offline at no cost. Cloud is optional and pay-as-you-go: bring your own provider key and pay them directly, or use Osaurus Cloud, our hosted path, where you load credits and we add a small fee on top-ups, matching what OpenRouter charges. We don't store your prompts or responses, only the usage metadata needed for billing.

Privacy is why a lot of you found us in the first place, so one thing worth mentioning. When you do reach for a cloud model, an on-device filter now catches names, emails, phone numbers, and secrets, and lets you scrub them before anything leaves the machine. It fails closed. If something would leak, the send is blocked.

And for the old fans who remember where this started: Dinoki is making a comeback, and it's coming back stronger than ever. More on that soon.

So here's what I'd love from you. Try it, and tell me the truth. If you gave Osaurus a shot before, give it another, and if it still falls short of your bar, say so, right here or in a DM, and we will be here to make it right.

And the bigger question, the one I keep coming back to: how do you envision your AI future? We think it should belong to you.

It's time to own your AI.

osaurus.ai

github.com/osaurus-ai/osaurus

discord.gg/osaurus

x.com/OsaurusAI

r/osaurus to follow along

Try it, break it, tell me what you need.

So this started because my mac kept filling up with cache junk and I kept bouncing between tools to deal with it. and yeah, I know there are already a ton of mac cleaners out there, some of them really good, some that go way deeper than this does. I'm not trying to out-do any of them or compete with the whole category. I just wanted something small for myself that found the obvious cache junk, let me pick what goes, and got out of the way. Figured I'd put it out there in case anyone else wants the same thing.

What it does:

• Scans the usual cache spots, plus some common dev caches
• Everything goes to trash by default, not permanent delete. So if it ever grabs something you wanted, it's sitting right there in the bin
• It's free, scanning and cleaning both

But:

• It's unsigned right now. Apple developer membership is on the list, just not done yet
• It's not a deep dev-tool cleaner. It touches some dev caches but if you've got 100gb of Xcode and docker junk and you want every scanner under the sun, there are better tools for that

Since it's an app that deletes files, i didn't want the deletion logic to be a black box. so it's open source. the whole thing is in the repo, including the safety allowlist that decides what's even eligible to touch. If you don't trust it, read it, or build it from source yourself.

Repo: https://github.com/jithin-sabu/purge-app

Release DMG: https://github.com/jithin-sabu/purge-app/releases/latest

Would genuinely love feedback, especially if you think the safety rules have a gap. That's the part i most want eyes on.

Hey r/macapps!

Almost a year ago I started building Droppy because many small, in-between tasks on macOS still feel more fragmented than they should. Staging files, controlling media, checking tasks, transcribing audio, compressing something, grabbing a color, opening a quick terminal, replying to a message, snapping a window... each one usually means reaching for a different utility.

I've shipped a lot since my last post here, and today's release (14.1) is a genuinely big one, so I wanted to reintroduce Droppy properly. One thing up front: Droppy is not just a notch app. The notch is one of the places it lives, but underneath it's a native all-in-one utility for the actions macOS scatters across a dozen separate tools.

The demo video shows it far better than screenshots, especially since so much of it is customizable.

The idea

One native app for the things macOS makes you juggle. Instead of stitching together a shelf/file tray app, a clipboard manager, a screenshot tool, a transcription app, a launcher, media controls, and lock screen widgets, Droppy brings them into one place that feels like it belongs to macOS.

A few of the few things it does:

• File tray (Shelf + Basket): stage files from anywhere, then move, convert, compress, zip, unzip, rename, or share them, and drag them back out wherever you need. More on this just below, because it's the part I'm proudest of right now.
• Droppy Cloud: upload files to it, share them instantly with whoever needs it. A full WeTransfer-like environment, built within Droppy.
• Media: a notch mini-player with a live audio visualizer that moves to the actual sound, lyrics, an Apple Music Automix indicator, and lock screen media controls that fit the native design.
• Clipboard: a full native clipboard manager with tags, favorites, color and hex recognition, and an optional strip layout across the bottom of your screen.
• Screenshotting: area capture, OCR, scrolling, and color-picker capture, a screenshot editor, and one-click background removal.
• Everyday glue: notifications with inline iMessage and Whatsapp replies, voice transcription, tasks and calendar, window snapping, meeting controls, a quick terminal, and a Spotlight-style launcher.
• Lock screen widgets and system HUDs (volume, brightness, battery, AirPods) that quietly replace the stock macOS ones and look like they shipped with the OS.

