17 Awesome Mac Apps for Power Users (2022)
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- čas přidán 31. 07. 2024
- All the apps I'm using on a daily/weekly basis as a professional Software Engineer and CZcams content creator.
CHAPTERS
==========
00:00 - Start
00:14 - Emacs
02:25 - Firefox
04:15 - Kitty
05:19 - Syncthing
06:50 - Amethyst
07:52 - Hammerspoon
09:15 - Homebrew
09:48 - Meeter
10:24 - Setapp
11:11 - DaVinci Resolve
12:08 - Affinity Photo
12:58 - 1Password
13:33 - Flow
14:59 - CleanShot X
16:03 - BetterDisplay
17:13 - iStats Menu
17:52 - Bartender
APPS
=====
* Emacs - emacsformacosx.com/ (or install with Homebrew)
* Firefox - www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox...
* Kitty - sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
* Syncthing - syncthing.net/
* Amethyst - ianyh.com/amethyst/
* Hammerspoon - www.hammerspoon.org/
* Homebrew - brew.sh/
* Meeter - www.trymeeter.com/ (in Setapp)
* Setapp - setapp.com (referral code for a free month [me too!] - go.setapp.com/invite/vdt351tp)
* DaVinci Resolve - www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
* Affinity Photo - affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
* 1Password - 1password.com/
* Flow - flowapp.info/ (in Setapp)
* CleanShotX - cleanshot.com/ (in Setapp)
* BetterDisplay - github.com/waydabber/BetterDi...
* iStats Menu - bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/ (in Setapp)
* Bartender - www.macbartender.com/ (in Setapp)
GEAR
=====
* LG 5K Ultrafine Monitor - geni.us/behGoTB
* iPad Pro 11" - geni.us/H0qJ
* iPad Air Gen 5 - geni.us/QieLq3X
* Samsung S8 Ultra - geni.us/rhZdv
* Apple Magic Keyboard - geni.us/8uBg
* Anker USB-C 7-in-1 Hub - geni.us/ArHsNBk
* Anker Thunderbolt 3 Cable - geni.us/BTOsQ
* Apple USB3-Lightning Camera Adapter - geni.us/VUPp
* UGREEN USB-A Hub - geni.us/yBfyE
* USB-A to USB-C Adapter - geni.us/HfN4Y
* Aluminium Armour Case - geni.us/M5ph
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
=====================
* Buy me a coffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/techcrafted
* Support me on Patreon - / techcrafted
AFFILIATE LINKS
==============
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What are your favourite Mac apps?
For me - Obsidian is the knowledge management system - similar to Roam and Notion - but files are yours - simple markdown/text files. Love Syncthing (does Mobius sync work for you? for me it works sometimes but I get frequent out of space errors with plenty of space available on the phone - or what else do you use on iOS?). Alfred is another fave!
Technicly it's not really an app, but deffenetly Vim
Neovim, yabai, skhd, btop and obsidian for me
Has to be Alfred!
Carbon Copy Cloner
BBEdit
iTerm2 + nvim
Homebrew
Amethyst
Karabiner Elements
Alfred
Obsidian
Fantastical
Mail
Photo Mechanic Plus
Adobe Bridge and Photoshop
And I really like all the ease-to-use functionality with iCloud
I’m in the process of using more CLI tools but, compared to most people, I really don’t give a shit if my apps are open-source or not. As long as I get the job done, and use my brain most of the time (in terms of privacy), it’s OK for me.
I have been automating my workflow with the old relic "Automator" and "AppleScript" all this while! Thanks for recommending Hammerspoon!
I absolutely love this. So many unique apps on here!
Yes please for a Syncthing how to, with cloud storage
Nice video Thx for all the input.
Thanks for this. I'm going to try Better Display today.
As always, very helpful no-frills video, which I like about your channel. I'm looking forward to the upcoming tutorial you you hint at. I'd also be deeply interested in your workflow of saving web pages and notes. I'm struggling with this one. I'm using Joplin and Simplenote, since they also work on Android and iOS.
Thanks for the hard work you put into making such magnificent content
I've added that topic to my video list.
I use Alfred and Keyboard Maestro a lot
Alfred has an iOS app that can be configured to work like Elgato Stream Deck, which I use to control my OBS thru websocket
Keyboard Maestro is even more powerful, where I can script it to blink my RGB light and open a set of applications when certain USB devices is connected. It could also detect MIDI packets, so I've connected to my guitar FX pedal and use it as foot switches.
Thanks for the recommendations!
I like:
- Rectangle (window manager, like amethyst)
- Hidden Bar (like bartender)
- Mos (fixed the awful scrolling issues I had with my logi mouse)
- Karabiner elements (allows to remap keys, for me as a German with English keyboard super helpfül)
Cool ideas. Thanks.
