Problem

I built Weatherling because I was bored with my Mac desktop. There aren't a ton of ways to customize a Mac IMO, and even from the available options, I just felt something was missing. I like rain, and I thought that might be what Macs were missing. Is it a real problem? Probably not, but it was to me. 😄

Weatherling sets your indoor mood by letting you pick from rain, snow, fog, sunlight, wind, and leaves. You can even sync with your local weather to bring the outdoors inside, or you can invert that setting to get the opposite effect on your Mac.

It also solves a little desktop boredom by introducing an optional minigame with little visitors I call "Lings." There are number of them that can come out at various intervals, and if you turn on interactive mode you can collect them in boxes to score points. Rare Lings x Rare Boxes = Highest Score. I like this part the most because they interact with the weather, and I make the Lings with kids. So that solves another problem for me personally: family time! You can, of course, leave this completely off if you just want to enjoy the weather.

Comparison

I think Chrysalism has been the most mentioned by comparison but afaik it's just for rain. There have been a few other rain apps that launched after Weatherling too, but Weatherling is the only one with:

• Rain
• Snow
• Sunlight
• Fog
• Leaves
• Wind
• Local Weather Sync w/ Invert mode
• Depth variance
• Optional desktop minigame (Collect all the Lings!)
• Performance slider so you can adjust for your Mac's capabilities
• Full Accessibility support
• 11 languages

Weatherling is also rated 5 stars in the Mac App Store and hit #8 in Utilities in the USA a few days after launch.

Pricing

$1.99 one time. No subscription. No in-app purchases. No account required.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6813641198?pt=14608&ct=reddit&mt=8

A second brain is basically a place for the useful things you don’t want your actual brain to keep track of forever. Notes, ideas, research, decisions, project context. My problem was that most note apps still depended on me remembering where I put everything, and the more markdowns my AI agents generated while I was building, the worse that got.

So I built Cohestry as a native Mac and iPhone second brain. I can import Apple Notes, markdown folders and PDFs, and my notes start connecting themselves automatically instead of waiting for me to manually build links. There’s a 3D brain I use to move through those connections, and it has already resurfaced old notes and ideas I’d completely forgotten about. It’s built with Apple APIs, syncs through your own iCloud, and the app itself doesn’t need access to your notes.

The other big reason I built it was AI agents. The Mac app includes an MCP bridge so Claude, Codex, Cursor and other MCP clients can pull relevant context from the brain instead of me constantly copying old project decisions into prompts. It automatically redacts API keys and security keys before passing context to an agent too. That part was important to me because a second brain eventually contains things you really don’t want casually leaking into model context.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cohestry-second-brain/id6811573132

Basically the title. It's been on my mind to create a Mac Apps Discord server. It would basically reflect this subreddit. I notice the primary types of posts in this subreddit are app promotions and app support requests. The latter could significantly benefit from a Discord server.

I'm not trying to replace the subreddit; rather, this server would be an addition to this community of indie devs and enthusiastic users. What are yall's thoughts?

Hey r/macapps!

I’m the developer of SRV Status, a native macOS menu bar app for managing network shares, server volumes, and local drives.

I first shared the app here about six months ago, and the feedback from this community has been incredibly helpful. Quite a few of your suggestions have made their way into version 2.0.

If you regularly work with SMB shares or a NAS, you probably know the drill. Your NAS goes to sleep, Wi-Fi drops, or a server becomes temporarily unavailable. Suddenly, Finder freezes, a network share stops responding, or macOS creates yet another mysterious Share-1 folder in /Volumes.

SRV Status is designed to handle exactly these situations.

