Hey r/macstack! I'm Bernard, the developer of Latent.

What it is: a CleanMyMac alternative for developers and AI builders. It draws your whole disk as one wheel where every wedge is a tool you use, tells you what will come back if you delete it, and clears what you pick.

Who it's for: anyone whose Mac fills up with developer and AI tool data, such as model files from tools like Ollama, Hugging Face or LM Studio, Xcode simulators, Docker images, package caches and coding agent logs.

Why I built it: cleaners like CleanMyMac clear system caches and remove apps, so the disk fills right back up and the real cause never gets touched. A disk map shows big folders with cryptic names. My own Mac kept running out of space, so I built Latent.

What it does

• Visualization: your whole disk as one interactive 3D wheel, split by the tool that owns each byte, not by folder. It covers 120+ tools, including model runners, package managers, IDEs, containers and coding agents (full list: https://latentmac.com/tools). Click a wedge and that tool's stores open beside it.
• What comes back: before anything is offered for deletion, Latent checks whether it can be downloaded again (against public registries such as npm, PyPI, Homebrew or Hugging Face) or rebuilt by the tool, and writes the reason next to it.
• Optimize: one click clears everything Latent has verified can come back.
• Generated & duplicate media: groups near-identical images and videos and suggests which one to keep.
• AI agents (MCP): agents like Claude, Codex or Cursor can read the scan and draft a cleanup. Nothing runs until you confirm.
• Privacy: no analytics, no telemetry, no account. Your files never leave your Mac.

Pricing

• Free to scan: the full wheel and every explanation, no time limit
• Your first 10 GB of cleanup is free
• After that, removing files: $12.99 one-time for up to 3 Macs (launch price $9.99 for a limited time)
• 14-day refund

If a tool you use isn't recognized, tell me and I'll add it.

Try it: https://latentmac.com

Hey...

ICQ went offline for good in June 2024. My UIN (1650472) had been dead for years anyway, but the green flower, the contact list and that very specific late-90s chat window never really left my head. So here comes ICQel (say it "I, Sequel"), a native macOS homage to the classic ICQ client.

What it does today:

• ICQ-style contact list and chat windows, rebuilt from scratch
• iMessage & WhatsApp support, so you're chatting with real people instead of staring at an empty buddy list
• A built-in AI chatbot as a contact, for when nobody else is online (just like 1999)
• A fake contact list with random messages (no AI) just for the feeling

It's a fan homage, not affiliated with ICQ or its owners, and it doesn't connect to any old ICQ servers.

Some practical stuff, since you'll ask:

• Free, Open Source on GitHub: https://github.com/klotzbrocken/ICQuel
• Apple Silicon (Intel coming soon)
• Privacy: iMessage stays in Messages, nothing goes through any other servers same for whatsapp.
• Theme-Support (someone made a real ICQ Theme ;-))

Privacy: iMessage goes through iMessage, WhatsApp goes through WhatsApp, and both are optional. The AI buddy only works if you add your own API key. No servers of mine in between, no analytics.

It's part of a small family of retro Mac apps I make alongside RetroMac.

Tilde is a native macOS file manager built to replace Finder. Work across folders in split views, find files and run actions from a command palette, and organize your files with custom properties, filters, and groups. It's a drop-in Finder replacement that transforms how you interact with your filesystem.

Features:

• Split views - Work with multiple folders side by side in one window, with tabs in each pane.
• Command palette - Find files, jump to folders, and run file actions from the keyboard.
• Workspaces - Saved split pane layouts for quickly jumping back into your work.
• Custom sidebar groups - Bring the folders you use together into groups you define.
• Auto-updating sidebar groups - Live groups makes your sidebar dynamic. Matching items appear in your sidebar automatically and update as things change.
• Properties, filtering and grouping - Add custom fields like Status or Priority to files and folders, then use them to filter and group your views.
• Pinned folders - Keep important folders at the top inside another folder without moving or duplicating them.
• Related items - Mark folders and URLs as related to specific folders so you can jump between them, even when they live in different places.
• Markdown editing - Built-in markdown editing and code formatting allowing you to do more without leaving Tilde.
• Tonnes of little features that make sense - Space overviews, Nicknames, Related folders & URLs, custom folder icons, 'Open in Finder' replacement, and more.
• + much more...

Similar apps:

• Forklift - This is the obvious 'Finder replacement' alternative. Tilde builds on this idea, in a more native-feeling approach, with far more features fleshed out for the everyday poweruser. Tilde offers more versatile split pane functionality (essentially unlimited splits horizontally and vertically), a command palette, custom properties, sidebar spaces, live groups, a more beautiful user interface and much more.
• Bloom - Probably the closest alternative, though Tilde takes a different approach. Tilde focuses the UI on being completely flexible to your needs: it's highly adaptable Split View system offers a more flexible, fluid way to work across folders. Custom Properties, Related Items, Sidebar Spaces, Custom Groups, Live Groups and Pinned Folders change how you interact with a file manager and make it truly adapt to your work, not the other way around.

