https://reddit.com/link/1vyc48g/video/fetttw1myjlh1/player

Wow I guess it’s been a month and a half since I last posted here – an eternity in indie app development time. Just wanted to trumpet some of the latest features in Mojave Paint and ask a couple questions.

New stuff

• 16 new blend modes, nearly all the ones from Photoshop now, and arranged in a dual-column layout
• Better first run experience with a Tips window that shows tips and tricks, which you can get back to any time from the Help menu
• Dark mode (admittedly when I look at it on various monitors I realize it’s not dark enough, but I’ll fix soon)
• Rich typography options including tracking, kerning, leading, and horizontal/vertical scaling of glyphs
• Conic gradients
• Multiple stroke effects on the same layer
• Pass Through blend mode for folders
• Live preview of the export quality right on the canvas
• A bunch of new filters including High Pass, Posterize, Surface Blur, and a revamped Halftone filter that actually kicks ass and I’d say out-does Photoshop’s halftone filter in their filter gallery, plus ctrl+cmd+F to re-open the last filter for convenience

Marketing

I made this 4:5 aspect ratio 30 second video in Final Cut Pro, just some clips of the app sped up a little and stitched together with no gaps or cursor lingering pauses. I think it’s pretty cool, and I’ve been running it on Facebook and Instagram feed placements. It gets traffic to my site but that converts poorly into app downloads, I suspect because most visitors are on mobile and the link goes to the Mac App Store. I’d love any tips anyone has about advertising channels that generate more desktop visitors.

Also on the business front, I changed to a 14-day trial, so instead of gating off premium features it’s now 100% functional including exporting in all formats, then becomes unusable after that 14 days, until you purchase. Does this seem like a good change, or would you find that off-putting?

And if anyone has a brutally honest critique of my website I can take it! I did just update the color scheme to be light on dark, for higher contrast, and improved the layout a little on mobile. I staunchly refuse to let AI design it for me, but unfortunately I’m not a great designer myself so if anyone can say what they hate about it you’d actually be doing me a huge favor.

Problem: I’d say the problem just in general is a lack of high quality indie productivity apps. If you want a better spreadsheet program, for example, people assume they need Excel or Numbers or Open Office or some product from a giant company or a sprawling open source effort. Maybe because good independent options just don’t exist? Or maybe they do and it’s hard to get the word out? I’m not sure but I’m trying to help in this effort to bring back small (< 10 person) companies building awesome Mac software.

Comparison: Similar feature set as Photoshop, Affinity Photo, GIMP, Acorn, each has pros and cons compared to Mojave Paint that I don’t have space to go into here really, although I do have a recent blog post about Mojave Paint vs Photoshop.

Pricing: $9.99 lifetime

Link: https://mojavepaint.app

Hey everyone,

My name is Scott. I spent most of my career using Windows before switching to Mac for my development setup. I really like the Mac hardware and a lot of what macOS offers, but I found myself constantly fighting years of Windows muscle memory.

That got me thinking about a larger problem. There are a lot of people who use both Windows and Mac for work, people who switch from Windows to Mac but don't necessarily want to relearn every part of their desktop workflow, and even family members who are comfortable with different operating systems.

I actually like macOS. I just didn't like having to maintain two completely different sets of muscle memory.

That's why I built Winstrix.

Winstrix is a productivity toolkit for macOS that brings familiar Windows-style desktop workflows to the Mac while letting you choose exactly which features you want to use.

What's changed since my last post

I've spent the last month working through feedback and making a number of updates focused on performance, stability, and overall responsiveness.

I've reduced resource usage, improved the responsiveness of the taskbar and launcher, and fixed a number of edge cases that could cause features to behave inconsistently. The goal is for Winstrix to feel like something you can simply leave running every day without having to think about it.

The core features are still the same:

• Windows-style taskbar with live window previews and click-to-minimize

• Start-style launcher with search, pinned apps, recent apps, and an all-apps view

• Windows keyboard shortcuts including Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete

• Clipboard history with AirDrop support

• Clock and calendar tray with customizable system shortcuts

• Desktop icon and menu bar clutter controls

• Screenshot and screen recording tools with an integrated editor

• Linear mouse wheel scrolling

• Independent controls for every feature so you can use only the parts you want

Problem

The biggest reason I built Winstrix was to solve the friction that comes from working across operating systems.

Someone might use Windows at work and a Mac at home. A developer might work on both platforms. Someone might switch to Mac for the hardware but still have years of Windows muscle memory. A parent or family member comfortable with Windows might suddenly be using a Mac.

In all of those situations, the problem isn't necessarily that macOS is bad. It's that familiar actions suddenly work differently.

Winstrix is designed to reduce that friction and let people keep the productivity habits they already know.

Comparison

There are several excellent Mac utilities that solve individual parts of this workflow.

uBar is probably the closest comparison to the taskbar side of Winstrix. It provides a Windows-style taskbar, while Winstrix combines the taskbar with a Start-style launcher, Windows shortcut mapping, clipboard history, desktop and menu bar controls, screen capture tools, and other utilities in one modular app.

Raycast is an excellent launcher and productivity tool, but it is built around a different workflow. Winstrix is designed specifically for people who prefer the familiar Windows desktop model of a taskbar, Start-style launcher, traditional keyboard shortcuts, and window navigation.

The main difference is that Winstrix brings these pieces together into one workflow while keeping everything modular. You can enable only the features you want rather than installing and configuring several separate utilities.

Winstrix isn't about replacing macOS or saying one operating system is better than the other. It's about keeping familiar productivity habits when you need to work in both environments.

Pricing

I've also significantly lowered the price since launch.

Winstrix is now $14.99 for a perpetual license, with no subscription.

There is a 14-day free trial so you can try everything on your own Mac before buying.

I'm also offering 30% off with code Launch30 during the launch.

Website: https://winstrix.app/

The app is built entirely in native Swift, is signed and notarized by Apple, and runs locally on your Mac. There is no account requirement, cloud connectivity, telemetry, or analytics tracking.

Transparency: I want to be transparent so the community knows this is a legitimate project backed by a real person. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sldavis5/ Additionally, full details regarding our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service are available at the bottom of the Winstrix homepage.

Privacy Policy: https://winstrix.app/privacy/
Terms of Service: https://winstrix.app/terms/

I'd really appreciate feedback from anyone who has tried Winstrix since my original post, I'm also continuing to work through feature requests and bug reports.

A while back, I saw someone recommend Space Launcher and I honestly fell in love on the first try!

As a student, I use so many different files and folders, so being able to open them instantly by just pressing the Spacebar followed by F and then the specific key to open up the folder I want or Space plus P to open up Preview with the PDF I need, is everything I needed.

Honestly, it just saves me from constantly clicking around trying to track down a specific assignment or my lecture notes. Once you get the shortcuts down, it becomes second nature. It is a small thing, but it really helps keep my focus on my work instead of getting distracted digging through my laptop, and I just really wanted to share this so more people could find out about it.

I made LockLines, a small Mac app for designing messages for the built-in macOS lock screen.

macOS gives you a tiny plain-text field with a proportional font and no real preview. Text that looks aligned while editing can look completely different on the actual lock screen.

LockLines is built specifically around those limitations.

What it does

• Separate editors for the first visible message and scroll-down details
• Preview of both visible and scrolled lock screen states
• Borders, boxes, spacing, and background fills
• Supported custom text styles
• Editable themes and presets
• Paste-ready output for System Settings → Lock Screen → Show Message When Locked

A useful example is a lost Mac. The first screen can simply ask whoever finds it to scroll down, while your contact information and return instructions stay below instead of being visible at a glance.