The file tray, and macOS 27
This is the one I really want to call out. A lot of notch apps have quietly dropped their file tray because recent macOS releases broke the drag-and-drop it relied on, and several developers have said publicly that they're giving up on it. Droppy's file tray fully works on macOS 26 and the brand-new macOS 27. I re-engineered the entire drop pipeline, so catching files, stacking them, and dragging them back out of the notch stays rock-solid on the latest macOS. If a working file tray is what you're here for, this one still delivers.

Droplets: build your own Droppy
Droppy is modular. The core gives you the shelf and the system HUDs, and on top of that you switch on "Droplets" (its extensions) for exactly the features you want and nothing you don't:

Weather, Media, Notify Me, Voice Transcribe, Tasks & Calendar, Notes, Thunderstorm (launcher), Element Capture, TermiNotch (terminal), Mechey (keyboard sounds), Pomodoro, High Alert, Pomodoro, Claude Code/Codex, Background Removal, and more.

Turn on the three you'll actually use, or all of them. It stays light because you're never carrying features you don't touch, and every Droplet is built to feel native rather than bolted on. That modularity is really the heart of Droppy: it becomes the app you need it to be.

A bit of what's new in 14.1

• Dynamic Glass: a new notch and island surface that fades from black into real Liquid Glass
• Multi Live Activities: a timer, recording, coding session, or call splits the notch iPhone-style while your music flows into its own floating pill
• The Notes droplet: an iOS-style shelf notepad with markdown, checklists, and two-way Apple Notes sync
• A rebuilt native Clipboard Manager, plus the new Alpha Clipboard strip
• Thunderstorm is now free for everyone: a Spotlight-style bar that can run system actions and pop an emoji picker anywhere
• Inline iMessage and Whatsapp replies straight from a notification
• And a huge amount of polish, performance work, and fixes on top

Comparison
Most apps in this space do one thing well, or do a lot and feel 'sloppy'. Droppy is not only built with a ton of attention to detail and polish, but meant to cover the in-between actions across a whole workflow, so you don't need to run (and pay for) five separate utilities to get there. I think it's the most polished value for money I know of in this category.

Pricing

• Fully unlocked 3-day trial
• 6.99 EUR, one-time, discounted for this new release (will be increased to 9.99 at the end of this month)
• Lifetime updates, no subscription, ever
• Website: https://getdroppy.app

Transparency

• I'm Jordy Spruit, the solo developer behind Droppy. I've worked on it almost every day for close to a year and I ship updates regularly.
• Contact: hi@getdroppy.app
• Privacy Policy: https://getdroppy.app/#privacy-policy
• Terms of Service: https://getdroppy.app/#terms-of-service

Natively built in Swift, signed and notarized, and works on Macs with or without a physical notch.

If you try it, I'd love to hear which Droplet fits your workflow best, and what still needs work 💙

About 3 months ago I posted BetterStage here. The honest feedback was: "looks interested, but it needed more work", and I made the comparisons sound like BetterStage was the only way. Fair on all counts. There are a lot of window managers / workspace managers that are great for a lot of people, at the end of the day it's down to personal taste and preference. I'm not here to pretend otherwise.

edit: sorry for reposting, no spam intended, original post was removed by readtherules bot, didn't know i had to click the readtherules menu and submit acknowledgement before posting.

Problem:

I needed a better way to manage LOTS of windows that belong to different projects (and I start working on even more projects at the same time since the introduction of AI, yup, vibe coding), spread across multiple monitors.

