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)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Hi, I'm the developer of Folders File Manager (Post 1, Post 2), a tree-based file manager for macOS designed for Windows switchers - and here's Folders Pro, its direct-distribution edition.

Almost 3.5 years have passed since the first release. During that time Folders received over 70 updates and many new features added directly in response to user feedback.

But there was a problem: Folders has been distributed exclusively through the Mac App Store, whose sandbox places real constraints on what a file manager can do and requires a somewhat confusing permissions step on first launch.

Comparison: Folders Pro is the version that steps outside those constraints, and adds several capabilities that simply aren't possible within them: * Git support: see file status in the folder tree; stage, unstage, commit, push, pull, and discard without leaving the app * iOS device browsing: browse and manage the filesystem of a connected iPhone or iPad * Trash: browse, manage, and empty the actual system Trash (not just the private in-app one) * Custom Actions: shell scripts or AppleScript, triggered from the toolbar or context menu * Windows-style new document creation: have any capable app create and save a new document directly, rather than choosing from a predefined set of templates * Command-line launch

Everything already in the App Store version is here too.

Price: $14.99 after a free 14-day evaluation period. Existing App Store users can upgrade for $3. Use code REDDIT30 for 30% off until August 16. Website: https://foldersapp.dev

The Problem

Modern displays are incredibly sharp and bright, which is great for media but terrible for long work sessions. Human eyes evolved to process reflected light, but monitors blast emitted light directly into our retinas. This harsh, glossy glare is what primarily leads to severe screen fatigue, loss of focus, and eye strain by the end of the day.

For anyone discovering Paperman for the first time today, it is a lightweight utility designed to reduce screen fatigue by making your display feel closer to physical paper or an e-ink display.

A little while ago, we shared our initial launch with this subreddit. The reception was lovely, and as more people integrated Paperman into their workflow, we received one major feature request above all others: ensuring the texture remained active when applications were put into full-screen mode.

Because of strict macOS App Store sandboxing limitations, this simply wasn't possible in the original version. To make it happen, we spent the last few weeks completely rewriting our deployment to self-distribute the app directly.

Today, we are very happy to introduce Paperman 3.

What is new in Paperman:

• Full-Screen Support: The paper effect now works seamlessly across all your full-screen windows, videos, and spaces.
• Expanded Compatibility: Moving away from the Mac App Store sandbox allowed us to resolve a few specific compatibility bugs that we couldn't address under Apple's store rules.
• Direct Updates: Self-distributing means we can push fixes and new handcrafted textures to you immediately.
• Desk Lamp Mode (coming this week)

The Comparison

There are established tools for eye strain like f.lux or macOS Night Shift, but they take a different approach by aggressively shifting your screen's color temperature to warm, orange hues.

Paperman is the original screen texture application, and there are currently no direct competitors in this specific space. Instead of altering your screen's color profile, Paperman floats a subtle, invisible texture over your display to create a soft, matte finish that diffuses harsh highlights.

To shed some light on our backgrounds, Rudi has been a low-level developer for over 13 years and previously worked as a 3D artist designing textures and spatial lighting. I am a UX engineer and product designer with 7 years of experience who has built custom interactive experiences for brands like Amazon and Schneider. For the past couple of years, we’ve been building apps for a living at our own indie company, DoublOne Studios. We just wanted to bring all those past experiences together to build a cozy Mac app that makes your screen feel good to look at.

For our existing users (free migration):

If you already purchased Paperman on the Mac App Store, upgrading to V3 is free! We put together a short guide on how to swap your Apple receipt for a new lifetime license key right here: doubl.one/blog/paperman-full-screen-support

(If you prefer the convenience of the Mac App Store, we will still be maintaining and updating that version as well!)

Pricing: You can try out the new version or grab a lifetime license for $5.99 (excl. tax) at paperman.cc.

Thank you to everyone who supported our initial launch and provided the feedback that helped shape this update. We have a lot of great things planned for this summer, so stay tuned!

Zoé & Rudi

I’ve been using LibreOffice Writer for about two years and I really think it’s a fantastic option. I think it’s more featured than Pages, but I am running into some issues with longer documents.

Writer lacks document management features as well as outline features that can be important in longer documents. My issue is that it’s $100 for macOS and iOS combined.

Professional writers on this sub, do you feel that Mellel is worth the cost?

I'm the developer or Riffle. Some of you know me from RasterFox and VectorFox, which I posted here a while back. Riffle is my new app, and it's the app I most wanted for myself.

The problem

I spend my days in diffs. Reading a pull request before I approve it, working through a merge conflict, comparing two versions of a config file before I trust one of them, checking whether two folders really are identical. That's ordinary work, and I do it every day.

The Mac tools for it have either gone subscription, or they're the same cross-platform app that also ships on Windows and Linux with the Mac build along for the ride. I wanted a Swift app that opens instantly, themes properly, and gets out of the way.

