must haves What are your must have apps for MacOS?

[Brian K. Mitchell]

New, Mac user here, again!

I am very curious to hear what apps MacOS user think are must haves?

For example whenever you buy or get a new Mac what are the first apps you make sure to install on your Mac? 

[Michael J. Bolesta]

Accordance of course!

[Larry Wing]

Vivaldi

Commander One file manager or Forklift

Softmaker suite of apps

Accordance

PhotoSupreme (photo catalog)

Thunderbird

Way too many others...

[Leopold Green]

Accordance, Ulysses, Muse (whiteboard plus app), Mellel, DEVONthink, Obsidian, Lightroom, BBEdit (text/code editor), Craft, Bartender (utility), Alfred (utility), PopClip (utility), iStatMenu (utility)

All the apps bar Accordance and BBEdit have an identical or near identical iPad version with full sync'ing etc.

 

If I had to choose just one app - bar Accordance, it would be Ulysses because almost all I do is write (or attend endless meetings) and Ulysses is my favourite place to write

If you are doing research which involves a large volume of pdfs/papers then you should consider DEVONthink to store and search

If you have lots of notes and webpages you want to save and easily find then Obsidian will do this (and a million more things)

If you do a lot of mind maps (which I prefer to draw out in Muse) then MindNode is very good

[Mark Allison]

The first app I install on a Mac is BetterSnapTool. It's a window resizer and organizer. I'm actually really surprised Apple hasn't Sherlocked it yet. 

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=12

Edited November 10, 2023 by Mark Allison

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Accordance
Adblock Plus
AppCleaner
Automator (built-in)
Bartender (on Mac notebooks)
BBEdit
I like Brave for web browsing
Transmit or Cyberduck
Flux
Keeper Password Manager (I get it through Cyber Team US)
Keynote (built-in)
LanScan
LaunchBar
Little Snitch
Mellel
I'm also considering reinstalling Nisus Writer Pro
Moom
Nota Bene
Numbers (built-in)
Pages (built-in)
GarageBand (built-in) or Logic Pro
PC Matic (I get it through Cyber Team US)
PDF Expert
Photomator
Pixelmator
Podcasts (built-in)
Preview (built-in)
Proton Mail Bridge
ProtonVPN
QuickTime Player (built-in)
RadarScope (with AllisonHouse subscription)
Reflector
Scapple
ScreenFlow
I also have Camtasia around in case I need it
Scrivener
SEE Finance
Snagit
SpeedTest
Standard Notes
Time Machine (built-in)
Apple TV (built-in)
Ulysses
VLC
Activity Monitor (built-in)
Disk Utility (built-in)
Terminal (built-in)

iOS Apps
ArtScroll
Chayenu
Everand and Scribd
FishWeather
Tehillim
Sefaria
Siddur
Tempest
Ting Fire Sensor
Tomorrow IO (just through my Israel trip)

[David Purton]

- NeoMutt (all mail user agents suck, this one sucks least)

- Vim (life is impossible without a real text editor)

- TeXLive (document preparation)

[OSchrock]

Accordance
Alfred (Integrates amazingly well with Accordance https://forums.accordancebible.com/topic/9667-alfred-2-accordance-workflows)
Obsidian (Evernote Replacement)

 

[Gary Pauley]

DevonThink. Going into dissertation mode and it has proven to be a great post-dissertation research tool. 

[Mark Allison]

1 hour ago, OSchrock said:

Alfred

 

Alfred was my second choice. So much better at launching apps than Spotlight. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I use LaunchBar but I've heard great about Alfred as well. Both are better than Spotlight. I did LaunchBar since I bought it about the time I bought Little Snitch.

[A. Smith]

I didn’t know Alfred was still around!

[Gary Pauley]

what does Alfred do that Spotlight does not do? 

 

[Mark Allison]

2 hours ago, Gary Pauley said:

what does Alfred do that Spotlight does not do? 

 

 

It's faster. A lot faster. And it's highly customizable with keyboard shortcuts for almost anything you want to do. And it's themed, if you care about that. 

[A. Smith]

3 hours ago, Gary Pauley said:

what does Alfred do that Spotlight does not do? 

 

Years ago I used to compose and send whole emails just in the Alfred search bar!

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

LaunchBar is similar. I've managed to get it to do what I need it to do super quickly.

[edwardsson]

1Password

Accordance

Aeon Timeline

Affinity Photo 2

Affinity Designer 2

Affinity Publisher 2

Capture One 23

BankID

Bookends

DeepL

DEVONthink 3

On1 NoNoise AI 2023

Keynote

KeyCue (or CheatSheet)

MacFamilyTree 10

Mail (or Spark)

Mellel 6

Money

Nik Collection 6

Nisus Writer Pro

Numbers

OmniDiskSweeper

OmniGraffle

OmniOutliner

Pages

PakaPaka

Safari

Scrivener 3

TinkerTool

Typinator

Twitter (X)

VLC

VueScan

WhatsApp

Wifi Explorer

Zoom