My setup is a 42-inch OLED in the middle, two portrait screens on the sides, plus the MacBook Pro display. Four screens total. On a normal day I might have code, design references, docs, Terminal logs, Finder windows, Slack, dashboards, and browser tabs open at the same time. They do not all belong together.

When I switch from one project to another, I want the whole desk to switch with me. I do not want to close windows, rebuild layouts, wait through the macOS Spaces animation, or manually move twenty windows again.

I tried quite a few window managers, but none of them matched the full workflow I desired:

- no complicated config files

- mouse and keyboard both first-class, because I browse with the mouse and code with shortcuts (i'm not the vim type of guy)

- no context-switch animation

- each monitor can auto-manage itself with a different layout, I would usually have my chats (discord, slack, telegram) vertically split accross my right screen, and that screen never changes when i switch context. And on my left monitor, I would want the AIs (gemini, claude, chatgpt) be on the top half, and my coding reference docs at the bottom half, and that's my "reference" screen. And my macbook pro's screen would be free formed, it's like a scratchpad, where i randomly throw temporary stuff there and it doesn't really need to be "managed". So it needs more flexibility how I set up each screen.

- auto-management when I want it, but still freedom to drag windows around when I feel like it

BetterStage is my attempt at that.

Here's the rough overview of how it works:

- named stages like Project 1, Project 2, Project 3, Notes, or Entertainment (some times it would be Frontend, Backend, Admin Portal, if I'm working full stack on one project)

- stages are separate from macOS Spaces: BetterStage keeps its own workspaces inside your current desktop setup

- each stage spans every monitor

- switch the whole desk with Opt+1-9 (or Opt+mouse scroll up and down)

- each monitor can use a different mode: macOS native mode (normal floating, with window snapping), Bento Box BSP tiling, or Tabbed Layout Mode when there are too many window to tile. And each monitor can be individually pinned so it doesn't change when switching stages.

- AI Staging leverages the power of LLMs, you can customize your own "recipe" how how each project/stage, each monitor, each app window be setup with natural language, and let AI do the work for you instead of mannually moving windows around, either with your own key or optional hosted BetterStage AI, and if privacy is your biggest concern, you can always use a locally hosted AI model (ollama or lmstudio).

- SnapWheel, this is my favorite, a GTA style wheel menu that's always at your finger tip when you need to do something with mouse, so you don't need to reach to the tiny top menu to find an action to perform in the long dropdown menu.

Comparison:

On the tiling side, the closest comparisons are AeroSpace and yabai. Both are excellent. BetterStage's Bento Box mode is inspired by that style of automatic tiling.

yabai takes the SIP-disable approach for more control. BetterStage chose not to do that, because I wanted it to be friendlier for users who do not want to go through SIP setup.

AeroSpace is a great keyboard-first tiling window manager. If you live in config files and remember all your shortcuts, it may fit you better. I am more of a VS Code person than a Vim person: I use both mouse and keyboard, and I forget complicated shortcut maps.

Workspace+ or similar setups are also strong if what you want is launch/restore/context automation. BetterStage is more about live stages: your windows are already open, each stage spans every monitor, each monitor can use a different mode, and you switch the whole desk from a native UI. I would say the biggest difference in philosophy than most "save/restore workspace" apps is that my workflow doesn't involve multiple single window apps, as a developer, having many stateless terminal windows running various scripts is the norm, and which scripts to run or not run , which terminal window is for me to just look up stuff or do configurations is ever changing, so the workspace-management-on-the-fly is what BetterStage is about.

Rectangle and Magnet were two of my favorites before my desktop got too messy for snap-left/snap-right to be enough. If that is all you need, they are still great. Note that the free version of BetterStage also covers all your standard window snapping needs.

Trust note:

BetterStage only asks for Accessibility permission. No Screen Recording, no Input Monitoring, no telemetry or usage analytics inside the Mac app (The only phone-home that it does is license verification, and that's it.). AI Staging never goes to BetterStage's server unless you choose to use BetterStage's managed AI subscription.