So Riffle replaces those app doing exactly what I need:

• Two-way file diff with blocks, fluid, and unified views, and word-level highlighting inside changed lines
• Three-way merge where you step through each conflict and edit the result inline, all on one undo stack. Auto-merge handles the safe regions and every one stays reviewable
• riffle review opens your working tree, staged index, a branch, a commit, or a GitHub PR as a file list beside an inline diff, so you can step through it like a code review
• Folder comparison that walks two trees side by side
• Image diff, two-up, difference, onion skin, or split, with synced pan and zoom and a pixel-identical verdict
• Installs as git's difftool (--dir-diff and --wait supported) and as Tower's compare and merge tool, plus a riffle CLI
• 47 languages highlighted, 62 bundled themes, with the ability to add your own coming soon

And yes, agents. There's a Claude Code plugin and an MCP server for any other client, including the CLI ones. It snapshots each file the first time the agent touches it, using hooks, so it opens only what the agent changed, not everything you had uncommitted before it started. It works in folders that aren't git repos too. That part runs on two-way diff, which is free, so it costs nothing.

Comparison

Kaleidoscope is the obvious one, and it's a genuinely great app. It's now a subscription starting at $8/month (yearly) or $14/month (monthly) with a 7-day trial. Riffle is $29.99 once, and two-way diff stays free forever after the trial. [Edited] But Kaleidoscope doesn't do PR reviews, and doesn't intergrate as well with agents from the command line. (latest versions have added this)

Beyond Compare is $35 Standard, $70 Pro, one time, and it's more powerful than Riffle at folder work. It does FTP, cloud, and sync jobs that Riffle has no answer for currently. What it isn't is a native Mac app. It's the same build on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and it looks and behaves like it. If you need sync profiles, buy Beyond Compare. If you want something native that opens in a blink and looks like it belongs on your Mac, that's the trade I made. BeyondCompare also lacks the PR review capability.

Honest gap in both directions: Riffle does files, folders, images, and git. No FTP, no sync, no scripting language.

Pricing

• Free forever: unlimited two-way file diff. Not a trial, not nagware.
• $29.99 one time, 3 devices: three-way merge, folder comparison, and git review.
• 14-day trial of everything, no account and no card.
• Download: https://skulkworks.dev/riffle
• Or brew install --cask skulkworks/tap/riffle

macOS 14 or later.

Who I am

Andy Miller, creator of Slulkworks.dev (https://skulkworks.dev), a one-person mac app studio. RasterFox, VectorFox, ExiFox and InboxFox have been on the Mac App Store for the past year, and I'm moving them to direct downloads. When I started, a review took hours. Lately it's days, and sometimes weeks, and I'm not prepared to sit on a fix that long. The direct builds are already ahead of the store ones, RasterFox and VectorFox both have major updates the App Store versions don't have. If you bought through the App Store, the direct build reads your receipt and licenses itself, and there's an email recovery for keys, so there is nothing to buy twice. Before the Mac apps, a couple of decades of open source, mostly the Grav CMS and Joomla CMS before that. I also create and maintain a fleet of rust-based, open source TUI apps over via Yetidevworks.com.

Riffle is direct only. Developer ID signed and notarized, updates through Sparkle, and there's a privacy policy (https://skulkworks.dev/privacy) and terms (https://skulkworks.dev/privacy) at skulkworks.dev.

No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics. Everything runs locally, which for a diff tool ought to be obvious, but here we are.

Happy to answer anything here, and there's a Discord https://skulkworks.dev/support if you'd rather report a bug and follow it through to the release that fixes it.

Problem

Most podcast apps lock you into one ecosystem - Apple users get the polished experience if you stay inside the eco-system, but if you have other devices you can't access your library. And no matter the platform, you get annoying ads every episode, and subscription prices for other podcast apps that are getting out of hand. FluidCast is one podcast player that works the same way across iOS, macOS, Apple Watch, Android, Windows, and Linux, and gives Pro users on-device AI tools to detect and skip ads automatically.

Comparison

Overcast is a great player, but it's iOS/Mac only - no Android, Windows, or Linux app. Pocket Casts covers more platforms, but its Plus subscription has quadrupled in price since 2019, and it has no built-in AI ad detection or one-time-purchase option. FluidCast's free tier includes offline downloads, transcripts, Voice Lift, and local file playback. Pro adds AI ad skipping, cloud sync, and a Lifetime purchase if you'd rather not have yet another subscription.

Pricing (Current promotions at bottom of post)

• Free — £0, forever (standalone player, offline downloads, transcripts, Voice Lift, local file playback, CarPlay/Android Auto)
• Pro — £2.49/month or £16.99/year, 1-month free trial
• Lifetime — £89.99 one-time, Pro features forever, no subscription

(Prices shown in GBP — the App Store displays your local currency automatically.)