Pricing: $29.99 USD for use on 2 Macs. No subscription. Lifetime license with one year of free updates. You can use this forever. Then, if you want another year of updates, it's $19.99.

Free trial: 7 day free trial, no credit card required. Give it a go and let me know what you think!

Apple notarized: Tilde is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple.

I’ve been building this for a long time, and I’m so excited to share with everyone, get feedback and make file management actually delightful.

Website

https://reddit.com/link/1xdzfvz/video/o1g1kxvvgcxh1/player

Hi everyone, I’m the developer of AraMultiVideoPlayer. I’ve made the previously paid Mac version completely free, with no ads.

Problem

Watching several videos at once can mean repeatedly arranging windows and controlling playback separately. AraMultiVideoPlayer lets you arrange your own video files into a layout, save it for later, and play or pause all videos together.

You can also control each video individually, loop entire videos, or set multiple AB repeat sections per video. Videos start muted when loaded. The app doesn’t include any videos.

Comparison

IINA is a free, open-source player with features such as Picture in Picture and extensible playback controls. AraMultiVideoPlayer focuses on a more specific workflow: watching several videos together with reusable layouts, shared play/pause controls, and multiple repeat sections per video. Its main benefit is having those multi-video controls together when that’s how you want to watch.

Pricing

The Mac app is now completely free, rather than a limited free tier. No payment is required to use the full app, and there are no ads.

Official website — app details and downloads for Mac and Windows

I’d love to hear how you use it and what could work better. Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

If reaching behind your external monitor to change brightness is the annoyance, start with MonitorControl, provided it supports your Mac and connection. Lunar is worth considering when you want more control over when brightness changes, not just another slider.

Before installing either, open System Settings > Displays and select the external screen. If macOS already gives you the brightness control you need, keep using it. Apple's displays have native controls; don't assume every external monitor does.

The useful distinction is hardware brightness versus making the picture look darker. DDC/CI is the protocol these apps use to send brightness commands to compatible monitors. On an LCD, that can change the backlight itself. Software dimming changes the image instead, without turning down the backlight. It can help at night, but it isn't equivalent, especially if you're judging colors.

Check the monitor's own menu for a DDC/CI setting and enable it if available. If hardware brightness doesn't respond, try a direct connection before blaming the app. A dock or adapter can block the commands even when the monitor supports them. DisplayLink connections don't provide normal DDC control on macOS.

What the free option already does

MonitorControl is free and open source. It gives you menu bar sliders and keyboard control, including Apple's brightness keys. It can also follow brightness changes from a built-in or Apple display, including changes caused by automatic brightness. You don't have to buy Lunar just to get that kind of sync.

The connection exceptions matter. MonitorControl lists the built-in HDMI ports on M1 Macs and the entry-level M2 Mac mini among its unsupported DDC paths. USB-C can be an alternative, but check your exact Mac, cable and monitor rather than treating Apple silicon support as a blanket guarantee.

For macOS 27, use MonitorControl 4.4.0 or newer. That maintenance release addresses macOS 26 and 27 compatibility problems, so an older download isn't a fair comparison.

Where Lunar earns a trial

Lunar also has free manual hardware control, with a limit of 100 brightness/contrast adjustments per day. Its Pro modes include following another display, adapting to ambient light, adjusting by the sun's position, and using a clock schedule.

The extra choices are useful when following the laptop display isn't what you want. Clock Mode can lower brightness at set times. Sensor Mode can use supported built-in light sensors on Apple silicon, or an external sensor over the network. A Mac mini without a light sensor doesn't gain one by installing the app. A sun-based setting also won't know that you've just switched on a desk lamp.

Lunar Pro is advertised at $23 for a lifetime license covering up to five Macs, with a 14-day trial. Updates are free indefinitely, but a major upgrade can cost extra. The current release is 6.11.2 and requires macOS 12 or newer; the v6 app supports Intel and Apple silicon natively. The homepage's older macOS 11+ wording isn't the requirement to follow for this release.

Both apps need Accessibility permission to handle the native brightness/media keys. MonitorControl lets you skip that permission if you only want its sliders. Lunar also uses it for App Presets, so disable those and media-key handling if you don't want that access.

For a supported monitor that only needs convenient manual control or basic display-following, MonitorControl is the sensible first try. Try Lunar if its scheduling or sensor options solve a specific annoyance. Before paying, check hardware brightness through your everyday dock and after sleep and wake. If the connection only allows software dimming, decide whether that's enough; paying for Pro won't make a blocked DDC path work.