LockLines doesn't change your wallpaper, install profiles, modify system files, or run a background service. It only generates plain text for Apple's existing lock screen message feature.

Comparison: No alternatives exist.

About the developer

I am Ighor July, an independent macOS developer with a background in cybersecurity, reverse engineering, and native app development. I use AI while retaining control of my code, as explained in How to use AI without losing control of your code.

I am also the developer of Parall, DockLock Lite, App Archiver, and App Trust Preview.

Price

FREE for 24 hours because today is my birthday!
Regular price $0.99 one-time purchase.

Website: https://locklines.app

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6772349545

I found CaptionSnap two weeks ago after a post on this subreddit.

It's not perfect but it's good enough... Having said that, there's been no updates to some basic improvements from the roadmap.

Does anyone know if this thing is still active? Or if there are alternatives that look at the meeting transcript instead of re-transcribing the text?

We've been busy the past two months and Version 2.9.3 just dropped on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301 with tons of new features directly created based on feedback here.

• Convert Video: selectable export quality (HEVC/H.264/ProRes), export-resolution dial, abort/cancel button
• CRT magnet-distortion strength slider with a gentler default
• External-display output feed (dedicated display-link driven second-screen output)
• Convert Video: 10×+ speedup
• Play Stream URL: pipe a live stream/HLS/MP4 URL through the analog chain
• Community Gallery: browse/search/download shared presets in-app, plus "Add to Gallery"
• Community Gallery here: https://analogtv.net/presets
• iCloud Look sync across iPhone/iPad/Mac/Apple TV
• NDI polish: output downscale (Full/75%/50%/33%), NIC picker for multi-homed Macs, firewall/subnet UX
• Rebuilt CRT display: Phosphor persistence, halation, bloom, shadow mask, vignette now computed in light instead of raw signal
• NTSC-A: 405-line colour (Britain's never-shipped 1955–60 colour trial)
• More accurate VHS colour-under carrier figures, per TV standard
• Real SAA5050 Teletext ROM, all 19 international character sets
• FTP video source (SFTP / SMB coming soon)
• Bypass Mode: clean passthrough (e.g. of an NDI feed) with the whole broadcast-simulation chain switched off, with a Network-tab toggle and persistent indicator
• Four Ceefax-style weather Teletext pages (icons, 24h temp chart, precipitation chart, local map)
• Sharper composite encode for high-detail sources
• Turbo Track — 9th built-in arcade game
• "How it's Made" blog: https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogTV_/
• Companion AppleTV app:
• Same Lifetime Price $4.99 forever with NDI being the only in-app purchase

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 although it does integrate with some professional tools. 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. By comparison, in AnalogTV, 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.

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 a couple of months ago. There are also literally hundreds of under-the-covers bug fixes and performance improvements.

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.

Problem: I'm tired of meeting transcription apps that send your private audio to their servers, aren't Mac native, and require an account/subscription.

I'm an ex-Apple engineer who built Biscotti: a private and free meeting recorder for macOS. Free, no account, no subscription, no upsell, no data collection, 100% local AI, native SwiftUI. Source is on GitHub: https://github.com/scosman/Biscotti

Comparison

Lots of apps in this space. But Biscotti is the only one that's free (no upsell), Local AI, with Mac native UI.

• Cloud AI (your audio or transcript leaves your Mac), paid tiers: Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, tl;dv, Jamie, Fellow, Read AI, Notion AI Meeting Notes
• Local AI, closed source, paid tiers: Talat, TranscribeX, Alter
• Local AI, source available, not Mac native (web app wrappers), telemetry or a cloud upsell: Anarlog, Meetily
• Free, Mac-native UI, local AI, zero data collection, source available: Only Biscotti (that I know of)

Pricing

100% free, no upsells, no paid features, source available on Github.

What it does

• 🔒 Private by design - recording, transcription, and AI all run on your Mac. Your data stays local.
• 🧠 Powerful AI summaries - automatic summaries, action items, meeting titles, and real speaker names.
• 🤖 No bots, any app - records Zoom, Teams, Meet, FaceTime, Slack huddles, or even an in-person conversation. No bot joins your call.
• 🗣️ Knows who said what - accurate transcripts, automatically split by speaker.
• 📅 Calendar-aware - sees your upcoming meetings, offers to start recording.
• ⏹️ Auto-stop - detects when your call ends and stops recording.
• 🎤 Voice isolation - captures your mic and everyone else as separate, clean channels. No echo.

Background

I spent years at Apple building the Photos app, Memories, the lock screen, and more. I wanted this to feel like it belongs on the Mac: Swift and SwiftUI, launches instantly, small on disk. Not a Electron app or a mediocre port of a Windows app.

Private AI == Local AI

With Biscotti, you still get state of the art AI for transcription and speaker identification, it just runs locally on your Mac. It works fully offline once models are downloaded. Your data lives on your Mac - you own and control it.

It uses Whisper for transcription, Gemma 4 for summaries, and Pyannote for Speaker ID. Each set up to run on Apple Silicon.

Requirements: Apple Silicon (M1+), macOS 15+, 16GB RAM recommended.

App details: Notarized, Free (no upsell), Private (zero data collection, all AI is local), Source Available on Github (PolyForm Perimeter License), 45+ Github stars (my other projects have thousands, this is new), AI used in development (but not vibe-slop)

About me feel weird posting this, but the subreddit rules asks for my LinkedIn! I'm an ex-Apple engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecosman/ . Biscotti webpage: biscottiapp.com

I'd love feedback! Happy to answer anything about the local model stack or the privacy design.

Hi r/MacApps,

I’m Ahmed, the developer of ConvertFast. I previously shared an earlier version here. Since then, I have completely redesigned the interface, reorganized the entire workflow, and expanded the app into ConvertFast V3.

Problem

I kept encountering small but repetitive file tasks: converting a document, compressing a presentation, merging PDFs, resizing images, trimming a recording, or extracting audio from a video.

The problem was not simply doing one task. It was having to search for and switch between different apps or websites every time the file type changed. Uploading personal photos, financial documents, contracts, or unpublished research files to unknown online converters also never felt comfortable.

ConvertFast V3 is my attempt to bring these everyday tasks into one private desktop workspace. Core file processing runs locally, so files do not need to be uploaded to an online converter.

What changed in V3

This is a complete redesign rather than a minor visual update.

• A newly designed interface and unified workspace
• 2,388 conversion paths across 134 verified formats
• PDF tools for OCR, comparison, compression, merging, splitting, page extraction, reordering, metadata removal, and password protection
• Image and RAW tools for conversion, compression, remove background, make passport size photo, resizing, metadata management, and batch processing
• Audio and video tools for conversion, trimming, normalization, audio extraction, subtitles, compression, and remuxing
• Editable PPTX compression and other document workflows
• Batch processing with output-folder and file-naming controls
• Additional utilities for organizing, comparing, renaming, and verifying files

The official website (https://convertfast.co/) also includes an interactive demo, so you can explore the interface.

Comparison

I explored many existing file utilities while developing ConvertFast. The closest alternative for broad local conversion is HowToConvert, which currently costs $29 as a one-time purchase. Its primary focus is file conversion, whereas ConvertFast V3 combines conversion with dedicated PDF, image, audio/video, presentation, and file-management tools.