Pricing:

Free:
- 3 stages forever
- Snap Wheel, snap zones, shortcuts, and multi-monitor support
- 10-day Pro trial on first download, no card

Pro lifetime:
- $19.99 for 1 Mac
- $39.99 for 3 Macs
- $49.99 for 5 Macs

- all 9 stages, Bento Box Mode, Tabbed Layout Mode, App Routing, AI Staging with your own key/local model, Pinned Displays, and future updates

Optional BetterStage AI subscription:
- $4.99/month or $39/year if you want hosted AI Staging with no API key setup hassle, includes all Pro features.

Links:

https://betterstage.app

https://betterstage.app/changelog

Shout out

A lot have been added / improved since I first launched since 3 months ago, I received many feedbacks and feature requests through Discord from some of you who started using BetterStage since first reading about it here on r/macapps . And it was super helpful for making BetterStage much better than I originally intended. Special shout out to u/Latter_Pen2421 for being exceptionally helpful with ideas and feedbacks!

Transparency

The app is not on AppStore yet (due to various limitations), as required by subreddit rules, I dug up my two decade old linkedin profile, or reach me on x https://x.com/terrytz , our Discord Server is the best way to report bugs, request features or just chat.

Happy to answer anything.

Demo

App: Nodoo

Price: Free

IAP: No

Subscription: No

App Store: [AppStore]

Most task managers are either too simple or too complex.

Simple apps work well for personal use, but they usually don’t support real collaboration.

On the other hand, tools like Notion or Jira are powerful, but they feel heavy and require setup for something as basic as task tracking.

I wanted something in between — simple enough to stay fast, but still usable for small team collaboration.

Comparison

Compared to Notion or Jira:

Notion is flexible, but often overkill when you just want to manage tasks.
Jira is powerful, but too heavy for small teams or personal workflows.

This app focuses on staying lightweight and simple, closer to Things 3 in feel, but adds real-time collaboration so multiple people can work on the same task list without setup.

It also supports image attachments directly on tasks when extra context is needed.

P.S.

This is still early and there may be bugs.
If you try it, I’d really appreciate any feedback.

Hey r/macapps!

I’m part of the team behind Beat One, and we’ve just launched our first version. We built it for people who want a more approachable way to start making music on Mac without jumping straight into a full-scale DAW.

Problem: Sometimes you just want to turn an idea into a track without spending hours learning a complex workflow or setting everything up first.

Comparison: Compared with full-scale DAWs like Logic Pro, Beat One is intentionally more focused and lightweight. It brings together audio & MIDI tracks, a Step Sequencer, Piano Roll, built-in instruments and samples, microphone recording, mixing, and export in a simpler workflow.

Pricing: Beat One offers both subscription and lifetime purchase options. $3.99/month, $19.99/year with a 3-day free trial, or $29.99 for lifetime access. All core features are available to try for free.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beat-one-easy-music-sequencer/id6759310310?mt=12

This is only our first version, and we’re just getting started. We’d genuinely love your honest feedback -  what’s missing, what feels off, and what should we build next?

Criticism, feature requests, and wild ideas are all welcome 😄

Hey all, there's one important feature of Click2Minimize since last update that has honestly changed how I move around my own Mac day to day, and I wanted to talk about it specifically instead of listing full changelogs here. For those who prefer the details, please visit https://click2minimize.com/#changelog

Here's the problem this feature fixes:

On macOS, if you want to move a window, you have to grab the title bar - a strip that's maybe 30px tall. If you want to resize it, you have to find the edge or corner, which on a lot of windows is a hit box just a couple pixels wide. Every time, your cursor has to travel there, slow down, aim, and only then can you actually do the thing you wanted to do. It's such a small tax that most people never question it - but it happens dozens of times a day, and it adds up to a real drag on how fast you can work.

Now, macOS does technically have a 3-finger move gesture already - if you turn on "Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options > Three Finger Drag," you can drag a window by its title bar with three fingers instead of clicking and holding. But that's it. It's still tied to the title bar specifically, and there's no equivalent for resizing at all. You still have to go hunt down that hairline edge every time you want to make a window bigger or smaller.