Thank you for the recommendations. Would love for you to do a deep dive/tutorial on Doom Emacs
Found some great tools through your channel. Thanks.
I wish I could like this video twice! Great video, thank you
I’m very surprised that I think nobody has mentioned Raycast as a Spotlight replacement. I would even say that some or most of the apps that you have shown can be replaced also by raycast itself or raycast extensions, so don’t need for many apps. I love Raycast and it becomes very handy for so many things. Also community is growing so every time there are more and more extensions which superpower it. Amazing app
I've just started testing it. It does seem quite nice.
I just made that same comment 😂
I use raycast and love it, also less loving my iPad because of that. Question: what apps he talked about can be done from Raycast?
I tried Raycast for a while, but I found it was too buggy and became counter productive, Alfred is actually all I need
I've been using KeepassXC as my password manager for years - open source, cross platform, browser plugin, android mobile app. Then sync the file across multiple devices with Syncthing.
❤ for the Emacs shout out. It's the OS on top of my macOS.
Woooow! Great apps
Yes, Terminal, the default that comes with macOS, lacks some features but when talking about speed none on the "market" beats it. And there's also the input lag which in Terminal is almost non-existant.
Can you please make a video on how you use doom eMacs org mode and agenda and your regular workflow with it? I like your way of explaining
Excellent presentation! I am perpetually weeding through the silliness of apps trying to find something that works in a professional environment. I’d say 2% qualify and that’s a bunch of wasted time. I can use almost half of what you recommended here. Made my day, and subbed.
Thanks for the kind words Peter!
I recently switched from Windows to Mac. On PC, I used for years a sync app called "Allway Sync", which never failed me. It was a one time charge for the pro version, and it works flawlessly 10 years later. I am looking for a Mac alternative. I wonder if Sychting can be a good alternative to Allway Sync.
vim in firefox - my favorite extension!
Fantastic content and video!! What RSS feeds are you consuming? Maybe you can feature a top of rss in a future video- I think many of us want to lean into this
Great idea!
Alfred is my favorite Mac app
Do you use Alfred? I keep hearing about it and want give it a try. Thanks for making this content!
I don't, but I've started looking at the new kind on the block in that space: Raycast. Early impressions are great.
iTerm2 is a great terminal
Pixelmator Pro provides an alternative to photoshop also.
Have you heard of Obsidian? It’s similar to EMacs and Notion, but files are stored on your own computer. There are also tons of community plugins to download.
I have indeed. I used it for a while and have some friends who swear by it. Since I use Emacs org for so many other things, I find I’m more effective with that than I am with Obsidian
Old lady here wish I could pick your brain for 15 minutes to get guidance. This is the next best thing. I'm an old school wanna be, know little about programming sorta gal trying to learn now in my midlife. Thanks for the videos.
Your videos is exceptionally useful, no BS for the sake of making a video.
Is the spacing between windows in 5:08 done with Amethyst ?
Thanks. It is - I like using that for demonstrations because I think it's a little less visual load. I toggle it on and off when working for a bit of variety.
@@tech_craft Great thanks, heading to the Amethyst video now :D
Password manager: bitwarden free and opensource
-another is pass (standard unix password manager if you live in the terminal)
Video editor: lumafusion (available on ipad and new macbooks m1/m2)
Like I was saying I am using Karabiner but do you recommend hammerspon as well? I have only basic keys set up in Karabiner like Hyper key, opening apps, etc. But like you was saying, hammerspon is lua so perhaps easier to use/configure than all the crappy json stuff in Karabiner.
I really like using Hammerspoon for all my keyboard shortcuts.
There’s a nice blog discussing approaches to hyper key handling in Hammerspoon here: evantravers.com/articles/2020/06/08/hammerspoon-a-better-better-hyper-key/
You might also like kmonad which is a cross-platform key manipulation that replaces the need to flash firmware on to your keyboard.
Just one question can you show your conf for your emacs for show your kanban setup ? Thanks
In Doom Emacs it’s enough to just add (package! org-kanban) in packages.el and then re-sync
Hi, did you know, that Syncthing after install and Start on a Mac, these Software try to connect to over 400 Relays? i saw this on my Firewall and i was little bit confused.
Yes. The public relay function has a lot of community-supplies relays out of the box.
You can supply and configure your own if you’d prefer.
Cheers. As a software engineer and a mac user, can you maybe tell us if it’s possible to make mac mail not to auto preview attachments inline in mail body on mac mail? Used to have a terminal command that no longer works.