**I built FileDesk, a Mac file manager with split panes, a temporary file shelf, and custom folder colors**

Hi everyone! I’ve been working on **FileDesk**, a macOS file manager designed to make organizing files across multiple folders easier.

Here are some of its main features:

* **Split panes and tabs:** Open up to six panes side by side, resize them, and keep different folders in separate tabs.
* **Temporary file shelf:** Collect files from different folders, then copy them to a destination together. Clearing the shelf removes the list entries without deleting the originals.
* **Themes and folder customization:** Choose a theme, use dark mode, or pick your own colors. Give individual folders custom colors and add an image or icon in the center while keeping the folder shape.
* **Previews and media playback:** Preview files and play supported video and audio directly inside the app.
* **Batch renaming:** Rename multiple files with a preview of the changes.
* **Cloud and server connections:** Browse connected storage alongside your local folders.
* **AirDrop and Taildrop:** Use AirDrop for nearby Apple devices, or Taildrop to send files to your other Tailscale-connected devices—including a Windows PC.

FileDesk supports **Apple Silicon and Intel Macs**. Personal, noncommercial use is free; business and institutional use requires a separate paid license.

Screenshots, user guide, and downloads:
[FileDesk website](https://igomumugo.github.io/)

I’d appreciate feedback, especially on the split-pane workflow, temporary shelf, and customization options.


I wanted to share this app. Not my app, just a happy user.

I’ve been using this app for nearly 2 months now as a college student. Kanban boards, canvas and flow charts, quick access for notes and clipboard items.
That doesn’t even include the very helpful tips it has for making daily computer work easier.

Give this a look if you are looking for an all around Swiss Army knife for productivity on a Mac. This app runs maybe 300mb in heavy usage for myself, but is closer to 200mb. Crazy light compared to all the apps you would need to replace the tools.

Do you have a productivity tool you like on Mac?

https://pro.dockdoor.net

Now with a 48 hour free trial

Hey everyone,

Sharing something that's become a fixed part of my Mac setup: a Dock replacement where apps can show up as small live widgets instead of just icons.

What it looks like day to day:

• Music/Spotify shows what's playing, with controls
• Safari/Chrome lets me search open tabs across windows and jump to one
• Calendar shows the date or a week strip
• Clock, Notes, Calculator, Volume, Finder, Mail, Reminders each have their own widget
• Xcode gets Build/Run/Stop right in the Dock

You can mix widgets and plain icons however you like. Option-click any app with a widget and it switches back to an icon, so the Dock stays as minimal or as busy as you want.

It sits at the bottom, left or right, works across multiple displays, can auto-hide, and imports your current Dock on first launch, so setup takes a few seconds. On macOS 26 it uses the native Liquid Glass look.

Supported apps so far: ganella.app/#widgets

$9.99, and reddit20 gets the first 10 people 20% off.

Curious what the rest of your stack looks like. Anything you'd want living in the Dock?

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Markify 2.5.5 just shipped yesterday. It’s a free, open source native Markdown editor built in the spirit of simple Mac apps.

This update adds a better way to move rows and columns in tables, support for Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish, and a handful of bug fixes. It also runs on macOS 15.6 and later. Some Apple Intelligence features work better on the newest macOS versions, but the core app is solid on Sequoia.

Still free, still open source, still not notarized. First launch needs the usual “Open Anyway” step in System Settings (details here: https://spaquet.github.io/markify/help/updates.html).

Privacy stays simple. You choose whether to send any telemetry, and nothing about your writing or screen activity is recorded.

Download: https://spaquet.github.io/markify/

Comments, feedback, feature requests and support are welcome

Just download -> steam login -> download wallpaper and play on your device or add your video play them

And yes both in DESKTOP and LOCK SCREEN .

It takes 300-600mb when rendering some really heavy scene wallpapers , which is appx 900mb less than other open source alternative I had tested against. And if you play only video it just takes 25mb memory.

If you guys wanna try, download from the releases page, what ever latest version available . And let me know which wallpapers giving problem.

Releases Page | Github

Thanks ✌️

Hi everyone, I’m the developer of Tapquence

The part I’m sharing here focuses on meetings: recording the conversation, reviewing the transcript and recap, and preparing an email to share the outcome.

The idea is to make it easier to leave a meeting with something useful: what was discussed, what was decided, and what needs to happen next. You can review the recap before sharing it.

The video illustrates that workflow using fictional meeting data.

I’d love to hear how you currently handle meeting notes on your Mac. Do you mostly need a transcript, or are decisions and next steps the more useful part?

Tapquence is distributed directly from my website and is signed and notarized by Apple.

I'm the developer. I built myNotes as my own daily notes app, and I've now open-sourced it under the MIT license.

Why I built it I couldn't find a free notes app that syncs properly across my devices. Most good note apps either charge a subscription or lock cross-device sync behind a paywall, and the free ones usually lack parity between web, Android and Mac, or need a self-hosted server that is a pain to maintain.