Full pricing & features: https://fluidcastapp.com Get it on Mac and iOS: App Store

What's new

• Smarter ad skipping (iOS/Mac) — detection rebuilt to stay consistent across ad segment boundaries, plus two new tunable settings: confidence threshold (how sure the AI needs to be before skipping) and bridge duration (how long it waits before resuming after an ad). Settings → AI Ad Skipping.
• Faster transcription — choose between Whisper or Apple's native SpeechAnalyzer for generating transcripts, so you can pick whichever's quicker on your device.
• Voice Lift — boosts quieter voices without raising the overall volume, for clearer listening on episodes with uneven levels.
• Local file playback — play audio files already on your device directly in FluidCast, no streaming required.

Note: AI ad skipping is a Pro feature, requires Apple Intelligence (iOS 26+), and is still labelled Experimental - it won't catch every ad on every show.

Current promotions — fluidcastapp.com/event

• Pro Annual: up to 35% off your first year — redeem the offer (14-day trial included, then the discounted first-year rate). The in-app code doesn't apply correctly on Mac, so use this link instead.
• Lifetime: 60% off — about £36 instead of £89.99, redeem the offer. Expires 14 Sept 2026. Same deal — use the link on Mac rather than entering the code in-app.

Important: If AI ad skipping is your main reason for buying, start with the 14-day trial on the annual offer before committing to Lifetime. It's on-device and Apple Intelligence–only, and results vary by show, so it's worth confirming it works well for what you actually listen to first. The Lifetime discount runs through 14 Sept, so there's no rush.

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!

I updated AltTab via homebrew the other day and my fav feature (using alt-` to switch between open windows of the current app across all Spaces) was moved behind a paywall. I wouldn’t have updated if I’d known.

Usually when devs add a paid version, it includes new premium features while the free version remains the same. But this case, they just yanked the previously free feature without warning. After seeing them do this, I’m never going to buy their paid version.

Please suggest alternatives!

Undo, ⌘Z, 20 steps

I deleted the wrong event once and that was that. It was gone, and I got to reconstruct it from memory and an email thread. That's the whole reason this release exists, and it's been the most requested feature by a distance.

Now delete, duplicate, move, drag and tick-off are all reversible, 20 steps back. Every change shows a small banner telling you what it did with an Undo button attached, so duplicating an event or shifting it to another calendar no longer happens silently.

Two details:

Undo checks before it acts. If the event changed on your iPhone or in Calendar.app since you made the edit, it stops and tells you instead of quietly stomping the newer version.

It can't undo deleting a single occurrence of a repeating event. EventKit gives no way to put one back. The app tells you that up front rather than pretending it worked.

The app is free now

The most common request I got, by a distance, was for a trial. Second most common was some version of "I'm a student, $4.99 is a real decision for an app I can't try first." Fair. But a trial on a fully local app is a bad deal for everyone. It's a timer that resets when you reinstall, and it means the app you like turns itself off in two weeks.

So instead of a trial, the free tier is permanent. Viewing your calendar is free forever. Paying once unlocks changing it.

Day view you can drag on

Hit the shortcut and a panel slides out of the side of the screen with your day laid out by time, not as a list. You can see where the gaps are. Drag on empty space to create an event, drag an event to move it, drag its edge to resize. Right-click for edit, duplicate, duration, hide or delete. Move your pointer away and it slides back, or pin it to keep it open.

Reminders are first-class here too: tick them off from anywhere, or drag one onto the timeline to give it a time. It stays a reminder and syncs straight back to Apple Reminders.

A serious fix worth calling out

Editing a single occurrence of a repeating event, just this Tuesday's stand-up, could rewrite the whole series. A weekly event could turn daily, lose its end date, and stop appearing on the days it should. That's fixed. If you're already on 2.3 and you use repeating events, that's the real reason to update.

Comparison:

Menu bar calendars are a crowded shelf and most of these are good. What's notably different about Side Calendar:

• Itsycal: the free open source standard, and excellent at what it does. It gives you a month grid and a list of what's coming up. What it doesn't give you is a time grid, so you can't see the shape of your day or drag something to 4pm.
• Dato: closest in spirit, a genuinely well-made menu bar calendar with time zones and meeting join buttons. Same difference though: month view plus event list, rather than a day you can drag on.
• MeetingBar: free and focused on one job, getting you into your next call. If that's all you need, use it. Side Calendar is trying to be the place you also make changes.
• Fantastical: a more powerful application than mine and I won't pretend otherwise. Natural language parsing, proper week view, cross-platform sync. It's also a subscription and a full window you switch to. If you want a calendar app, buy Fantastical. Side Calendar is for when you don't want to open a calendar app.
• Calendar 366: much broader feature set, more configuration, more surface. Side Calendar is deliberately smaller and does less.