Wanted to add, that i enjoy hour content, because ur not truing to sell
a single app, or at least its not as obvious, as many “productivity” bloggers do.
Thanks for your comments. I don't have a solution for the mail attachments issue unfortunately. I don't use Mac Mail myself but I've seen a lot of people complain that the option to disable inline attachments was seemingly removed.
Just a question do u have any ideas ur thinking about with the raspberry pi
I have a few Pi-related projects bubbling away.
I’m working on some Pi Pico projects that I’m not sure fit the channel but will probably share in one form or another.
I’m also looking at improving the desktop experience over remote desktop. One of my patrons recommended a really interesting lightweight desktop called regolith so I’m looking at that alongside some general performance improvements.
Im also looking at Pi alternatives like the VIM4 side stock is so low.
And finally, I’m working on a video for recycling old computers for use as a remote access machine from tablets like the iPad and Samsung S8. For those without a Pi this is a nice way to get more value out of something they already have.
Finally real power user apps. I know you use 1password, but is there any other way we can share passwords across Safari and Google Chrome? 😇
How is 1password different from the native mac/ios inbuilt support for storing passwords?
For me the two big differences are cross-platform support, which I can’t live without, and support for sharing vaults.
I share a vault with my family and I consume a bunch of shared vaults from my work.
I use SnagIt for captures because it can also do a scroll capture to create a long image file. I then use DEVONthink to OCR that into a searchable text. Great for getting tasks and reference text out of long Slack threads and eventually into Org Mode in Emacs.
One shot can and it does them better than snag it. Snag it is ok, I use on windows but clean shot is better in my opinion. The way it does scrolling images is really unique as it lets you do the scrolling.
I wish you would have included links to these apps in the mac app store or where ever to download them from.
You're absolutely correct - totally slipped my mind. I'll fix this before the weekend is out.
org-mode is a great thing!
It would be a huge benefit to me - and hopefully other subscribers of your channel - to get your view on working with Linux and macOS, i.e. the differences, benefits, likes and dislikes etc. (you don't seem to be reluctant to working with a MacBook only because your day-job requires you to do so). I'm working with Arch Linux and a tiling wm (river) as my main machine and use macOS occasionally. I'm very tempted to buy a MacBook again (my 2011 Air only recently broke) because no other laptop seems to offer abundant battery life and quietness. I've watched countless CZcams videos but they don't offer insight into working with a MacBook like you seem to do (if I look at the apps you use, they are similar to the ones I use / would use if I knew more about them).
If, by any means, you could make a video on a topic like this, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks, by the way, for putting the emac / websites tutorial on your to-do list.
I switch between Mac and Arch pretty much daily. I have my own MacBook Pro that I use mostly for editing and a MacBook Pro from work that I use for coding. I also have a Framework laptop and a custom-built desktop both running Arch. On Arch I'm running a custom XMonad setup.
My trick, such as it is, is to try using the same open source apps everywhere and then I'm trying my best to have the same keyboard shortcuts everywhere. With Hammerspoon on Mac and XMonad on Arch I have a pretty consistent set of shortcuts now.
I'd prefer to use Linux for dev work, and if I didn't travel I would, but as you say the laptop situation isn't great. I don't find MacOS too restrictive but the lack of XMonad really hurts my productivity. Amethyst is great, but it's limited by what MacOS allows.
@@tech_craft Thanks for the comprehensive answer. I use cross platform apps exclusively and try to make my students (grammar school Years 5-12, computer science) only use free and open source software too so that they can use all programs at home. If I can avoid it, I don't use Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which is the only software that my fellow colleagues use that generates some friction with regard to compatibility.
I use a VM (virt-manager) in case I have to test software used for work or make tutorials for my students.
Alfred or Raycast. The only reason I don't use Raycast is the snippets don't let you enter custom variables in the expansion. I like doing date; to give me the current date, etc. Otherwise Raycast is perfect and free over Alfred.
Syncthing is a game changer for macOS users with an android tbh
Wow, thank you for not being on of those CZcamsrs, who “use” notion “every day.”That is some interesting stuff, and notion did not send you a cheque to advertise. Respect.
👌👌👌👌
Affinity Photo Tutorials
youtube.com/@AffinityRevolution
czcams.com/play/PLUyadHduIq2eFF8QRD0LfjYcg-df0dBMm.html
czcams.com/play/PLtQWi0Ez-6QbwAoP7wztMoDZZFna_aO71.html
czcams.com/play/PLvW9I2Rm4Pf95Q10vtyMzB8o4ab26cM36.html
czcams.com/play/PLjZ7Y0kROWivwsE5fHsyLbfPLZe_BxL69.html
youtube.com/@Affinitybyserif
czcams.com/play/PLjZ7Y0kROWitoJtnw0pdvjPmS8mYGvrBR.html
Ipad version
czcams.com/play/PLBKtCFkJd8QsjF1SW36TL6OefKwe7Bb96.html
Set app is one of the only subscriptions i feel is a requirement for me
“raycast” is a gameschanger for me
I’ve had that on my list to try for a while but never found the time. I’ll make sure to give it a whirl.
