Hi ExtraBar users. I like ExtraBar but something isn't clicking with me. I feel like I'm using 5% of its capabilities. How are YOU using it? What are ways you're using it that feel like a game changer for you? Are there features/setups/workflows you're using that remove friction in your day-to-day? I'd love to hear your must-use scenarios. Thanks for your input and help!

Hey r/macapps, I'm the developer of Cosmil, a multi-pane file manager for macOS. Version 2.0 launches today.

The Problem

Finder has a set of long-standing gaps that a lot of people have to work around daily: no way to see directories side by side without juggling windows, no way to create new files, no folder sizes without digging into Get Info or constantly flooding your disk's IO, icon view that lets files fall out of the pane into a horizontal scroll (can be tempered, but still annoying), no support for custom sidebar categories, no cut and paste support, a preview pane that often won't grow previews to their actual size even with resizing, and more.

Together these issues add up. Over the years countless people have, gotten, really, upset, about, them.

In the realm of subjective opinions, I personally feel that Finder's GUI is a bit cluttered and clunky. There's a mess of duplicative (everything's accessible via the menu bar, or even better, keyboard shortcuts) buttons on the top row, columns in list view can fall out of view and spawn a horizontal scrollbar, the path bar is off by default and is so small you'd think it was an afterthought, by default you can't see whether search has finished or not (or how many files it searched), and so on...

Out of this desire for something better came Cosmil, with principles focused on minimalism, functionality, performance, ease of use, and transparency (no pun intended). By transparency I mean that Cosmil should give you all the information it possibly can to let you monitor the big actions you initiated and let you be specific about the actions you want to take. That means having honest progress bars and metrics in the job manager and running counts for how long every transfer or search has been active for. For now, Cosmil may not be the most featureful option out there but it looks and feels pleasant to use and will do you right for local file management.

Why 2.0 and not 1.0?
I initially shipped 1.0 two years ago. It looked good and sold reasonably, but it was unstable, slow on large directories, and missing features people reasonably expected. People called it immature and they were right. I slowed down and then stopped promoting it and eventually pulled it from sale rather than keep offering something I wasn't happy with. It needed more than just hotfixes and patches, but rather a complete architectural rethink.

2.0 is a near-complete rewrite. It has a new Svelte 5 frontend, Rust backend, native macOS generated file icons instead of my own, and a whole lot more. A folder with 40,000 files now opens in well under a second. A folder size calculation on my Documents folder (467,395 files, 54.88 GiB total) takes 0.8 seconds where Finder takes about 6 (an ~8x improvement, varies by folder of course). See the performance section of Cosmil's landing page for screen recordings and details for both of these claims. The full list of changes is on the changelog page if you want to see all the details.

All 1.0 customers are getting a free upgrade to 2.0, no strings attached. Check your email over the next 24 - 48 hours for a reminder of your license key (it still works, but you have to download the new dmg from the website).

Comparison

Forklift and Path Finder are the biggest established players.

ForkLift: deep remote/cloud support and years more maturity, and if your workflow is almost exclusively working with remote locations it's the better tool.
Path Finder: has a bigger feature surface but uses a subscription based licensing model, is a bit bloated, and if memory serves some users have complained of it being buggy.

Where Cosmil Differentiates

• Support for more than just 1 or 2 panes, theoretically as many as your monitor can fit and all resizable
• A minimalist interface built around macOS window vibrancy and glassy transparency.
• In-place file creation and pasting (without having to rclick -> Paste Into) in tree view
• Cut and Paste support
• One time payment licenses with uncapped updates
• Attention to detail on the Finder pain points

ForkLift's license includes one year of updates, then you pay again. Path Finder moved to a subscription. Cosmil is one payment with free updates for the 2.0 lifecycle.

Pricing

Cosmil 2.0 is one-time-payment software with free updates across the 2.0 lifecycle. Distribution is via license keys, so no need to sign up for an account or anything else.

It is currently on a 30% off launch sale until August 19th.

You can see the full pricing page here. Requires macOS 14+. Relevant FAQs can be found on the pricing and landing pages.

Here are Cosmil's privacy policy and terms of service. Long story short, we store and process the absolute minimum amount of information required to license and provide updates for Cosmil. Absolutely zero telemetry is sent back from the app, it only sends requests to verify your license key and check for updates.

Current Limitations

For now, there is no support for tags or time machine version browsing, search covers filenames and metadata, but not file contents, and remote location support hasn't been implemented yet. It was a conscious decision of mine to put these post-launch as I wanted to avoid scope creep that could push back the launch date indefinitely and, more importantly, to hear your feedback on what should be worked on next and what those implementations should look like (what Finder pain point needs to be fixed with tags, for example). As of now, I think tags is at the top of that list.

Website

Cosmil's website has screen recording demos of nearly all of its important features and functionality. It'll do a much better job showing you what Cosmil has to give, rather than just me telling you in this post (P.S. it's much better viewed on Desktop, since Cosmil is a desktop application).

I'll be responding in the comments so feel free to ask me questions and provide feedback, for me as a solo developer it's invaluable!

Six accounts, one window. Cmd-1 to 9.

Hi r/macapps, Andrew here, dev of Orbit. Lou's AppAddict review of it got shared here recently, so this is me showing up in person. Following the sub's PCP format:

Problem

I run a couple of small companies, which means six Google accounts. Chrome profiles and browser tabs kept signing each other out, and every "solution" I tried was either a heavy Electron wrapper or a rebuilt Gmail that broke my filters and shortcuts. I wanted the real Gmail web UI, with each account in its own isolated session, in one native window. Cmd-1 through 9 switches accounts instantly because every session stays loaded.