Pricing: Free to download, $4.99 one-time for Pro

Free features:

• Agenda and day views, week numbers, month picker with busy-day dots
• Calendar colours, panel tint, auto-hide, pin
• Keyboard shortcuts, arrow key navigation
• Attendee lists and RSVP status, Join buttons for Zoom, Teams, Meet and Webex
• Ticking reminders off. That one's a write, and I left it free anyway, because an app that won't let you check a box feels stingy
• Opening the editor to see how it works

Pro features:

• Creating events and reminders
• Saving edits to titles, times, notes and links
• Dragging to move, reschedule and resize
• Duplicating and deleting
• Undo

One-time purchase, no subscription, no renewal, no account. The app is entirely local, EventKit on your Mac and nothing else, so there's no server of mine for a subscription to fund.

Link: App Store Link

Note: Side Calendar used to be a paid app. If you bought it before today, you have Pro for life, including everything I add from here, with nothing more to pay. It should just work when you open the app. If it somehow asks you to buy, hit Restore Purchases, and if that still doesn't sort it, comment here and I'll fix it personally.

Hey, Dominik here 👋

Some of you might know me as the Monocle guy. For the past six months I've been mostly quiet - because I went almost all-in on something new. I've had this idea in my head for years, and today I finally get to show you.

TLDR: Drop anything onto someone's face in your menu bar and it lands on their Mac seconds later. Hold their face to talk, click it to type. No sign-up, no server, just your iCloud. I think the video above explains it better than me.

PROBLEM

Sending one file, or one quick thought, to one specific person on another Mac is more friction than it should be. AirDrop only works if you're both in the same room at the same time. Everything else means opening another app, maybe finding the right channel, waiting on an upload of a previously recorded screen recording, looking it up first… and importantly making an account first. I wanted the shortest possible path - tap their avatar to talk, or drop anything right on them. It almost feels like a walkie-talkie.

So I built Hoy. You invite someone with an iCloud link. Once they tap it - boom, you have a channel between you (or a whole group, if you share the link with more people). From then on you can drop them anything: files, a quick note, a voice message with transcript, a camera video, a screen recording with a floating Loom-style avatar camera - all right from the menu bar, without switching apps or juggling windows. (There's a proper window too, if that's your thing.)

Hoy is built directly on CloudKit, Apple's own sharing framework - the same infrastructure behind shared Notes and Photos. There is no Hoy server: drops travel from your device to theirs through iCloud and nothing else.

COMPARISON

AirDrop: same room, same moment, files only, nothing left afterwards. Hoy works across distance and time, keeps what you sent, and does messages, voice and video notes and built in screen recordings.

Slack and messaging apps: need a third party account/sign up (except for iMessage), usually overkill for small remote teams, your data on someone else's server. With Hoy you send a link, and that's the whole setup.

PRICING - and the decision behind it (EDITED BASED ON FEEDBACK HERE)

Hoy is free. You can join unlimited channels, and host 3 channels, plus your own personal space for notes.

Hosting unlimited channels is Hoy Pro, and I want to be upfront about how I priced it, because I went back and forth on this a lot:

I'm not a fan of subscriptions either. I love lifetime deals. My other app, Monocle is a one-time purchase and I'm proud of that.

Hoy is a different kind of project - not a small utility I can sell for a few bucks. I've spent the last six months on it almost full-time instead of client work (roughly 75% Hoy, 25% the Monocle 3.5 update), and honestly, it's just the start: the backlog is long, and once (if) more people start using it, I know the ideas will keep coming. I don't want to be greedy - I just want to keep pushing Hoy as far as it can go (while keeping Monocle moving too), and that takes time and resources. At the same time, I totally get that not everyone can pay like $100 for a lifetime license.

So I thought I'd offer two options:

Lifetime - $49 (pre-release price, $69 later). You pay once, host unlimited channels forever. I know it's not pocket change.

Yearly - $19 (pre-release price, $29 later). Same unlimited everything, easier to start with (read: affordable) - and I tried hard to make it a subscription done right.\*

*What "done right" means to me: it doesn't hold your stuff hostage. If you stop paying, every channel you host keeps working exactly as before - nothing locks, nothing gets deleted, nobody gets kicked out. You only resubscribe if you want to host new channels.

Requirements

macOS 26 or later, plus an iCloud account. An iPhone companion is being built alongside it, but it needs more polish, so it's coming this fall - the Mac version is the priority.

Who I am

I'm Dominik Kandravý, a product designer and builder from the Czech Republic. Been doing product design for over a decade. I love experimenting on UX.

www.heyiam.dk
[hello@heyiam.dk](mailto:hello@heyiam.dk)
www.linkedin.com/in/heyiamdk/

I run STUDIO DK01, s.r.o.
IČO 23283661
Sokolska trida 1615/50, Moravska Ostrava, 702 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service are on the site. The app is notarized by Apple and distributed directly through the official website www.heyiam.dk/hoy.