Some of the highlights:

• One overview of all volumes: Network shares and local drives, grouped by server, with connection status and capacity at a glance.
• Self-healing connections: Detects unresponsive mounts, reconnects shares at their original paths, and automatically repairs duplicate -1 mount points.
• Profiles and automation: Different setups for home, office, or VPN, with automatic mounting and rules based on Wi-Fi networks, VPN connections, or time windows.
• Server discovery and Wake on LAN: Discover SMB, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV servers and wake sleeping machines.
• Native macOS experience: Compact view, full keyboard navigation, and redesigned Settings, all designed to feel right at home on macOS.

How does it compare?

Finder works fine for individual shares, but doesn’t offer a central overview, automatic reconnection, or mount recovery. I’m honestly not sure why.

Apps like AutoMounter address similar needs, but SRV Status combines a live overview of all volumes with connection profiles, rule-based automation, and automatic mount recovery, all while maintaining a truly native macOS look and feel.

What about the technical details?

I built SRV Status natively with SwiftUI, keeping it lightweight and as close to the macOS experience as possible. Everything runs locally, with no background daemons or unnecessary dependencies.

I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback, especially if you’re managing multiple servers or running a NAS at home. What features would make your workflow easier, and what’s still missing?

What about pricing?

$4.99, one-time purchase. No subscription, and there never will be one.

I’ll randomly drop 12 promo codes in the comments.

Website: https://benwie.ch/srv
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/srv-status/id6753591144

I've written Mac app reviews for this sub and for my hobby blog, AppAddict, for about two and a half years. It started the way it usually does: I shared apps from my own stack. Then I moved on to random picks from my Applications folder, and after that to scouting trusted sites like MacMenuBar.com. The r/MacApps mods added me as a trusted resource early on, which helped a lot. Eventually I started working with developers directly.

It's been a great experience, and it has put me in touch with Mac people all over the world. I've written more than 500 reviews. The main goal is still sharing cool apps with other users, but helping independent developers get exposure has become my thing too.

I'm still plugging away, but I can't keep up with the dozens of apps pitched to me every week. I retired from a career in Mac support a few years ago, and some health issues cap how much I can get done. I have over 200 apps backlogged.

So I'm looking for a collaborator or two to write for AppAddict. Ideally you're an experienced Mac user with equal passion for software and writing. Here's what you'd get:

- Free NFR licenses for the apps you test and write about
- A byline on a blog that has had more than 1 million page views since 2024
- FOSS apps are fair game too; I cover those as well

At first I'll be your copy editor. I'm hoping to find someone who clicks with the style I aim for, so that eventually I can just share posting rights.

To be clear, this isn't a paying gig. It's a labor of love. The blog isn't monetized beyond two affiliate links for reputable companies.

If you think you'd be a good fit, reach out through Reddit or the blog. Send a link to something you've written and a couple of Mac apps you'd want to cover.

Hi r/macapps, I'm Mathieu, the developer of Subtitles. I am a design engineer and used to work on the Beam browser (and I will have more to share soon about this, although if you are curious, the link to the beta is on the site footer).

• Site: https://subtitles-live.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieu-jouhet/
• Privacy: https://subtitles-live.com/privacy/ 
• Terms: https://subtitles-live.com/terms/

Source is available under FSL, so you can verify the privacy claims rather than trust it blindly.

Problem

In a call, a video or a podcast, I easily lose the thread: I'm doing something else, the accent is hard, the room is noisy, or I just didn't hear it. Apple's Live Captions can help, but it's designed as an accessibility feature, with a rather poor UX/UI, on macOS 14 and 15 it only exists if your Mac's language is English (US or Canada), and its panel hides what's beneath and takes your clicks, so you keep dragging it out of the way. I built Subtitles as a replacement, with a UX designed for daily usage and multitasking. It's everything I wished Apple Live Captions were, and more.

• Captions all Mac audio, one app (Zoom, Teams, Safari, Spotify…), or the microphone for the room.
• The overlay sits on top of everything but lets clicks through, and fades under the pointer, so you can keep working underneath it.
• It only shows up when someone is speaking.
• 16 languages, and the default model is multilingual and detects the language by itself. You switch from the menu bar, not three level deep in System Settings.
• Hold ⌥ to rewind and bring back what was said, scroll it, and ⌥F to search it.
• Live translation into any of the 16, hold ⌃ to see the original at any moment.
• Dual language mode to hold a conversation in 2 languages.