C2M now removes both limitations entirely. Hold three fingers down anywhere on a window - content area, doesn't matter where - and drag to move it. Pinch in or out and you resize it instead. No hunting for a title bar. No lining your cursor up with a hair-thin border. You just grab the window wherever your hand already is and go. Works with a mouse wheel too, if you're not on a trackpad.

The first time it clicks for you, it's kind of a small revelation - like, why was I ever aiming for a 2px edge in the first place? After that it becomes completely automatic. I genuinely forget I'm using a "feature" at this point; it just feels like how windows should've worked on macOS all along.

Comparison to other window management apps:

Not many window management apps let you pull this off with pure trackpad or mouse gestures alone. BetterTouchTool comes close - you can rig up modifier keys + mouse movement to move and resize windows - but that means both hands have to show up to work, plus your brain has to remember which finger-key combo does what today. It's less "muscle memory" and more "which hand does the thing again?"

Meanwhile, a 3-finger drag and a pinch get the whole job done with one hand, freeing up my other hand for very important tasks like holding coffee, scrolling Reddit, or just taking a hard-earned break...

It’s one of the 30+ gestures in Click2Minimize, all designed to reduce friction in daily Mac usage. If that resonates with you, it’s worth the five minutes to try it out.

Single License of C2M is $9.99 with no subscription needed.

Free 14-day trial is available at https://click2minimize.com

=== One more thing ===

Got a feature idea, a complaint, or just want to tell me the window gestures ruined your muscle memory for the better? Drop it in the comments before July 10 and I'll send you a 50% off coupon. Best suggestions win my eternal gratitude (and a discount).

Seriously though - thank you all. C2M exists in its current form because of this subreddit.

Disclaimer: this is not a promotion, I'm just sharing a personal project of mine

I made a small Mac app that mixes ambient sound in space instead of with volume sliders. You drag each sound around a circle, so you can put rain behind you, a fire up close in front, wind off to one side, and it actually pans where you place it

I mostly built it for myself to work and fall asleep to

One-click convert all audio files to MP3! Supports mutual conversion between multiple formats. Simply drag files into the app, adjust settings, and click to convert. Supported formats: .aac, .ac3, .aif, .aiff, .aifc, .amr, .au, .caf, .dts, .eac3, .flac, .m4a, .mp2, .mp3, .mp4, .mka, .mov, .ogg, .opus, .ra, .rm, .spx, .tta, .voc, .vob, .wav, .webm, .wma, .w64, .m4r.

Problem: Most audio converters have issues: online tools require uploads, internet, and file limits; desktop ones lack formats, batch processing, cover/metadata editing, have complex steps, instability, and few languages. Audioer: Local offline batch converter that solves all these problems at once.

Comparison:

1. Online Web Tools: Require internet upload, privacy risks, file size/quantity limits, no batch cover/artist/album metadata management.
   Audioer: Local offline processing, no upload/unlimited, built-in full cover management + metadata editing, all data stored locally, safer privacy.
2. Desktop Software
   • MediaHuman Audio Converter (free popular): Basic features, limited batch, no deep metadata/cover management, plain UI.
     Audioer: One-time purchase, full metadata editing + cover management, more stable and simple.
   • Wondershare UniConverter (paid popular): Bloated with video features, subscription, high resource use.
     Audioer: Audio-focused, lightweight & stable, two-step batch conversion, no subscription.
   • Aiseesoft Audio Converter (paid): Fast conversion but weak metadata, complex UI.
     Audioer: Local offline, privacy secure, built-in full cover/metadata management.

Pricing: All Access Lifetime $4.99 (original $9.99, 50% off for this release, 3 days only).

Changelog: v2.3
Added audio cover management; updated project dependencies for significantly improved stability; expanded multi-language internationalization support. All core features including full-format batch conversion, custom audio parameters, and metadata editing remain fully supported.

📥 Download Link