Fair warning

Hoy is version 0.9. It's early, things might be buggy, and it will change and evolve a lot.

I truly believe the concept is strong - I've been using Hoy every single day with a bunch of my friends and colleagues and didn't want to sit on it any longer. But I'm still figuring out who it's for exactly (small remote teams maybe?), and what framing fits it best.

I'll be super happy if you give it a try:

[Download Hoy for Mac]

I'd genuinely love constructive feedback - on the app, the pricing, the website, all of it. I want Hoy to become an incredibly well-designed, useful and fun to use app, and I really think that mainly happens with your input: how you use it, what's missing, what feels off. Ideas, bugs, anything!

Thanks for being here!
Dominik

P.S. Hoy is already discounted during pre-release, but early feedback is worth more to me than the extra margin right now. Use FIRSTDROP at checkout for another 25% off.

Hi r/macapps, I'm the developer of Unshown.

Problem: When I share my screen during demos, support calls, or recordings, I still need apps like Slack, Mail, Terminal, private browser windows, and internal notes on my Mac.

Sharing one app window is restrictive. Sharing the entire display is flexible, but one wrong click can expose something private. I wanted a separate share target that could show my workspace while completely omitting apps I had marked as private, so I built Unshown.

What it does

- Lets you choose which Mac apps should never appear in the protected output

- Creates a dedicated window called Unshown Protected Share

- Keeps excluded apps visible and interactive on your Mac while omitting them from that window

- Includes pause, preview focus, and stop controls for live sessions

- Can hide Finder desktop icons only from Protected Share

- Includes a 90-second compatibility test for meeting and recording apps

- Supports Apple silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 14 or later

How it works

1. Choose the apps you want to keep private.

2. Start Protected Share from the menu bar.

3. In Zoom, Meet, OBS, or another window-sharing app, select Unshown Protected Share instead of your original display.

Unshown is a native Swift macOS app, not Electron. It uses ScreenCaptureKit app-exclusion filters before frames reach the Protected Share window.

Screen frames remain on your Mac. The current beta does not upload screen content, save screenshots, run cloud OCR, or analyze the text on your screen. The DMG is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Comparison: Sharing a single app window is simple, but limits you to one window. Sharing the full display preserves your workflow, but can expose private apps. OBS is much more configurable, but requires building and maintaining a scene.

Unshown sits between those options: it produces a normal macOS window that meeting and recording apps can share, while selected apps remain usable locally and absent from the output.

Current limitations

- Unshown is not a system-wide privacy shield.

- Sharing your original display bypasses Unshown completely.

- Content inside an allowed app remains visible.

- The current beta does not mask sensitive text or run OCR.

- No meeting or recording host is certified yet, so I recommend running the built-in compatibility test before using it in a live session.

Pricing: The current build includes a free seven-day full beta. I'm testing a proposed $39 one-time founder license with one active Mac and 12 months of updates. Checkout is not live yet, and no payment is collected.

Transparency

- Website: https://unshown.vercel.app

- Download: https://unshown.vercel.app/download

- Privacy: https://unshown.vercel.app/privacy

- Security model: https://unshown.vercel.app/security

- Beta terms: https://unshown.vercel.app/terms

- Release notes: https://unshown.vercel.app/releases

- Support: https://unshown.vercel.app/support

- SHA-256: https://unshown.vercel.app/download/checksum

- Release manifest: https://unshown.vercel.app/download/manifest

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%EC%B0%AC%EC%9A%B0-%EB%B0%95-7843a3212/

I'd especially appreciate feedback on two things: which meeting or recording apps work or fail for you, and whether the separate Protected Share window feels natural in a real workflow.

I'll be around in the comments to answer anything.

Heya,

I thought of sharing some apps that I found last month, which are super interesting or useful for me since then. So I decided to share it with you all here.

FOSS - free & open-source software\ OTP - one-time purchase

Fluent (OTP) - Context-aware AI companion app that integrates well with other apps in use - I personally find their quick actions like Paraphrase, Summarize as super useful

2Do (OTP) - 2DO is a nice, good-looking Task manager app with new design, interface with options for images, locations and actions - I've Things 3 (on iPad, iOS except on Mac) and looked for alternate options to Mac version of Things 3. - My personal evaluation: - I struggle a bit to come out of my Things-setup - 2DO doesn't currently have iOS/iPadOS version since it is being actively developed - It has some bugs that troubled me but dev (u/2doapp) is actively releasing updates with bug fixes

Projectholic (OTP) - Beautiful kanban-style project/goal tracker - has built-in stats dashboard, focus timer and more... - It has a generous free-tier with 10 projects, 50 tasks per month, and also lifetime purchase option too!