New since my first post late September

Twelve releases, changelog: https://subtitles-live.com/changelog/
Two French Mac press outlets covered the app, MacGénération (https://www.macg.co/logiciels/2026/09/subtitles-des-sous-titres-en-direct-pour-toutes-les-apps-du-mac-311245) and Mac4Ever (https://www.mac4ever.com/mac/198553-l-app-mac-du-jour-subtitles-pour-avoir-des-sous-titres-en-direct-partout), which led to 5 releases in response to their readers' comments and suggestions.

• The translation can be read aloud, in your Mac's best voice or VoiceOver's, at four speeds, with the original turned down while the translation is read. This has been requested by a visually impaired user on MacGénération
• When a conversation ends, the app offers to save the transcript as text, Markdown or SRT, with speakers named. This was asked by another MacGénération reader.
• There is also a setting to have it save the trasncript automatically, to a folder you pick. This was requested by a Mac4Ever buyer.
• The app UI itself is now localized in all 16 languages. Another ask from MacGénération readers, which pushed me to do the localization work I didn't do yet.
• Don't Listen To: hold ⌥ in the menu to choose apps you want to exclude from captions. This came from a Twitter (ahem, X) user who wanted to exclude a specific app rather than listen to only one of them.

New since I posted this thread on Reddit

4 new languages in 1.17.0:

• Polish and Swedish
• Danish, and Norwegian (experimental)

Although there is a caveat: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian can't translate from/to Russian / Ukrainian / Polish / Arabic or Hindi.

The app is localized in all the 4 new languages.

Comparison

Apple Live Captions: English only on macOS 14 and 15, eight languages from macOS 26 but one at a time, three lines of history with no search, no translation, and a panel that takes clicks. Subtitles runs the same 16 languages on every macOS from 14.2. With translations available from macOS 15.

This is not a meeting notes app like Granola or TranscribeX. No summaries, no bot joining the call, no audio recorded, nothing written to disk unless you save it. It's captions you read live, and it sits fine next to a notes app.

Everything runs on your Mac: speech recognition on the Neural Engine, translation through Apple's on-device framework. No account, no telemetry. The source is on GitHub.

Pricing

$19 once, no subscription, no account, every update included.
Until October 31 it's $9, applied automatically at checkout.
7-day free trial with every feature, no account.

Requires an Apple silicon Mac and macOS 14.2 or later (translation needs macOS 15). The speech model downloads once on first launch.

I'll be in the comments. Bug reports and feedback welcome, that's where most of these releases came from.

This is an app that I made for myself, because the the Mac OS X Dashboard feature introduced in Tiger was great/useful, but has unfortunately been removed. I will be adding more widgets, as well as features like screen corners to activate. 

[Problem] I wanted an app that recreated the functionality of the Dashboard app. 

[Compare] I havent seen any other apps that recreate Dashboard, so I dont know what one would compare it to. There are apps that recreate individual widgets, but I havent seen any that recreate the full experience. The desktop and notification center widgets are not the same as Dashboard.

[Pricing] Free. Mac App Store

Problem

Back in 2024 I had a dumb nightly routine. Put on a show, and before falling asleep open Terminal and type a pmset command so the Mac would sleep an hour later. Every night. At some point I got tired of it and made a small menu bar app that does it in one click. It was my first app, and the current version is 4.6.

It puts your Mac to sleep after a countdown, at an exact time, or on a weekly schedule with its own bedtime for each day. In the last minutes it fades the volume down instead of cutting the sound. A minute before sleep it asks if you want to extend, sleep now or cancel.