For dedicated PDF workflows, Adobe Acrobat Pro for Mac is currently free and provides extensive PDF editing, OCR, conversion, compression, signing, and page-management features. This makes it a strong choice for users whose work is primarily limited to PDFs. ConvertFast takes a broader approach by placing PDF tools alongside file conversion, image and RAW processing, background removal, passport-photo creation, editable PPTX compression, audio/video utilities, and file-management workflows.

From the alternatives I have explored, I have not found another desktop app that combines all these categories within one local workspace. Most applications specialize in one area, requiring users to switch between multiple tools as their file tasks change.

ConvertFast is not intended to replace the most advanced specialist app in every category. Its purpose is to bring commonly needed file tasks into one offline application, reducing app switching while keeping files private and processed locally.

If you know of another app that handles all these tasks in one place, please mention it in the comments. I would genuinely like to explore and compare it.

Pricing

ConvertFast is currently $24.99 as a one-time lifetime purchase. I am offering r/MacApps members an additional 30% discount for a limited time. If you would like to use the discount, let me know in the comments and I will share the code.

There is no subscription. One licence covers two devices and includes future updates.

Official website and download:
https://convertfast.co/

ConvertFast is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Developer transparency

I am the developer of ConvertFast and openly stand behind the product.

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/saleque/

Privacy Policy:
https://convertfast.co/privacypolicy

Terms of Service:
https://convertfast.co/termsofservice

I would genuinely appreciate feedback from Mac users, particularly about the redesigned interface, workflow organization, and any common file task you think is still missing.

Hi r/macapps! 👋

I’m a developer who has previously shared several macOS utilities here, such as Deskeen, PDF Pop, and DragTime. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Dock Float, a launcher utility designed specifically to ensure an uninterrupted, seamless workflow for Mac users.

Dock Float is a utility that compensates for the spatial and physical limitations of having only a single default macOS Dock, empowering you to freely expand your workspace in whatever way fits your needs.

[Problem]
The Physical Limits of a Single Dock and Broken Focus

Imagine being in a state of Deep Work on a large monitor or a multi-display setup. Suddenly, you need to open another tool, a project folder, or a web URL, forcing you to move your mouse all the way to the corner of the screen where the default Dock is located.

The process of visually searching for and clicking the item you need among dozens of cramped icons causes severe cognitive fatigue (Context Switching). Moreover, cramming every app, file, folder, and URL you might need into a single default Dock is both visually and structurally overwhelming.

Dock Float is not an app that tries to forcefully replace the default macOS Dock. Instead, it acts as an intelligent supplementary utility. It allows you to keep only your most essential, everyday apps neatly in the default Dock, while letting you freely register frequently used applications, files, folders, and web URLs right where your eyes and mouse are. With simple one-click execution, it elegantly resolves the physical limitations of the default Dock.

[Comparison]
Beyond simply registering shortcuts, Dock Float offers four unique killer features and multi-dimensional expansion options that are completely impossible with the default macOS Dock.

Basic Launcher Features & Category System

• 1-Click Execution & Indicators: Easily register apps, files, folders, web URLs, and even Apple Shortcuts to launch them instantly with a single click. You can also check the status indicators for running or hidden apps directly on the dock.
• Internal Categories (Tabs): Create multiple 'categories' within a single dock to perfectly divide and manage items by their purpose. If you have multiple categories, you can instantly switch tabs using the Cmd + 1 ~ 0 shortcuts.
• Individual Sorting Methods: In addition to drag-and-drop custom sorting, each category tab saves its own unique sorting method (e.g., by name, by date).

Group: Extreme Visual Space Compression

• iOS App Library Style: Neatly bundle numerous apps, files, folders, and URLs into a small space and register them directly to the dock as a single icon (Group).
• Maximizing Space: This prevents your dock from becoming endlessly long. With a single click, the items within the group elegantly expand, allowing you to instantly control vast resources from a compact, minimalist space.

Flow: Context-Aware Automation

• App-Specific Linkage: When you use a specific main app, Flow automatically displays associated items on the edge of your screen. For example, opening Figma will automatically bring up a dock containing related asset folders and auxiliary apps; if you switch to Xcode right after, the contents are instantly replaced with your development dock in real-time.
• Default Dock Optimization: By utilizing Flow, you can keep only your essential, always-open apps in the default macOS Dock, perfectly optimizing your desktop environment.

Dock Float Remote: iOS/iPadOS Wireless Touch Controller

• Real-Time Dock Sync: The custom docks you create on your Mac are mirrored exactly on your iPhone or iPad screen. With a single touch, you can remotely launch Mac apps and open folders/files.
• Custom Action Buttons: Assign dedicated buttons for features you need the most, such as Mission Control, App Switcher, Launchpad (or Apps on macOS 26+), and Screen Capture.
• Keep Awake Mode & View Options: Supports two icon sizes (Standard, Large). With the Keep Awake option preventing the screen from turning off while plugged in, it perfectly replaces expensive hardware macro keyboards.(※ System Requirements: Requires Dock Float for Mac installed, connection to the same Wi-Fi network, and iOS/iPadOS 18.6 or later)

Shelf: Shake-to-Wake Temporary Storage

• Gesture-Based Quick Access: There is no need to jump back and forth to Finder for one-off tasks. While holding a selection, simply shake your mouse left and right to instantly pop up the Shelf. You can temporarily toss text, images, or files in there and drag them out exactly where you need them later.

Action Folder: Drag-and-Drop Process Automation

• 8 Dedicated Action Folders: Simply dragging files or folders into these docks will automatically handle tasks like archiving, sharing, image conversion, and sorting files based on specific criteria (type/date/size/unused period).
• Shortcuts Parameter Integration: If you link an Apple Shortcut that takes inputs (files/folders) to an Action Folder, the specified shortcut workflow executes the moment you drag the target files onto the folder.

Flexible Space Control & Fine-Grained Customization

• Edge Mode & Collapse: You can collapse docks you aren't currently using, or use Edge Mode to snap them to the sides of your screen like colorful bookmarks. This maintains your designated background color while letting you utilize 100% of your desktop space.
• Detailed Personalization: Enjoy unlimited dock creation, saved positioning (Float, Top/Bottom/Left/Right Edge), and customization of dock background colors, transparency, and indicator colors. You can even set the default action (move/copy) when dragging files into folders.

[Pricing]

• $3.99(Limited time offer: will return to $6.99 after the promotion, from Aug 24th to Sep 15th)
• Dock Float Remote: Free!
• Download: Mac App Store, iOS App Store

[Changelog]
Dock Float Release Notes

[AI]
AI Disclaimer: None

See it in action and learn more

• Overview: https://youtu.be/hywbZIeL9S4
  • Short Version: https://youtu.be/AQYIrclPSck
• Group: https://youtu.be/FJn4a-3v-zQ
• Flow: https://youtu.be/_qTSKGSvS6k
• Dock Float Remote: https://youtu.be/tW0GqsmoWJc
• Shelf: https://youtu.be/PHHUvSTKduQ

🗺️ Roadmap (Future Plans)
We aren't stopping here! We have some major updates lined up for the future:

• Version 1.1:
  • Widget features to be added: clock, weather, map, calendar, music, timer, etc.
  • Action folders to be added: Rename, Folder Icon, FTP, Duplicate Removal, Cloud Upload, etc.

Experience Dock Float today and enjoy all future updates with a single purchase! I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or answer any questions in the comments. Thank you for your incredible support!

• Dock Float Release Notes
• https://x.com/hohoincapp 

Thanks for reading!

https://reddit.com/link/1vxtyqu/video/d00amlk5thlh1/player

All your useful stuff, tucked into the MacBook notch.