Setapp is an excellent service. And the fact that it is Ukrainian makes me enjoy it even more. Thanks for the video!
Personal List:
- Flow
- Amethyst
- Kitty
- 1Password
- Hammerspoon
- Homebrew
I use Microsoft Edge mainly because it has profiles built in. No need for privacy mode. I use it for switching between Azure clients as it stores the access token separately for each profile.
Edge is Blink-based now right? I assume the compatibility is therefore excellent across the web?
3:25 What did you say? ..killer extension for firefox is ??? try-doc-tle ?
Tridactyl - addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim/
How did you get Kitty to look so good? Is it a theme?
It is! It's the Dracula theme. You can browse and then apply themes using `kitty +kitten themes`
@@tech_craft Awesome thank you so much!! What else do you use to make it look so good? Tmux?
each one of these needs a seperate video, imo.
Can you share your hammerspoon config?
I have a video on Hammerspoon coming up soon.
@@tech_craft looking forward to it
Itsycal lets me display date in top bar like this Jul 18 W29-1, meaning 18th of July, Monday on the 29th ISO week of the year.
I've been trying to get into tile manager but hasn't clicked for me yet. So I use Moom to move my windows around and AutoRaise to focus on window under cursor.
Try Andrew Goodman’s CZcams Channel. He has lots of tutorials about Affinity Photo for the iPad and I’m sure the Mac version is probably the same.
Thanks for the heads up - I'll take a look!
Was Homebrew supposed to be a chapter?
It was - fixed now. Thanks for the heads up!
bro basically turned his mac into a linux like device and I kinda think thats impressive
You should also give alacritty a shot
I switched from Alacritty to Kitty. At the time, Kitty had more features that I wanted (like ligatures) and now I'm happy enough with Kitty that I don't think I'll switch again unless it suddenly becomes horrendously slow.
@@tech_craft There is a fork of Alacritty with Ligatures, which I use.
Amethyst is great for SWEs, I use it for my dual 4K monitors(Code editor/terminals/databases/ChatGPT, remote desktop, Spotify, CNBC, etc). Every time i see a software developer with only one window fullscreen I cringe
Hey! Great video! Your content is awesome in that you actually seem to know what you're talking about - compared to many other "Best xxx CZcamsrs" in the space. I presume this most likely is due to you using your Mac for serious Software Development and the likes which is what many "power users" probably use it for as well :)
Thank you for sharing all that with us. One little nitpick -> I noticed you are using "Adblock Plus" in Firefox and I highly recommend you switch to "uBlock Origin". It's much more effective than ABP and also a lot lighter on the resources. Additionally, it does not feature any sort of affiliation with ad-companies, that ABP sadly does...
P.S.: I do as well use and love 1Password ;) It is just such a great piece of software!
Cheers.
Thanks for the kind words!
Here is the only guy who uses emacs and vim
Instead of homebrew check out nix
I use Nix a lot on Linux. I went Nix for Mac but abandoned it. It was a year or so ago though so I’m due another attempt.
Ахуенно полезно видео! Спасибо!
Vim is better mate..!! But other tools are helpful.
1Password is not for power users
emacs < vim! If you use another browser other than Safari as your standard browser is ideal if you don't mind that Chrome or Firefox eat your memory. Both are crap! Using chrome is a necessary evil for Web developers.
With Evil mode you get all the good things about Emacs and Vim in one nice package.
Emacs ☹️ neovim 😃
Firefox ☹️ Chrome 😀
Kitty ☹️ alacritty 😀
Syncthing ☹️ rsync 😀
Amethyst 😀
I'll only take exception to the rsync comment 😀😂
Rsync is great and I use it for handling my footage, but it's not as nice as Syncthing for day-to-day usage.
after he said emacs, i had to close. first thing is emacs? no way. nvim rules.
With Evil mode you get all the vim goodness and you get all the great Emacs packages (like org mode). It's truly the best of both worlds.
these are too much for a normal human
Not at all! Some take more learning than others, but they are all well worth the effort and the learning experience is useful and fun in its own right.
Hyper terminal. Not a power user but and trying to learn command line work on Mac. Hyper is great looking and has some useful extensions currently and they're working on more. (hyper.is)