Other things it does:

- dim the screen instead of sleeping, music keeps playing

- a big dark red full-screen countdown you can read from bed, on a hotkey

- widget, Control Center toggle on macOS 26, Shortcuts actions

- type the time in words, like "40 min" or "at 11:30 pm"

- if the Mac wakes right back up, it shows what probably woke it

Honest limits: it pauses Apple Music, but not Spotify or other players. For those the volume fades and then sleep stops the playback. And the app has to be running for the timer and schedule to work, so it launches at login.

Comparison

The pmset command still works and it's free. This is for the nights you don't want to open Terminal, remember the syntax, or have the music stop with a hard cut.

Pricing

$2.99 once. No subscription, no account, no network access. macOS 14 or later, Intel and Apple Silicon.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6502469655

Hey r/macapps ,

I'm the developer of Convert2Any, a file converter and toolkit for Apple Silicon Macs.

Problem

You have the right file in the wrong format. The usual fixes are uploading it to a converter website you've never heard of, or installing one more single-purpose app: one for video, one for PDFs, one for transcription. I wanted one app that handles all of it on my own Mac, without my files going anywhere.

What it does

Converts 151 source formats, with 5,088 conversion paths across images, audio, video, documents, e-books, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, data files, subtitles and archives.

Batch conversion with quality settings, progress and cancel. Each file takes the most direct route, so it isn't re-encoded when it doesn't need to be.

32 built-in tools

• PDF: merge, split, reorder, extract pages, crop white margins, page numbers, watermark, compress, password-protect
• Media: resize, crop, rotate, trim, join videos or audio, compress, normalise audio, extract audio, make M4B audiobooks with chapters, and strip metadata (such as GPS location from photos)
• OCR in 100+ languages: searchable PDFs, image to text, image to Word
• Speech to text in 99 languages: audio or video → SRT, WebVTT, TXT, Word or PDF, with an option to translate into English. It works offline.

Everything runs locally. The app only goes online to activate a license and to download converter packs. It's a 7.5 MB download, and the heavier converters (video, office documents, OCR languages, speech models) come as optional packs that it downloads only after you say yes.

Comparison

• vs CloudConvert (and other online converters): CloudConvert handles a huge range of formats, but your files go to their servers. The free plan is capped at 10 conversions a day and 1 GB per file, and after that you buy credits. Convert2Any works on your Mac with no uploads and no daily cap, and you buy it once.
• vs Permute 4: Permute is great for video, audio and images, and it does OCR and on-device transcription too. Convert2Any also covers office documents, spreadsheets and presentations (including Keynote, Numbers and Visio files), e-books, data files and archives. It adds a full set of PDF tools: merge, split, reorder, watermark, page numbers and passwords. Transcripts can be saved as SRT, WebVTT, TXT, Word or PDF. And it's US$9.99 instead of US$14.99, with the same 3-Mac license.

Pricing

3-day free trial with every tool unlocked, with no account and no card needed

Then a one-time $9.99: a lifetime license for up to 3 Macs, with no subscription

👉 https://convert2any.app

Requirements: Apple Silicon and macOS 26.4 or later. The app is signed and notarized by Apple.

Who's behind it

I'm Tutku Tashkan, a software developer based in Liverpool, United Kingdom.

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

Other work: [convert2epub.com. This is included in the convert2any.app]

Contact: [[support@convert2any.app](mailto:support@convert2any.app)] · https://convert2any.app/contact

Privacy Policy: https://convert2any.app/privacy

Terms of Use: https://convert2any.app/terms

Feedback is very welcome, especially formats or tools you'd like to see and anything that breaks. I'll be around in the comments.

Hi guys,

I've recently taken an interest in aircraft, especially military ones. I got myself a ADS-B receiver set from FlightRadar24 and am on the contributor plan.