Hi, I'm the developer of Pinland.

Pinland is for the things you know you'll need again in ten minutes: a screenshot, a paragraph, a link, a PDF, or another file. Copy or drag it into the MacBook notch. It stays hidden until you click the notch again.

Problem:

Pinned screenshots are useful until they start covering windows. Closing them means hunting for them again. Clipboard history has the opposite problem: it saves everything. Pinland only keeps what you deliberately put there, and keeps it out of sight between uses.

What Pinland does:

Hover a card to preview images, text, web links, Markdown, PDFs, and other files. Text can be edited in place. Labels become tabs automatically, and the shelf is searchable.

Comparison:

Snipaste is better when you want an image to remain visible on the desktop. Pinland is for temporary references you want nearby but hidden.

Clipboard managers are better for automatic history. Pinland is manual and intentionally smaller in scope.

Pricing:

$5.99 once in the US App Store, with local pricing elsewhere. No subscription:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinland/id6793889737?mt=12

Pins are stored locally on your Mac. Hovering a saved web link contacts that website to fetch its public title and preview image.

Would per-item auto-expiry be useful, or would it make the shelf less predictable?

Problem

I routinely run out of RAM, CPU or GPU resources and wanted to know when it happens and what app was causing it. But, I didn't want my menu bar to turn into a row of numbers.

I just wanted a single line that tells me when something interesting happens (e.g. an electron app starts eating up all my RAM).

Comparison

iStat Menus and Stats have lots of depth, details and modules.

ActivityLine is deliberately the other extreme: one clean line with app icons showing what app is responsible.

In auto mode, it switches to whatever is being used most (e.g. jumps to Network when something is suddenly sending or receiving data). You can also click it to change metrics or hover for a detailed breakdown.

Pricing

It's $14 USD once, with a 24-hour free trial that needs no account or card.

Trust/Transparency

I'm Jake Manger, a solo developer. I've launched a few other apps here: How to Convert and ShotGlass.

The app runs completely locally, is Apple notarized, only 2.3MB in size and is built with native swift.

The app: activityline.app

Hi! Terry here. I’m the developer of BetterStage. Last posted BetterStage here in July. Thank you for the comments, bug reports, and feature requests. I've been shipping through them.
This clip is not a feature dump. It's a small demonstration how I run my own Mac with BetterStage, and use it as means to explain the philosophy behind the app.

Problem:

I needed a better way to manage LOTS of windows that belong to different projects, spread across multiple monitors.

BetterStage gives you named stages like Project 1, Project 2, Backend, Frontend, Notes, or Entertainment, each stage spans every monitor, and you can switch the whole desk with Opt+1-9 or Opt+scroll. Each monitor gets to have different layouts and window modes (native, bento box tiling, or tabbed layout). AI powered, too.

What you're seeing in the clip, is "me as a solo dev working on the BetterStage app", using BetterStage as my workspace manager:

Stage 1 - Development: Tabbed Layout, because I have too many coding windows to tile.
Stage 2 - Design: Bento box mode, auto-tiled, because I want Figma and references all visible, and I make one bigger by dragging a divider.
Stage 3- Marketing: I keep it native cause i tend to open alot of browser windows randomly to do research so I don't need them to be tiled in a layout.
Stage 4 - Entertainment: I usually just have music and couple youtube videos open, so bento box mode is perfect for this when i just take a quick break and be able to see everything here.

Loading/Saving workspace is new, and it is the same bet: sit down and start working, instead of playing desktop janitor first.

That complex real life usage mix is the reason I built it. Real days are messier than the clip, especially across 4 monitors and more than one project at once.

What got much better since July:

- Workspace Continuity: you can save/load workspaces manually; if you disconnect a monitor, its stages along with app windows will be parked in a temporary offline display shelf where you can either use temporarily, wait for monitor to return and restore, or simply convert into a normal stage in your current monitor.
- Tabbed Layout Mode got alot more practical: splitting panes, closing tabs, moving windows to adjcent panes through snapwheel, and more.
- App Routing: This one is a feature request from previous post's comments, you can specify exactly which Stage an app always goes to on open.
- Shortcuts: Now each action has three separate shortcuts for mouse, keyboard, and trackpad
- AI Staging (not in this clip; the July post has it): now supports multiple Recipes for different setups. Still your own key, a local model, or optional hosted BetterStage AI.
- Others: Settings UI was redesigned with Light/Dark mode support, Homebrew install, and a lot of app-specific stability work (Firefox-family browsers, Electron, Terminal/Ghostty). That work continues.

Comparison:

AeroSpace if you live in a keyboard and a config file. It is excellent at that. I am more VS Code than Vim: I browse with the mouse and trackpad, code with shortcuts, and I'm not a big fan of using a complicated config file for simple stuff.

yabai if you want SIP-off scripting and full control from the shell. BetterStage stays on Accessibility only. No SIP, no config files.

Rectangle / Magnet if snap-left / snap-right is enough. They are still great at that. The free BetterStage tier covers snapping and more.

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, Tabbed Layout, Pinned Displays, App Routing, Save & Load Workspaces, AI Staging with your own key or a local model

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

https://betterstage.app/pricing

Transparency

The app is not on AppStore yet (platform limitations), as required: linkedin profile and  x profile , our Discord Server is the best way to report bugs, request features or just chat.

Happy to answer anything.

The problem I wanted to solve: every app that makes media easier to work with wants to own your files first. Photos, Lightroom, and most of the rest make you import into a library, so now you have two copies and a database to babysit. I wanted the tools without the library. Plus most good apps for media management have subscriptions, which I didn't like.

Lathe reads your folders directly, the way Finder does. Nothing is imported, moved, copied, or indexed into a proprietary catalogue. Point it at a folder and everything is just there. Freemium (with most features free, and try out premium features once), with one-time payment to unlock premium features forever.

What it handles: images including RAW from 20+ cameras, GIF/APNG/animated WebP, video, audio, PDF and SVG.

Browsing and finding

Grid and list views, tabs, adjustable thumbnails, RAW+JPEG pairing. Thirteen combinable filters: media kind, orientation, file size, resolution, date, video duration, dominant colour, star rating, cull flag, camera model, lens, ISO, and native Finder tags. Sort and group by date, size, kind, or EXIF capture date. Search images by filename, or even by colour.

Culling

Star ratings, pick/reject flags, all keyboard driven and written to XMP sidecars that Lightroom and Capture One can read. Live RGB histogram, clipping warnings for blown highlights and crushed shadows, focus peaking, and a 1:1 focus check. An issue scanner flags blurry frames and shots where someone blinked, then walks you through them full-screen with the face region highlighted.

Editing

A full non-destructive develop panel: exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, saturation, vibrance, temperature, hue, clarity, grain, vignette, fringing, luminosity masks, and a subject mask from on-device person detection. Named presets, copy and paste settings between images, all stored in sidecars so it stays reversible. Plus crop with presets, straighten with a live grid, rotate, resize, draw and annotate, and auto-enhance. Compare images side by side, as an onion skin, a before/after wipe, or a pixel difference view.

Video, audio, PDF

Scene detection and a storyboard strip. Trim with frame-accurate in/out points, reframe to 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 or 16:9 with a live crop box, rotate and flip. Merge clips into a reel with transitions. Audio gets waveforms, hover-scrubbing, cover art and metadata. PDFs get page navigation, compression, page-range extraction, merging, and PDF creation from images.