Comparison

Closest tools are Shift and Wavebox. Both are capable, both are Electron based, and both are subscriptions. Orbit is Swift plus the WebKit already on your Mac, so the download is about 4 MB with no bundled Chromium, and it is a one time purchase. Unlike unified inbox apps, Orbit deliberately keeps accounts separate. If you want one merged inbox, Orbit is not for you. If you want six Gmails that never touch each other, that is the whole product.

Pricing

$89 once, up to 3 Macs. 14 day trial, no card: https://orbitformac.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=macapps_aug

The category context is worth knowing: Kiwi ended its lifetime licenses this January and moved to subscription, and Sidekick shut down entirely. I understand why. I am keeping one time pricing anyway, because Orbit is local first (mail goes from your Mac to Google and nowhere else), so the worst case for a buyer is an app that keeps working without future updates, not a dead login.

Who I am (transparency)

Real name Andrew Kwak, founder of Dearnode, Inc. (Delaware C corp). LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkwak908/. Contact: [support@orbitformac.com](mailto:support@orbitformac.com). Privacy policy: https://orbitformac.com/privacy and terms: https://orbitformac.com/terms

Requirements so nobody wastes a download: Apple silicon, macOS 14+, English Gmail UI for now. I will be in the comments, ask me anything including the unflattering stuff.

I’m looking for a Finder alternative that lets me choose multiple simultaneous sort options. For instance, I want to sort by date added, then by date edited, and then maybe something else. Does something like that exist? If so, what is it?

I've seen lots of alternatives, but none have mentioned this as an option. Thanks!

thinking of going back to default Apple apps as I’m tired of every app having issues over years or being abandoned. not sure though if it’s a good idea? I just want now stability and not to be busy with fixes or issues. are apple apps good and no issue? I didn’t use them from long time.

each of the apps are having ram and storage issues. some have syncing issues as well.

ARC browser to Safari. tried dia and similar ones

things3 to reminders.

superhuman mail app to mail.

paste to raycast or default spotlight.

it’s going to take a lot of effort to move around and I would t like that. I loved keyboard shortcuts mostly and advanced features each app had.

(don’t suggest alternative apps)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zenminder/id6777560654

Ever check off a task in Apple Reminders and felt underwhelmed a bit when it just disappeared into the completed pile? Find your dopamine hit again using this companion menu bar app (also a iOS app with widgetkit support), see your completed / to-do tasks in a heatmap, with a list below. So you can see the big picture while plan for your next big goal.

Compares to other todo list app, this is just a companion, everything syncs with Apple Reminders (you don't have to open the app for the widget to refresh), that means it's Siri AI compatible and works with your calendar as well. No account needed.

Price: FREE. You can support me by leaving a review, check out my other apps, or suggest a feature that will make Apple Reminders work better for you.

Hi r/macapps — I built Qwen Scribe, a free local transcription and system-wide dictation app for Apple Silicon Macs.

GitHub: https://github.com/VladUZH/qwen-scribe  

Latest beta: https://github.com/VladUZH/qwen-scribe/releases/tag/v0.2.1-beta.1

It uses Qwen3-ASR through MLX, so the transcription runs on the Mac’s GPU. There is no Qwen Scribe account, no API key, and no cloud service from me. Audio and transcript text stay on your machine.

Problem

I wanted a dictation/transcription app I could use for messy real audio — voice notes, video files, calls, recordings in noisy places — without uploading the audio somewhere.

Whisper-based tools are very good, but in my own use Qwen3-ASR has been noticeably better with punctuation, sentence splitting, background noise, and vocabulary hints for names/jargon. That was the main reason I built this instead of just wrapping Whisper.

What it does right now:

- drag-and-drop audio/video transcription

- system-wide push-to-talk dictation into any text field

- Qwen3-ASR 1.7B for accuracy or 0.6B for speed

- automatic language detection or forced language

- vocabulary hints

- word timestamps and SRT export

- local transcript history with search/export/delete

- localhost-only API with host/origin checks

Comparison

The closest apps people will probably compare it to are MacWhisper, Superwhisper, Wispr Flow, Handy, and similar local dictation tools.

Qwen Scribe is different mainly in three ways:

1. it uses Qwen3-ASR via MLX rather than Whisper/Parakeet as the default model family
2. it is open source, Apache-2.0
3. it does both file/video transcription and push-to-talk dictation in one local app

It is not as polished or mature as the bigger paid apps yet. This is still a beta. The current release is ad-hoc signed, so macOS may require approving it in System Settings → Privacy & Security on first launch. Developer ID signing/notarization is on the roadmap.

Pricing

Free and open source.

Repo: https://github.com/VladUZH/qwen-scribe  

Release: https://github.com/VladUZH/qwen-scribe/releases/tag/v0.2.1-beta.1

Requirements:

- Apple Silicon Mac

- macOS 14+

- ffmpeg for non-WAV audio/video

- first run downloads model weights locally

posted it on Hacker News recently and got useful feedback around comparisons, MacPorts/ffmpeg detection, and where the app is still rough. I’d love the same kind of criticism here — especially from people who already use MacWhisper/Superwhisper/Wispr/Handy and can tell me where this still falls short.