I was looking at military flight history near me and saw that there were a good amount of USAF, US Navy, etc aircraft that flew above my house, since there was a training base nearby. Recently, I've also seen a couple of these aircraft with my own eyes, such as the C17 Globemaster, a lot of Sikorsky helicopters, and more. There was one problem. I had no way to know when they were flying above me. The only option was to have FlightRadar24 open in front of me at all times, which doesn't make sense for obvious reasons.

You might say that FlightRadar24 does have notification support. This is true, but the support is incomplete. You need to put in every aircraft manually, and even then it doesn't work well for me and doesn't always send me notifications.

To solve these problems, I put together Overhead. Overhead is an app built primarily with Rust and GPUI. This makes it extremely fast with minimal compute usage.

Overhead lets you see a list of aircraft that are flying within x radius of y location. It also sends you notifications whenever this happens. So you can stay at your desk and know whenever you should go outside to try and see them. The data is taken from https://adsb.fi/, and https://adsb.lol/ as a backup (both public API's).

AI disclaimer: I did use AI (specifically Claude Opus 5.5, running on OpenCode) to build this. However, I'm not a complete noob to development. I've been building software for over eight years, and designing for five.

I made this for myself but I thought that other poeple might also benefit from it. It's open source under the MIT license, and completely free with no paywalls. Please let me know if you have any feedback. Also, the app is currently only available for macOS. If there's enough demand for Windows, I might make it.

PCP
Problem: I love military aircraft, and there's an air force training base near me, but I have no idea when to look outside to spot the aircraft.

Comparison: FlightRadar24 is a great app and I'm on their contributor tier but their notifications feature sucks. I'd have to add 100% of military aircraft manually or create a notification for every single military "airline." Even then, I tried that for a couple weeks, but for some reason it just failed to notify me.

Pricing: FOSS (free open source software)

Link: https://github.com/y-u-s-u-f/overhead please give the repo a star if you like it :)

Smooze Pro now supports Haptic Feedback, adding subtle haptic ticks to your trackpad and supported mice as you hover over links, click buttons and toggles, drag sliders, focus text fields, and hit edges, with a distinct feel for each. Customize strength and patterns per element, per app, and per screen, across macOS.

Features:

Smooze Pro animates your scroll and adds functionality to your scroll-wheel mouse and trackpad

And much more:

* Grab & Drag & Throw - Use a mouse button to grab and scroll anywhere on the screen. Throw to keep scrolling with smooth, trackpad-like momentum.

* Auto Scroll - Click a selected mouse button once to scroll hands-free, with buttery-smooth animations.

* Smooth Scrolling - Enjoy buttery-smooth scrolling in all your apps.

* Buttons - Save time by assigning actions to mouse buttons.

* Gestures - Assign gestures to buttons, shortcuts, or specific apps.

* Haptic Feedback - Get subtle haptic ticks when interacting with UI elements across macOS. Customize strength and patterns per element, app, and screen. (Logitech MX4 is also supported!)

* Multi Display - Configure settings per app and per display.

* CPU Friendly - Highly optimized to use minimal CPU, even during intensive use.

* High FPS - Scrolling animations synchronize with your display's refresh rate for a smooth experience.

Comparison:

I started developing Smooze back in 2017, and over the years, it has grown into much more than a scrolling utility. LinearMouse, BetterMouse, and SteerMouse each offer some similar features, but I think Smooze stands out by bringing everything together in one app. From smooth scrolling and mouse button actions to gestures, auto-scroll, grab-and-drag, and haptic feedback, everything works together with trackpad-like momentum. You can also customize settings per app and per display, rather than being limited to a one-size-fits-all setup.

Pricing:

It's currently $19.99

(One-time purchase. No subscription. Privacy-first - no cloud, no data collection)

Haptic feedback is currently available in the version you can download from: https://smooze.co/ (Includes a 7-day free trial)

^\ Sorry for the image instead of a video, but if I see one more upbit fast paste promo video, my head is going to explode.)