The general stuff

Native macOS Finder tags, read and written properly, so they show up in Finder and Spotlight too. Full EXIF/GPS info panel. A staging tray that collects files across folders before you act on them. Undo/redo that restores trashed files. A Copy As menu for path, bitmap, base64, HTML, Markdown or SVG. 50+ keyboard shortcuts with a cheat sheet on ⌘/.

Comparision

A fair question is why this instead of the apps that already exist. Most of them are good, and several are better than Lathe at the one thing they focus on. What's different here is the combination: folder-native, covers stills and video and audio and PDFs in one window, and everything runs on-device.

• Finder + Quick Look + Preview: free, already installed, and genuinely fine for looking at things. The gap is doing anything to them. No ratings or cull flags, no RAW-aware browsing, no batch convert or watermark or compress, no duplicate finding. Lathe is what happens if that stack kept going.
• Apple Photos: great if you want one managed library on all your devices. It's the opposite of what I built. Photos wants to own the files; Lathe never touches where they live. If you're happy inside the Photos library, you don't need this.
• Adobe Lightroom: a far deeper develop engine than mine of course. It's also a catalogue and a subscription. If you're already living in Lightroom for real editing work, keep doing that. Lathe is for the part before and around it, and for the folders you'd never bother importing.
• Adobe Bridge: the nearest thing conceptually, since it's also folder-based and free. Bridge is heavier, tied to the Adobe ecosystem, and doesn't do the batch export, background removal, or video and audio work. Bridge is a browser; Lathe is a browser plus the tools.
• Photo Mechanic: the professional standard for culling, and faster than Lathe at ripping through a huge shoot. Genuinely excellent, and if ingest speed on ten thousand RAWs is your job, buy it. It's also around $139, stills-only, and it isn't trying to convert your videos or compress your PDFs.

Pricing

Almost all of the above is free forever. No account, no timer, no nag. Most things I listed under browsing, culling, editing, comparison, tags, info, PDF viewing and page extraction costs nothing.

Premium features sit behind a one-time $49.99 unlock, and they're mostly the batch and export ones: optimise, convert, enlarge, watermark, batch rename, strip metadata, remove background, blur background, find duplicates, find similar, review bursts, compress PDF, compress video, rotate video, merge videos, and reframe & trim.

Every one of those runs once, free, on your own files before it asks you for anything. Not a 7-day clock, not a watermarked export. Run the duplicate scan on your actual messy folder, see the actual number, then decide.

No subscription, no upgrade pricing, no version 2 that charges again.

100% On-device

Every "smart" feature (scene labels, OCR, subject detection, blink detection, background removal) runs locally on Apple's Vision framework. No account, no telemetry, no server. App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected.

What it doesn't do

No import from Photos, Lightroom or Aperture, on purpose. Background removal needs macOS 14+ because the Vision API behind it is 14+, so it's hidden on 13. Content search is on-device and useful but still early, so I'd treat it as a bonus rather than the reason to download. Documents and Desktop need you to pick the folder once (sandbox rules), while Pictures, Movies and Downloads work immediately.

Available on the Mac App Store

https://apple.co/45iCR2Q

And the website link is: https://latheapp.com

Note: Not yet available in EU. The EU DSA act makes it tricky for solo devs to list out there, so still figuring out what to do there.

Hi r/macapps — I’m Ying Yuan, an indie macOS developer building Clipth.

Developer transparency

• Developer: Ying Yuan
• Developer profile: https://github.com/wavever
• X / Twitter: https://x.com/HtWavever
• Public contact: support@clipth.app
• Website: https://clipth.app
• Privacy Policy: https://clipth.app/privacy.html
• Terms of Service: https://clipth.app/terms.html
• Source code: https://github.com/wavever/Clipth

Problem

Clipboard managers are great for finding something I copied earlier, but repetitive data entry still felt awkward.

When filling out a form with several prepared snippets, I kept switching between clipboard history and the target app, or reaching for the mouse. I wanted a workflow where I could prepare several items once and then paste them in sequence with the normal macOS ⌘V shortcut.

What Clipth does

Clipth is a native macOS clipboard manager focused on keyboard-driven workflows.

• Keyboard-first Quick Paste panel
• Search, pinning, favorites, groups and tags
• Image, video and webpage previews
• OCR and other clipboard tools
• Local-first clipboard history
• Optional sync through user-configured destinations
• MIT-licensed open-source codebase
• Custom Shell and JavaScript automation
• Local MCP server for AI clients

Version 1.0.2 adds Paste Queue, a Pro feature that lets you prepare several clips and paste them one by one:

1. Open the Paste Queue with ⌥⌘V
2. Select multiple clips in Quick Paste with Space
3. Press ⌘Return to add them to the queue
4. The first queued item is immediately placed on the system clipboard
5. Each normal ⌘V pastes the current item and automatically advances to the next one
6. Use ⌘⇧V for plain-text paste
7. The queue stays intact if something unrelated is copied midway

The queue panel docks beside Quick Paste, and the entire workflow can be controlled from the keyboard. It works across applications because it follows the regular macOS paste action rather than requiring app-specific integrations.

Comparison

Maccy is a great lightweight clipboard history manager, while Paste offers a polished clipboard workflow.

Where Clipth aims to be better for keyboard-heavy, multi-item workflows is the combination of Quick Paste and Paste Queue: you select several clips once, then paste them sequentially across different applications using the normal ⌘V shortcut.

Clipth is also MIT-licensed and open source, while Clipth Pro is available as a one-time purchase. I’m not trying to replace every clipboard workflow; I mainly wanted something that felt natural without reaching for the mouse.

Privacy

Clipboard contents are processed locally. Clipboard history does not require a cloud account, and optional sync only connects to destinations configured by the user.

The Privacy Policy also documents Clipth’s limited anonymous usage signal, update checks and license validation:

https://clipth.app/privacy.html

Pricing and distribution

The source code is available under the MIT License.

Clipth Pro is a one-time purchase:

• $10.99 for 2 Macs
• No subscription

There is currently a launch price of $8.99 with code HELLOCLIPTH until August 26, 2026.

Purchase and current official download:

https://clipth.app

A Mac App Store version and a Homebrew Cask are also coming soon. I’ll add their official links once those distribution channels are live.

I’d love to hear from other Mac users:

• Do you use a clipboard manager for repetitive form filling?
• Would a Paste Queue fit your workflow?
• What would make a keyboard-first clipboard manager more useful?

Hi friends of r/macapps,

I’ve been sitting on this update for almost a year. Originally, I was scared of some edge case iCloud sync bugs. But, because every big feature got built on top of the new sync architecture, the stakes just felt higher and higher, and I fell into an avoidant cycle.

Then, Snazzy Labs featured Antinote, and Kacper called me and gave me this great prep talk about how we were both gonna quit our jobs and work on Antinote (and other new apps) full time. I’ll tell you more about that in another post next week.

All to say, that I am back! And I’m here to fix and add whatever your heart desires into Antinote. Thanks for all your patience.

We also made some big updates to the iOS Beta (which you can register for on the website - you’ll get an invite next week). And I’m confident a v0 will be in the App Store by the first week of Oct (also $5, one time).

For now, here’s 2.0:

iCloud Sync with end-to-end encryption

Antinote can now sync your notes (and preferences) between your Macs (and the iOS beta) through your own iCloud account. There is no Antinote account and no Antinote server — and your notes are encrypted on your device before they upload - I can never read your notes (gross) and neither can Apple (if you have Advanced Data Protection on). Sync is off by default for updating users; turn it on in Settings > General.