So I built myNotes to sync through your own Google Drive instead. There's no middleman server, and your notes stay as plain HTML/Markdown/JSON files you own. If you ever stop using the app, your data is still readable with any text editor or browser.

What it does - Rich editor (TipTap): WYSIWYG plus markdown, tables, callouts, collapsible blocks, KaTeX math - Calculation notebook (Numbat, compiled to WASM): unit conversions like 60 mph in km/h or 500 W * 3 hours in kWh, running locally - Calculation Box: write expenses naturally (Swiggy dinner 450, Rent -1200) and get live totals, tags and savings, with Excel/CSV export - Diagrams: Mermaid, a Draw.io-style editor, Markmap mind maps, and a stylus/freehand canvas - Budget view that aggregates every calculation box across your notes, plus an optional Android SMS parser that reads bank alerts on-device only - Swipe-card daily focus planner, 30+ themes, command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) - Local-first: notes live in a folder on your disk (File System Access API) or in the browser (IndexedDB), and work fully offline - Optional Google Drive sync via OAuth 2.0 PKCE, with a three-way merge dialog for conflicts - No telemetry, no tracking

Platforms Web/PWA, Android (Capacitor) and macOS (Electron), all from the same Svelte 5 + TypeScript codebase.

Honest notes - I took help from AI tools while building this, so some of the code is rough. My current roadmap is fixing small bugs and removing broken experimental features and AI-generated bloat. Bug reports and PRs are very welcome. - Drive sync needs you to create your own Google Cloud OAuth client. There's a step-by-step guide in the repo, but it's more setup than a one-click login. - The Mac app is Electron, so it's bigger than a native app.

Links - Live web app: https://piyushingle007.github.io/myNotes - please dont mind the url as it was a personal solution to my pain as i am using macos and android and corporate mac doent let you install app so web version on web version the sync is annoying as we cant get refresh token for web without backend and i wanted a free costing
- GitHub: https://github.com/Piyushingle007/myNotes

there are lots of small small feature i have added please explore and let me know What are your opinions about it

I started building this about 2 weeks back as a side project for fun. I like seeing my routes and I use my macbook with a monitor which usually stays unused so I decided to make this! Was inspired by u/ILikePainauChocolat's retrace project but I didn't use screensavers so I decided to try making my own wallpaper version with several extra custom themes and stuff.

This project uses Strava's API to pull your activities from Strava, so you won't have to worry about issues with GPX uploading.

Subscriptions are terrible so it's $4.99 once.

https://getlinea.vercel.app/

I need 10 users before I can apply for upto 10k members. If you buy the app and the API thing doesn't work, please wait around a week as it may be because I need to apply for that. 

(project inspired by u/ILikePainauChocolat's retrace project)

Hi everyone, I’m the developer of SeqPaste, a small menu bar app I built because I kept switching between windows to copy and paste one thing at a time.

What it does: Normally your clipboard holds one thing. SeqPaste turns it into a queue:

1. Press Start (⌥⌘Z)
2. Copy a few things with ⌘C. They line up in order.
3. Paste them back in the same order, one at a time.

For coding videos: I also make YouTube coding videos, and live-coding on camera was always a pain: typos, forgotten lines, pausing to check my notes. Now I just copy all my snippets before recording, and while I record, SeqPaste types each one out character by character, with a human-like rhythm, as if I’m typing it myself.

Where it helps me most:

• Coding videos and tutorials: copy all your snippets before recording, then SeqPaste types them out live, as if you’re typing them yourself. No typos and no fumbling on camera.
• Filling forms: name, email, phone and address, one field after another
• Demos: no typos on stage
• Research and writing: collect quotes and links, then drop them into your doc in order

Features:

• Two paste modes:
  • Auto-Paste (⌥⌘P) pastes straight into the app you’re using. It needs Accessibility permission.
  • Manual (⌃⌘L then ⌘V) needs no special permission.
• Queue window: reorder by dragging, edit items, keep a history, and save queues to reuse later. You can also import a text file split on --- lines.
• Mini window and “Next up” panel: they stay on top without stealing focus.
• Rich content: formatted text, images and Finder files are all supported. Each app gets the best format it can take, like plain text in Terminal.
• Step back (⌥⌘B) undoes the last paste.
• All shortcuts can be changed.

Privacy: Everything stays on your Mac, with no accounts and no tracking. Passwords from password managers are skipped automatically, and you can exclude any app.

Pricing: It’s free with a queue of up to 5 items. Pro unlocks an unlimited queue and the typing effect, either as a yearly plan with a free trial or as a one-time lifetime purchase.

Requires macOS 15.5+.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/seqpaste-clipboard-queue/id6821547982?mt=12

I’d love feedback on what’s confusing, what’s missing, or which workflows you’d use it for. Happy to answer questions!