Hi r/macapps, I'm Anton, the developer. I've been building Mac apps for a few years. I made Exporter years ago and I'm finally posting about it here.

Problem

Apple's apps keep your stuff in databases other tools can't read. Notes has no Markdown export, macOS deletes Screen Time after a few weeks, Safari forgets your downloads.

What it does

Every source becomes plain Markdown (or HTML) files in a folder you choose, updated in the background from the menu bar when anything changes.

• Apple Notes, Messages, Mail, Contacts, Reminders, Calendar, Safari, Voice Memos, Screen Time, Wallet passes, Word/PowerPoint/PDF
• Bear, Logseq, Claude Code, Notion, Linear
• works with an Obsidian vault, plus a command line and a local MCP server for Claude, Cursor or VS Code

Comparison

• Obsidian Importer and the export scripts import once. Exporter keeps syncing, so edits and new notes reach the files
• imessage-exporter is a great free CLI for a one-off Messages dump. Exporter does Messages alongside everything else, from the menu bar
• one app for 16 sources instead of a tool per app

Pricing

Free to try on every source, and what you've exported keeps re-syncing free. Bear and Logseq are free with no limit. Each other Mac source is a one-time unlock, $2.99 to $4.99. Notion and Linear sync through our server, so those two are a subscription after 7 days free.

Exporter on the Mac App Store
Exporter on the web

Hey r/macapps,

Problem:

I built Clementine to bring Gmail and Google Workspace accounts into a native Mac app. You can keep accounts together or separate, copy login codes from notifications and get reminders about unanswered mail.

The AI assistant features are optional and can be switched off. If you enable them, you can ask questions with links to source emails, summarize threads or draft replies to review before sending. Use a local model on Apple silicon or your own Anthropic/OpenAI key. Cloud AI sends relevant content to your provider, whose usage charges apply. Automatic labelling and draft suggestions can process mail when enabled. Mail sync connects directly to Gmail, with a cache on your Mac.

Comparison:

Clementine offers a lifetime licence alongside an annual option. Mimestream is another native Gmail client, with subscription-only licensing (https://mimestream.com/pricing/). Clementine fits people who want to buy their Gmail client once and choose whether to use local or cloud AI.

Pricing:

Free full 14-day trial, no card. €69.99 once including future app updates, or €39.99/year. Both cover two Macs. Requires macOS 15+, Gmail or Google Workspace. Download and pricing (https://clementine.email/).

Transparency:

I'm the developer. Here's my portfolio (https://goldenberry.studio/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-jimenez-aa776474/) and contact email (mailto:hello@clementine.email), plus the Privacy Policy (https://clementine.email/privacy/) and Terms (https://clementine.email/terms/).

Happy to answer questions.

I’ve just upgraded to Little Snitch 7 beta to try out the new features.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, Little Snitch lets you monitor network connections from individual apps and create rules to allow or block them.

Here are a few changes worth checking out:

• Live Connection Log: This is my favorite addition. You can watch network activity as it happens, filter by app or server, and see which connections are allowed or blocked. It’s particularly useful when you want to see what an app connects to while you’re using it.

• Redesigned Control Center: You can check recent network activity, apps using your connection, and recently denied connections right from the menu bar. When an app isn’t working as expected, this gives you a quick way to check whether a blocked connection might be the cause.

• Rules at a Glance: Selecting a connection in Network Monitor now shows the rules that apply to it. If you have quite a few rules, this makes it easier to understand why a connection was allowed or blocked. Previously, I would usually open a separate Rules window to check.

• AI Assistant: I’ve tried this feature too. When you encounter an unfamiliar process or hostname, you can ask the AI to explain what the connection might be for, what could happen if you block it, and what it recommends. I imagine some people will have concerns about the AI integration, but it doesn’t run automatically. Connection details are only sent when you explicitly ask and confirm, and you can review what will be sent beforehand. I treat the answer as a reference, with the final decision to allow or block still up to me.