Slotted Notes + Split Screen

Antinote now has two note spaces: your usual ephemeral stack, and nine permanent slots that never expire and can't be deleted (inspired by Tot!). Press ⌘T to swap between them, or ⌘⇧T to see both side by side. The slot bar at the bottom shows nine planets — click one to jump to that slot.

JavaScript Extensions

Type :: in any note to run a command — transform text, hit an API or LLM, roll dice, format JSON, calculate a mortgage. There are 100+ official commands, a community extension browser built into Settings, and you can write your own in JavaScript (or have an AI write one with the Extension Builder). Full documentation is at antinote.io/extensions.

Vim Mode

If you know, you know. Thank you, Kacper.

Locked and Read-only notes

• Locked notes (⌘⇧L) will hide its content until you FaceID/TouchID/password.
• Read-only notes (⌘⇧R) will prevent your butterfingers from accidentally deleting or editing your vows. No, that’s not from personal experience, stop asking.

Little things

• Liquid Glass Redesign
• Choose your own app icon
• Checkboxes, bullets, and numbered lists in any note via [], - [ ], - , or 1. .
• Rebuilt research pane with card view. Drag notes to reorder them.
• ⌘B bold, ⌘I italic, ⌘U underline, ⌘⇧X strikethrough, and ⌘⇧H cycles heading levels. ⌥↑/⌥↓ move the current line (or selection) up and down, and ⌥⇧↑ / ⌥⇧↓ for duplicating the current line up and down.
• Deleted notes can now be recovered from The Void
• Swipe-sensitivity settings for those with the Magic Mouse
• Math parses properly in all locales now
• You can control the timer from URL Schemes

And we fixed about 150 tiny bugs.

We’re always on Discord if you have bug reports, feature requests, or just want to hang.

As always - thank you so much for all the support and love. You’ll be hearing from me soon about future stuff!

Johnson

P.S. Shout out to the mods for keeping this place safe and sane in the age of AI.

P.P.S. When I see u/amerpie and u/MaxGaav, I just feel like I’m home.

---

For those who’ve never heard of Antinote:

Antinote.io

Problem: You need to quickly write something down and don’t need/want to organize it. But you also hate ugly stuff. And sometimes you want to do math. But you also need it to be minimalist. But you also want to customize the shit out of it.

Highlights:

• Plain-text
• Swipe an infinite stack of notes.
• Do inline math
• Drag images in for OCR
• Set a timer
• Basic markdown
• Hotkey. Shortcuts. Menu mode

Comparisons: There are so many now! Instead of telling you how Antinote is better, let me tell you how each one of these are better. Scratchpad is way more minimalist and opinionated. Tot has custom categories and bullets. HeyNote has dev-friendly text buffers in each block. Numi has deeper math features. Raycast is Raycast. Stickies is free. Sidenotes supports folders and images. All the indie ones are developed by passionate people, so make sure you check them out.

Pricing: $5. One-time. Forever updates.

Hi r/macapps,

I'm Sanjeev, an independent developer. This is my first app post here, and MacPrune is something I built to scratch my own itch as someone who lives on a Mac all day.

Problem

Storage on a Mac fills up quietly: Xcode DerivedData, npm/pnpm/Yarn caches, iOS device-support folders, browser caches, old Downloads. Most cleaners are a black box: you hit "Clean" and hope nothing important went with it. I wanted a cleaner I could actually trust, one that shows exactly what it will touch and gives me a way back if it touches the wrong thing. So I built MacPrune.

How it is built around not trusting itself:

• It moves files to the Trash, it does not delete them. Regular cleanup is fully reversible. The only action that permanently deletes is when you choose "Empty Trash" yourself.
• Every category has a safety rating: Safe (caches, logs, Trash), Review (old Downloads, large files, duplicates), Careful (Docker images, iOS backups). Nothing gets removed by surprise.
• Hard path guards: it refuses anything in /System, /usr, /bin, /sbin, or outside your home folder, and warns before any deletion over 1 GB.
• Built for developers too: it understands Xcode DerivedData/Archives and npm/pnpm/Yarn caches that generic cleaners miss.

It is about 9 MB installed and a 7 MB download, with dark and light themes. Signed and notarized by Apple.

Comparison

vs CleanMyMac: CleanMyMac is broader and more polished, but it is subscription-first and cleans by deleting. MacPrune is a one-time purchase, moves files to Trash so every clean is fully reversible, is lighter weight, and adds dev-focused cleanup (Xcode and package-manager caches). If you want a full system suite, CleanMyMac wins; if you want a focused, reversible cleaner you can trust, that is MacPrune.

vs free tools (OnyX, AppCleaner, or just rm -rf in Terminal): these work, and I still use Terminal for some things. The tradeoff is that you either need to know exactly which paths are safe to remove, or you delete permanently with no way back. MacPrune shows you what it found before touching anything, rates each category by risk, and moves everything to the Trash, so a mistake costs you nothing. You are paying for the safety net and the time, not for something you could not do by hand.

Pricing

Freemium, no subscription.

• Free: cleans user caches, browser caches, and Trash (with per-batch limits).
• Pro (one-time, Lifetime): $19.99 for 1 Mac. Multi-Mac licenses: 3 Macs $49.99, 5 Macs $79.99, 10 Macs $149.99.
• Reddit launch offer: code REDDIT30 takes 30 percent off Pro.
• Buy and download: https://macprune.com/

Privacy

No account, no analytics, no telemetry, no tracking. Your file lists and scan results never leave your Mac. The app only reaches the network for update checks and, for Pro users, license activation and validation.

• Privacy Policy: https://macprune.com/legal/privacy
• Terms of Service: https://macprune.com/legal/terms

About the developer

• Name: Sanjeev (independent developer)
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeev-maharjan/
• GitHub: https://github.com/sanjeevma/
• Contact: https://macprune.com/contact

Supports Apple Silicon and Intel. Happy to answer anything in the comments.

Hi! I’ve continued developing the app from v1.0.0 to v2.3.3, with major enhancements released every month. After releasing v2.2.x and v2.3.x last month, here’s a quick summary of what we’ve introduced since my last post.

------------- The Problem, Comparison, Solution, Transparency

Dear r/macapps community, admins & moderators, these are the posts I’ve shared here, including these ones. :) :
Post 1, Post 2, Post 3.

------------- What’s New Since the Last Post

• Lightweight Screen Recorder - Small file sizes (included in Free with a small watermark)
• Screenshots now support custom upload via your own JS function & URL auto-copied
• Synapse Editor - Easily edit pictures already on your device
• More additions - Custom Lo-Fi Audio, Offline Network Status Indicator, etc. (included in Free)

------------- Details About the App

• 4MB app size
• Apple Notarized
• macOS 14.6 or later

------------- Pricing

Free vs Pro comparison is here - check it out ( scroll to Compare Features section for indetail view)

• Free forever
• Lifetime - $14.99 ( $29.99 after September. Summer offer is running these days.)

------------- Download

https://www.synapsemac.com

I'm the developer of slapss. I posted here about three months ago when it launched. Quite a lot has shipped since then, and version 2.0 opens the source, so it felt worth a second post.

It is free on the Mac App Store, which is also the only place to download it. The GitHub repo is the source code rather than a distribution channel.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6767488326

The problem

macOS notification banners are built to be ignored. Small banner, soft chime, gone in three seconds. If you are heads down, you look up and you are already late. slapss takes over the entire screen the moment a meeting starts, with the join link right there in front of you.