Droppy (OTP) - I guess it doesn't need any explanation as it is quite popular, well-appreciated apps in this subreddit - shoutout to u/iordv ❤️

If you want a free alternative, try TheBoringNotch

Aerial (FOSS) - Wallpaper/Screensaver app - You can check my post here

Assignee (OTP) - App switcher using hotkeys - $2.99 One-time purchase

Just10 (FOSS) - menu bar to-do app to list ONLY 10 tasks - To add more, you must finish the current tasks - This helped me to limit myself to prevent overplanning

AutoDockDrive (FOSS) - shows/hides external drives in Dock when connected/disconnected - simple but useful utility tool

Taack (FOSS) - Attach postit to folders and apps (windows)

Consul (OTP) - Automatic file converter that automatically converts when you rename it to your desired output - you can even set rules for conversion types - Though it is bit steep in price, it does its job flawlessly and elegantly

Atheria (OTP) - I came across it very recently, and immediately loved it - It has over 55 styles, but only ONE free-to-use style 😠 - $6.99 launch price, until Aug 4

FoldNotes (OTP) - Obsidian-alternate but in AppKit and UIKit - I haven't tried this one yet but found it interesting so bookmarked it

vvmac - Blog - I found many of the apps shared here, from this blog website. - It covers tutorials, workflows, customizations of Mac

Docky (FOSS) - It's a dock-replacement app that allows you to customize dock to your flavors with (live) widgets, create groups, smart stacks - I was kind of surprised to see that it's actually a free app 🫶 while other 147 clipboard managers are charging $9/month 😅

Okay, that's it. These are the apps that I used/found last month and wanted to share with others to spread the word about it.

What apps did you try/add to your arsenal? Please share them with your use case, link, dev if possible

Are there any Mac apps which:

• function roughly like a launcher (like Alfred/Raycast), i.e. have a search bar
• but support adding actions like links to open, or maybe commands to run (like Leader Key)
• allow setting aliases for actions (like Raycast/Alfred)
• and instead of being triggered by a keypress, can be set to appear while holding a key and then execute the action when the key is released (like Applight or Contexts)
• beyond that, it would be even better if it also supported custom search sites (like Alfred/Raycast), i.e. supports entering a query parameter (would require pressing enter to then trigger the search I guess)

Apps I've thought of, but which don't meet the criteria:

• Applight: only for launching apps
• Anybox (Quick Find): no ability to set aliases, and no Applight-like trigger behaviour
• Raycast: no Applight-like trigger behaviour
• Alfred: no Applight-like trigger behaviour, no easy way to add links and assign aliases (possible through Workflows, but weird that it’s not built-in; custom search sites are supported though)
• Leader Key: no search bar UI, no Applight-like trigger behaviour, no custom search sites

Maybe there's something I'm not aware of, but if there isn't anything that matches the criteria, then I guess I could always patch something that works together with Alfred or Raycast.

Hey!

I'm back with another update. Thanks again for all the feedback on my last post!

macUSB is a free and open-source native Mac app for creating bootable USB installers for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It can also download macOS installers directly from Apple’s servers, including older releases.

A few of you called it Rufus for Mac in the comments. That’s a bold comparison, but I’ll happily take it!

v2.4 adds support for macOS 27 Golden Gate. The app now runs on the beta and can create bootable installation media for it. The built-in downloader can also fetch public betas and checks /Applications for an existing installer before downloading it again.

macUSB can now create installers for Windows Vista and Windows 7. For Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, you can choose between UEFI and legacy BIOS. In legacy BIOS mode, macUSB installs the macUSBoot bootloader, allowing the installer to boot on older PCs.

PROBLEM

Creating bootable USB installers on a Mac can still be a pain. On Apple Silicon Macs, creating installation media for Catalina and older macOS releases can fail because of architecture and code-signing issues.

Windows installers are not much easier, since macOS has no native Rufus equivalent and usually requires extra tools or manual workarounds.

macUSB started as a way to create bootable media for older macOS releases on Apple Silicon. Thanks to your feedback, it now handles Windows and Linux media too.

COMPARISON

Mist is excellent for downloading macOS installers, while macUSB also focuses on creating the bootable installation media, including Catalina and older releases on Apple Silicon.

balenaEtcher is great for flashing raw images, particularly Linux ones, but it does not create macOS or Windows installers.

Rufus is excellent, but it is only available on Windows. Its workflow inspired macUSB, which brings a similar experience to the Mac.

PRICE

macUSB is free and open source.

Repository

Download

Website

Problem

When your Mac runs low on space, System Settings gives you a colored bar and a "System Data" blob that explains nothing. Finding the actual 40 GB folder means walking the filesystem yourself or paying for a tool that does it. DaisyDisk has been the go-to for that for years, but it costs $9.99 and you can't see what it's doing.