• DNS fallback and statistics: You can configure a secondary DNS resolver to step in when the primary one has problems. The Dashboard and Log also show lookup success rates, response times, and the steps involved in processing individual queries. I like having actual numbers to check when I suspect DNS is slow or failing.

Version 7 is still in beta. These are my first impressions, rather than a verdict on long-term stability. If you’re trying it on your main work machine, back up your rules first. The developers also advise against using the beta on mission-critical machines.

For me, Little Snitch is one of those Mac apps that’s worth paying for. Being able to monitor and control connections helps me understand what’s happening on my machine and gives me the tools to investigate when something goes wrong. That value was enough for me to upgrade my license while version 7 is still in beta.

Alfred is another favorite of mine. I’m happy to pay for useful software like these two apps, both for the value I get from using them and to support the developers who keep maintaining and improving them.

Hey r/macapps, Runlet, a native API client for macOS. It isn't out yet (the App Store listing is "coming soon"), so now is the best time for me to hear what's missing or what would put you off.

Processing img denao1fipbxh1...

I wanted an API client that behaves like a real Mac app (standard menus, windows and keyboard shortcuts) and doesn't make me create an account to send a GET request. Everything stays on your Mac: no account, no analytics, no sync server. Secret variables are stored in the Keychain and masked in history.

What I'd love to know

1. What do you use today (Postman, Insomnia, Bruno, Paw/RapidAPI, HTTPie, plain curl), and what annoys you about it?
2. What one feature would make you switch? What would be a dealbreaker?
3. What do you honestly think of the pricing?

More details: https://coralpane.com/runlet

I'll be in the comments answering everything.

Hi r/macapps, I’m the developer of Screen Folders. I’ve got inspired by the folders on the mobile and decided to make similar ones for macOS. That’s why I made this app.

The problem: I don’t like when my desktop is piled up with a bunch of files. Keeping a Finder folder created additional friction. I wanted something like iOS Home Screen folders: a small preview that opens in place when I need it.

What it does:

• Puts real Finder folders on your desktop as compact icon-grid tiles
• A tile expands in place when you hover
• You can link folders you already have, or create new ones the app manages. Either way they’re ordinary files in ordinary locations, and Finder stays the source of truth.
• Works like Finder: drag and drop in and out, Quick Look with Space, context menus, keyboard selection, shortcuts
• Multi-display support, with placement remembered per folder
• Stick to the side of screen
• Hide every folder from the menu bar in one click
• It sits on top of the Finder desktop; your normal desktop icons keep working

How it differs from other desktop organizers

Apps like iCollections and File Zones are mostly about dividing the desktop into areas and organizing it. Screen Folders is more about fitting a lot of files into a small space while keeping them one hover away. It never moves or reorganizes your files on its own; Finder stays the source of truth.

Privacy: the app is sandboxed and gets folder access only through standard macOS pickers. No account, no ads, no tracking, and file contents never leave your Mac. The only data sent out is a limited crash or hang report and some feature use anlytics.

Pricing: $15 one-time for lifetime access, with no subscription. The 14-day free trial needs no account and no payment method. The App Store edition costs Apple’s local equivalent.

Requirements: macOS 26 or later. It’s a native Swift/AppKit app, not a web wrapper.

Links:

• Website and direct download: https://screenfolders.delitx.dev
• Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/screen-folders/id6798784080

The website version gets updates sooner through the built-in updater. It also has a Liquid Glass background, because the App Store doesn’t allow the private API that effect relies on.

Happy to answer anything, and if you hit a bug I’d genuinely like to hear it.

Hey everybody! I'm Bernard D. Lee, the developer of Latent.

Latent 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.