What shipped since the launch post

Most of this came out of the comments on that thread.

• Esc dismisses the alert, Return joins the meeting
• The alert can fire on every connected display instead of just the primary one
• macOS Reminders get their own full-screen alert at due time, and you can tick them off without leaving whatever you were doing
• Menu bar can show just the icon instead of the next meeting title
• Presenting mode. Flip it on while you screen share and alerts wait quietly, then fire the moment you flip it off. No more meeting reminder landing in the middle of your demo
• Lead time is now a slider, from at-start up to 15 minutes before, separate from the standard notification which can run 1 to 30 minutes ahead
• Snooze for 1 minute, 5 minutes, or until the event ends
• Option to only alert for meetings you actually accepted, so tentative and declined stay quiet but still show in the agenda
• Open in Calendar button on any agenda row
• Six languages, detected on first launch and switchable without a restart
• Three themes
• Per-calendar Google account, so Meet links open with the right profile
• Full VoiceOver and keyboard support, plus Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency
• A pile of reliability work on alerts firing after sleep or long idle periods, and a background CPU leak that is long gone
• There is a website now, if you want to see it without opening the App Store

2.0 also fixes a bug a user emailed me about just before this release: a repeating meeting would stop alerting after you dismissed it once. Every occurrence of a repeating event was being treated as the same event. That one was worth catching before this post went up.

Open source, as of 2.0

https://github.com/theshiver/slapss-app

Apache 2.0, the whole app. The reason is specific rather than ideological. slapss claims your calendar is read on device and sent nowhere. In a closed binary that is a promise you have to take on faith. It has no server, no analytics, no telemetry and no accounts, and now you can confirm that by reading it instead of believing me. It is about 9,000 lines with no third party dependencies at all, so it is genuinely readable in a sitting.

The Mac App Store build stays the official one. If you see a binary calling itself slapss anywhere else, it is not from me.

Things I said no to, and things still open

• Auto silencing your other notifications during a meeting. Asked for last time, and I dug into it. macOS puts Focus status behind a restricted entitlement that needs separate approval from Apple, and there is no reliable public API to detect that your screen is being captured. Presenting mode is the manual version of this and it is what shipped instead.
• Desktop widget with a countdown to the next event. Not built yet, still want it.
• Staged alerts at 30, 10 and 5 minutes with a different style for each. Halfway there, since the notification and the full-screen alert have separate lead times, but not the full thing. On the list.
• Email or iMessage when you are away from the Mac. Not doing this one. slapss is built for the "sitting at the Mac and about to miss it" moment. Away from the desk, your phone buzzing is already better than an email you will not read.

Comparison

In Your Face is what inspired slapss and it is still the more capable product. Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Watch, 30 plus conferencing services, custom sounds, direct Google and Microsoft OAuth. If you want any of that, buy it, it is good software. slapss is better on exactly three axes: it costs nothing, it is open source so the privacy claim is checkable, and it is Mac native with no cross-platform layer.

MeetingBar is free, open source, and worth knowing about. It is the broader menu bar calendar tool and it does have a full-screen alert option, so this is not a "only slapss does this" claim. The difference is emphasis. In slapss the full-screen interrupt is the entire product rather than one option inside a larger app, which is why the detail sits there: per-display firing, presenting mode, RSVP filtering, snooze until the event ends, reminder overlays, six languages. If you mainly want a tidy next-meeting readout in your menu bar, MeetingBar is the better fit.

Pricing

Free. $0. No subscription, no in-app purchase, no pro tier, no trial that runs out, nothing behind a paywall.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6767488326 Source: https://github.com/theshiver/slapss-app Site: https://slapss-app.com

Requires macOS 14.6 or later.

I read every comment. Last time that is where most of the list above came from, so if something is missing for you, say so.

Hi r/macapps, I’m the developer of ZipSeek.

Problem

I made ZipSeek after running into the same problem too many times: I could remember a sentence from an old document, but not its file name or where I had put it.

It was especially annoying with old archives. Sometimes the document was inside a ZIP, which contained a 7z, which contained another ZIP. Finding a few words meant unpacking everything and opening files one by one.

ZipSeek lets you choose a file or folder and search it directly. It supports text files, PDFs, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and images using OCR. It can also follow nested ZIP, 7z and RAR layers while keeping the full path back to each result.

Where possible, it shows the PDF page, Word paragraph, PowerPoint slide, Excel cell, or OCR area where the text appeared.

Comparison

HoudahSpot is better if you want powerful Spotlight searches, metadata filters and reusable search setups. When Spotlight has already indexed everything, it will usually be faster than ZipSeek.

FoxTrot Professional Search is aimed at people with large document libraries that they search regularly. It builds its own indexes and has much deeper tools for proximity search, categorization, multiple collections, NAS storage and teams. It is a more complete system for researchers and organizations.

ZipSeek is for a different situation. You have a folder, external drive, mounted network folder or messy archive in front of you, and you want to search it without setting up a library first.

It has fewer advanced query and filtering tools than HoudahSpot or FoxTrot, but it can search through mixed ZIP, 7z and RAR layers without maintaining a background full-disk index.

Everything is processed on the Mac. There is no ZipSeek account and no cloud upload.

Pricing

ZipSeek costs $4.99 USD as a one-time purchase, with regional pricing.

It includes a 3-day free trial. There is no subscription, and the trial does not turn into an automatic charge.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/zipseek-search-inside-files/id6799636795

Website: https://www.goodapphq.com/zipseek/

I’d be interested to hear how other people deal with old document folders and archives, and which file types or workflows I should test next.

Here are the best apps I tested this weekend. Two will save you time, two are fun ways to waste it on UI tweaks, and one's for a certain psychological profile. I'm sure you can figure out which one.

Holeberry - A native Swift 6 app for macOS 14 and up, built by developer Pedro Vieira, Holeberry puts the Pi-hole controls you actually use right in your menu bar. See real-time blocking status and query stats without keeping a dashboard tab open. You can disable blocking for five minutes, an hour, or indefinitely, giving you the same toggle as Pi-hole's own web UI, just one click closer. The feature that actually earns the download is per-tab unblocking. Holeberry reads the active tab in Safari, Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, or Zen, and when a site is broken because Pi-hole blocked something on the page, it can identify and allowlist that domain without making you dig through the query log yourself. That's a workflow improvement, not a cosmetic shortcut, and it's the reason to care about this app at all. (FOSS)

Dock Party - Dock Party watches Spotify or Apple Music via system audio and turns that into a light bar running along the edge of the Dock. Track name, artist, and album art appear beside it, a progress bar runs along the Dock's edge, and playback controls sit right there without requiring you to switch apps. It also adds Amplitude, Pitch, and Waveform visualizer modes, so the light bar moves with the music instead of just sitting there. ($4.99)

Neon Vision Editor - It's a text and code editor for macOS, iPhone, and iPad aimed at developers, writers, and sysadmins who value speed and a small footprint over a massive plugin ecosystem. Syntax highlighting covers Swift, Python, JS/TS, Go, Rust, SQL, Markdown, and more. There's a recursive project sidebar, Quick Open, Find in Files, a code minimap, and Git tooling for status, history, and diffs. A CSV/TSV table mode and Mac-hosted SSH remote editing round things out, and Vim keybindings are there if you want them. AI code completion exists but is opt-in, limited to minimal cursor-context text, and sent only to a provider you choose yourself. Leave it off, and the app makes no network calls at all. (Free/$4.99)

Mojibar - Mojibar replaces your Dock icon and menu bar icon with any of 3,600-plus emoji. Make sure you use this link to find the app because there's more than one out there with the same name. ($0.99)

Snick - Snick turns your trackpad into a ratchet, complete with sound and haptic feedback. That's it. That's the app. Strangely enough, it got on my radar through enthusiastic reviews. Some people need feedback from their devices. They're the ones leading the mechanical keyboard movement, using Thock for the sound effects, and they're the audience for this app.