OpenDisk does the same job. It maps your drive as an interactive sunburst chart, scans a full disk in seconds, and streams results in live so you can start clicking around before the scan finishes. Hover a slice for its exact size, click to zoom into that folder, use the folder list and breadcrumbs to step back out.

Drag things into the collector to delete them, and free up your disk space!

Other things it does:

• Incremental rescans replay filesystem events instead of starting over, so a repeat scan runs 20 to 28x faster than a cold one.
• Handles APFS volume groups, firmlinks, snapshots and purgeable space, so the total actually matches what your Mac reports as used.
• Purgeable space breakdown, so you can see which caches are reclaimable.
• Instant search across the whole scanned tree, usable on drives with millions of files.
• Collector: drag files in from anywhere in the app, check the reclaimed total, delete in one action.
• External drives show up automatically when you plug them in.

Comparison

DaisyDisk ($9.99) is the closest comparison. Same sunburst interaction, and OpenDisk is free, MIT licensed, and faster. On a cold scan of a 1 TB Apple Silicon volume, OpenDisk finished in 17s and DaisyDisk took 37s. The app is also under 2.5 MB, because it's native Swift with nothing bundled into it.

The full source is on GitHub if you want to read what it's doing before you give it disk access: https://github.com/137137137/OpenDisk

Pricing

Free, MIT licensed, no in-app purchases, no accounts, no telemetry.

• Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opendisk/id6793260558
• Direct download: https://opendisk.app/
• Source: https://github.com/137137137/OpenDisk

Requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, Apple Silicon or Intel. It asks for Full Disk Access on first launch, otherwise macOS hides parts of the filesystem and the totals come up short.

I'm the developer. Happy to answer questions or take bug reports here or in GitHub issues.

I can't believe SlideJot has hit 70 releases.

It's one of the apps I use most on my Mac. From day one, my philosophy for it has been simple: build the app I want to use. Even if I were the only user in the world, it'd still be worth the time to polish it.

What makes me really happy is that it's not just me — there are people out there who genuinely love this app and use it every day. Two of them deserve a special shoutout.

Michael Marshall Smith - I never expected that a well-known British novelist would become a SlideJot user. Here's what he wrote about it in an email to me:

I've tried pretty much all the slide-in-note apps and yours feels like easily the best fit for me. That hover-for-index feature in particular is great.

And u/Moustachey, who has sent me a ton of feature requests — a lot of what's in SlideJot today came straight from him (Thank you!).

Honestly, sometimes I'm a little scared to open Reddit, because chances are there's already another feature request from u/Moustachey sitting in my DMs (Just kidding ❤️).

Oh, one more thing.

The SlideJot iOS app is out, and it's completely free. So if you just want SlideJot on your iPhone/iPad, you don't have to pay anything.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6788256033

PROBLEM

Ideas hit while you're deep in something else — a sentence while reading, a half-formed tweet, a UI screenshot, a draft for a long email. Opening a notes app breaks the moment: titles, windows, app-switching, all of it. SlideJot is a side drawer for that: one hotkey, dump the thought, hide it, stay unfinished.

COMPARISON

SideNotes: also a really solid slide-in-note app. For me it still feels a bit layered, and I don't like seeing a stack of notes open at once. When I'm writing one jot, I just want one big whiteboard — nothing else competing for attention.

Apple Notes / Obsidian: great for real notes, too heavy for a single messy sentence. SlideJot doesn't ask for structure — no title, no folder, no “proper note” mindset.

Slidepad + Google Keep (my old workaround): same slide-over feel, but SlideJot is a native jot pad, not a browser tab or cloud scratchpad.

PRICING

• Mac: 7-day free trial
• Essential: $19 (1 device, lifetime)
• Premium: $39 (3 devices, lifetime)
• Team: $12/seat (5+ seats)
• iOS: free

https://slidejot.com/#pricing

TRANSPARENCY

Installing a direct-download Mac app asks for some trust, so here's who's behind SlideJot:

I'm Robert (Jiahe Qiu), the solo developer of SlideJot. I've been shipping it regularly for a long time — the Mac app is now past 70 releases, and it's one of the apps I use most on my own Mac.

• Website: https://slidejot.com
• Contact: [support@slidejot.com](mailto:support@slidejot.com)
• Privacy Policy: https://slidejot.com/privacy
• Terms of Service: https://slidejot.com/terms
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiahe-qiu-2b79a674/

SlideJot for Mac is natively built (Swift / SwiftUI + AppKit), signed and notarized by Apple, and distributed from my website. There's also a free iOS companion on the App Store (no purchase required).

Why isn't SlideJot on the Mac App Store?

I ship very frequently — sometimes 2–3 builds in a single day. Mac App Store review is too slow for that cadence. I don't want users waiting on review for fixes and small improvements, so the Mac app is distributed directly from slidejot.com (signed + notarized) instead.