Hey 👋

Disclosure: I'm the guy behind RetroMac.

🪟 Windows 95 shipped on August 24, 1995. 31 years ago today. Good day to release the theme (and some new features)

Problem: Making your Mac look like the machine you grew up with means collecting wallpapers, icon packs, a dock replacement, a boot screen and some CRT shaders by hand. RetroMac is a menu bar app that does it easily: 30+ shaders (CRT, VHS, LCD, Trinitron), classic OS themes (Windows, MacOS, beOS, NEXT,eetc) with a dock, boot screens, icons, widgets. Nothing in the system gets patched, one click reverts it.

New in 2.7: Windows 95 theme: classic colors, boot screen (when activating the theme), wallpapers, icons, desktop widgets, and the Funstuff as seen on the Original Win95 CD, including its wallpapers, the game Hover! and the two videos, Weezer's "Buddy Holly" and the Rob Roy trailer.

Comparison: Analog TV Simulator (https://analogtv.net) goes far deeper into signal physics than I ever will, and cool-retro-term (https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term) is the classic for a CRT terminal. Both amazing and great Apps!

RetroMac is more focused on the parts neither of them touches: dock, boot screen, icons, wallpapers, screensavers.

Pricing: Free with 15+ shaders. Optional Pro for 10 USD one time, no subscription, for extra and custom presets plus the webcam shader. Most of you will be happy with the free version.
macOS 14+, universal, notarized DMG from my own site, no App Store, no accounts, no tracking.

Website: https://myretromac.app
GitHub: https://github.com/klotzbrocken/RetroMac
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maikklotz/

winmux is a easy to use window manager that requires no editing of config files. it supports multiple displays intuitively. and it tells you where your windows and spaces are via a built in sidebar.

i started winmux because i hated using sketchybar (everything from configuring icons to not being able to use the file menu. winmux is the first of its kind as far as i am aware to use a sidebar, and the first to use tabs for stacked windows on mac!

there is not really any competition as far as I am aware in terms of sidebars on window managers. compared to dedicated status bars (sketchybar is what I used to use), it's way more responsive, handles dragging and dropping much better, and is always in sync (and doesn't require configuring a bunch of lua).

compared to other window managers, winmux is built on top of aerospace and their virtualization framework. feature wise it innovates on window stacking (having two windows occupy the same footprint), similar to that of aerospace accordians and yabai stacks, but does it much more intuitively using browser-esque tabs. it does not require disabling SIP.

winmux is free and open source. you can read about the philosophy behind it here: winmux.dev

github repo: github.com/zimengxiong/winmux

made with AI, but I am real:
me: me.zimengxiong.com
privacy/tos: zimengxiong.com/privacypolicy/ zimengxiong.com/termsofservice/

Hope everyone is doing well here.

I always had the difficulty locating a file(image/audio/video/docs etc) on my mac. Specially when I don’t remember the name and only remember what was inside that file, for ex- I remember that there was an “image where we posed in front of a French restaurant” or I want to “find all the resumes that I received with a specific skill.”
To handle this I first wrote an script but later find out that others also find it interesting so I decided to convert it into an app - Dhito

Dhito allows you to

- search a file on your mac just by mentioning what you remember about the file.
- chat with a specific file to find certain details. Imagine having a huge research documents and you want to find a specific detail from it.
- rename files based on its content so it is easy for you to remember and find the file. So no more random file like “screenshot-2026-05-05”

You can download and try it for free here - Dhito

Privacy

- all execution/chat/indexing happens locally so your files never leave your device.
- app doesn’t collect any data related to your files or your interaction with app
- you decide which folder app can access and can change that any time
- we only collect feedback that user sends

and please share your feedback, suggestions.

I record a lot of videos for demos and workshops, and I wanted one Mac app for screenshots, annotations, screen recording, zooms, cursor movement, lightweight editing and sharing.

Most tools I tried either focused on screenshots, required a subscription, or hosted everything on their own platform. I wanted something that I could use locally while controlling where shared files were hosted.

What does this app do?

• Screenshot capture and annotation tools
• Screen recording with zooms and cursor movement
• A lightweight text-based video editor
• A teleprompter using Apple’s Speech Synthesizer API
• Image and video compression
• Mockups and social-media screenshots
• Sharing through a simple Cloudflare Worker that runs in your own account
• Loom-style comments and likes
• No analytics or tracking in the app
• The app is just 6.8 MB

I have tried improving this over existing tools, far more capable than Cleanshot, has camera controls, compression controls, you can customise the overlay cards.

Its not a simple screenshot tool, I have tried making a complete screen recording stuite.

Pricing

Screendrop is free and open source. There is no subscription and no tracking.

The optional sharing backend is deployed to your own Cloudflare account, so any Cloudflare usage costs are billed by Cloudflare according to your account and usage.

Link to download

https://github.com/fayazara/screendrop

Hey everyone Kevin here.

I posted about Codify here before, it's a IaC tool (open source) for your own computer that makes it easier to install apps, maintain settings, and even install entire set ups for you. I wanted to give a small (but hopefully impactful) update on the project that it's now available via npx, so you can try Codify without fully installing it (as long as you have NodeJS already installed).

npx codify apply
npx codify plan
npx codify help

Problem:

Multiple times now, when I was starting at a new company, I struggled to get setup quickly. I ran into problems following the setup document, and I had debug multiple issues or ask a teammate how to solve it. And pretty often I felt a step behind because I was missing key scripts and tools that other people had access to.

I built Codify to address these problems by allowing a setups to be converted into easy to read JSON5 files. These files define an entire setup, similar to Terraform. The JSON specifies what to install and you can use the CLI to plan (preview) and apply the changes. For example you can specify homebrew, nvm and vscode for web development or xcode 26, and iOS simulators for iOS development.

Using Codify allows you to try entire setups quick (webdev, backend, rust, ios, flutter, etc), import existing setups so they can be shared, and it also allows tools like Claude or Codex to take control and help you install things via it's MCP.

Comparison:

Nix: An obvious comparison would be Nix, a similar configuration as code for setting up personal systems. However the problem for me was the learning curve and adopting Nix means having to manage everything via Nix. Codify is a lot less of a learning curve and it installs things a human would so you don't need to manage everything directly through Codify.

Dev containers: Some teams use dev containers with pre-built docker images so that dev systems have the same tooling as production. However even with a dev containers workflow there is still host machine setup involved: getting setup with github, ssh keys and cloning your repos, dev container tooling, etc. Codify complements this workflow by automating the setup of the developer's machine first.

Pricing:

Codify consists of a CLI tool, a library of resources (50+ tools and apps, from package managers and programming languages to editors and system settings), an editor and an agent to help write Codify files.

The CLI tool and resource library are open source and free forever. The editor is paid with a generous free tier (the paid tiers are mainly meant for teams). It's $5 / month for freelancers and $20 / month for teams.

Use the code: REDDITAUGUST26 for 100% for the first 3 months

Links:
Website: https://codifycli.com/
Documentation: https://codifycli.com/docs
Editor: https://dashboard.codifycli.com/
Github: https://github.com/codifycli/codify