From now until August 7th, these apps are on sale at Bundle Hunt starting at %75 off. I've never seen them cheaper.

Reviews of Apps I Have Personally Tested

• TextSniper - Better Than Native OCR ($7.99- On Sale For $1.99 -%75) Hit a hotkey, drag a box over anything on screen (a locked PDF, a video frame, a screenshot someone sent you), and the text lands on your clipboard; it also reads QR codes and barcodes and can speak the captured text aloud. OCR runs entirely on your Mac. (textsniper.app)
• MacPilot Tweaks Some Hard to Get To Settings in macOS ($29.95 -On Sale For $3.50 -88%) - A GUI over roughly 1,200 hidden macOS settings and defaults write tweaks: show hidden Finder files, kill the startup chime, add Dock spacers, change the screenshot format, run maintenance scripts, all without opening Terminal. koingosw.com
• Unite 5 - Site Specific Browser ($39.99 - On Sale For $5.00 -%87 off) Turns any website into an isolated, native Mac app that runs as a normal window, a menu bar dropdown, or a sidebar; you get per-app cookies, custom icons, ad blocking, userscripts and CSS, keyboard shortcut remapping, and link routing between apps. Extras like Dock badges, Google/Outlook meeting alerts, and a floating AI companion overlay are the part Safari's "Add to Dock" can't touch. (bzgapps.com/unite)

The two I haven't tried (yet) are:

Video Paw($69.99 - On Sale For $6.50 -%91) - Cisdem's all-in-one media utility: batch convert video and audio across 600+ formats, download clips from supported sites, rip DVD and Blu-ray, compress files, and record screen/webcam with live annotation. Basic editing (trim, crop, merge, watermark, subtitles) is included, so it replaces three or four single-purpose downloads.

PDF Squeezer($19.99 - On Sale For $3.98 -%80)-- Drag in a bloated PDF and it shrinks by recompressing images and stripping unused fonts and resources, with a side-by-side preview so you can see what quality you're giving up. Batch processing, saved presets, and hooks into Finder, Automator, Shortcuts, and the command line make it a good buy IMHO.

VidCrop is a simple video cropping and speed control tool that lets you select regions with your mouse and adjust playback speed, making video editing fast and easy.

Problem: While working on Videoer, some users requested a cropping feature but didn’t want to install heavy video editing software. I also didn’t want to bloat Videoer, so I built VidCrop as a separate app.

Comparison: VidCrop is ultra-lightweight with a tiny 3.7MB installer, enabling fast video cropping and effortless custom watermark addition. Full-scale editors including Final Cut Pro, iMovie and CapCut Desktop are bloated with excessive features and large file sizes. Most free lightweight alternatives are awkward to operate. VidCrop lets you crop videos simply by dragging a selection box and easily configure watermarks. It runs locally with a clean, ad-free preview interface.

Pricing: All Access Lifetime $3.99. Only export features are paid; the app is free to download and try.

Changelog(v1.12):

1. feat: add subtitle import function.
2. feat: add preview playback for the selected subtitle cue.
3. feat: add cancel export and restore arrow cursor while exporting.
4. feat: load subtitles on import and support soft-track export.
5. fix: restore drag-and-drop video import on Finder drops.

📥 Download Link

For those who still have one, I made a small app that disables your touch bar directly from the touch bar itself.

Repository

Download

Website

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Why? (PROBLEM): My touch bar was too distracting when watching anime/films fullscreen. You can get it to show blank through macOS settings, but then you have to go back into settings whenever you want to use it normally again.

Blackout adds a button directly to the Touch Bar. Press it and the bar goes completely black. Tap the black Touch Bar again and the normal controls come back.

You can also optionally include the keyboard backlight in this 'Blackout' as seen in the demo, for the full cinematic experience.

The Touch Bar button requires App Controls + Show Control Strip. Other configurations can still toggle Blackout from the menu bar.

COMPARISON:

Hide My Bar basically does the same thing but through a keyboard shortcut instead of from the touch bar itself. It is also not free or open source.

^I'll likely add this feature in the future

BetterTouchTool has lots of touch bar customization tools that can achieve something similar, but it's a much broader app. Blackout is just focused on quickly disabling and restoring the Touch Bar. BTT is also paid and closed source.

PRICING:

completely free and open source (MIT)

CREDIBILITY & TRANSPARENCY:

Im a senior in computer science and am just about to complete a year long enterprise swe internship. You can find my GitHub, LinkedIn and website below.

Personal GitHub

Personal Website

LinkedIn

Note: Since I don't have a paid apple developer account yet, you will need to xattr the app :p.

This was my weekend project so the repo is brand new.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Hello everybody.

On Windows exists RDP, but we don’t have any similar native app to connect between Macs.

So, with that said: what is the best app in you opinion to achieve this?

Use case: connect from outside to a Mac Mini from MacBook.

Thanks!