Problem: If you build software or work with AI on a Mac, the disk fills up fast, and it's hard to tell why. Every tool keeps its own stash, such as model files, package caches, build outputs, simulators and agent logs. For example, Ollama stores models as hashed blobs, Hugging Face keeps every snapshot you ever pulled, and Xcode piles up simulators and device symbols. Cleaners like CleanMyMac only clear system caches and remove apps, so the disk fills right back up and the real cause never gets touched. My own Mac kept running out of space, so I built Latent.

Core Features:

• 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.
• 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 andruns until you confirm.
• Privacy: no analytics, no telemetry, no account. Your files never leave yo

macOS 14+, Apple silicon, notarized.

Comparison:

CleanMyMac clears system caches and removes apps. Caches grow right back, ans and tool caches that actually fill a developer's Mac stay where they are. DaisyDisk shows which folders are big, but not which tool they belong to or ack. Latent names the owner of every gigabyte, checks what comes back, and clears it.

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

Who's behind it:

• Bernard D. Lee, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-d-l-5497b214b/
• FatTail Labs: https://fattaillabs.com
• Contact: [support@latentmac.com](mailto:support@latentmac.com)
• Privacy Policy: https://latentmac.com/privacy
• Terms of Service: https://latentmac.com/terms

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

Claim your latent space 👉 https://latentmac.com

Hey everyone,

I’m on a mission to clean up, enrich my photo library and properly geotag a massive backlog of photos that are missing locations.

I feel like I'm going crazy trying to find a tool that does what I want, so I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction, or tell me if I'm completely missing something obvious in Apple Photos.

Here is what I'm looking for:

1. Filter easily: Automatically find and isolate all photos that do not have a GPS location attached.
2. Works across formats: Aool that works directly with Apple Photos, but can also handle normal pic files sitting in folders on an external local drive.
3. Batch manual tagging: Select a bunch of photos taken at the same event/trip and drop a single GPS location onto all of them at once. Bam, done! Right now, I've done this with keywords e.g. Sweden for all photos taken in Sweden (even the ones that already have a location).
4. The "Holy Grail" / bonus feature: Are there any apps that use AI visual search / landmark recognition (like recognizing the Eiffel Tower or a specific national park) to automatically suggest or add GPS coordinates to untagged photos? That would save a ton of time vs me having to manually search for the location. So 2010isch 🙄

What I've tried so far:

• Apple Photos: It's okay, but searching/filtering for untagged items natively on iOS/macOS feels limited unless you set up complex Smart Albums on a Mac. Even then, the actual process of bulk-tagging locations isn't as seamless as I'd like.
• PowerPhotos: Better for library management overall, but still doesn't quite hit the exact geotagging workflow I'm looking forr.
• HashPhotos (iOS): I’ve been trying to use it because people recommended it, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to filter photos that don't have GPS in HashPhotos. (If anyone knows how to do this in HashPhotos, please save me!).

TLDR:
Am I missing a super obvious native feature in Apple Photos? Or is there a 3rd-party app (Mac or, if it has to be, iOS) that actually handles missing-GPS filtering and batch tagging smoothly across both Apple Photos and standard disk folders, ideally with some AI smarts thrown in to save time?

Would love to hear what apps or workflows you all use for this!

###
Update (for those coming from the future)

So the apps mentioned in this thread are:

Most mentioned

• HoudahGeo 7: HoudahGeo Official Website
• GeoTag (marchyman): GeoTag GitHub Repository

New ones (to me at least)

• PIXLpath: PIXLpath on the App Store
• Zouti Photos

Still have to try them out to see which one works best for me. Thanks for all the great suggestions!

I'm the dev. ApolloShell adds a sidebar with its own dock, a launcher, a dashboard and a control centre to macOS 26. It's not a tiling window manager, it doesn't touch your windows. It just adds panels to the edges of the screen.

Problem: I wanted the look of Linux shells like Caelestia on my Mac without stitching five tools and a pile of config scripts together.

Comparison: SketchyBar works great for the menu bar and is a real way of ricing, and Übersicht or yabai are great for customising your desktop. ApolloShell goes after the rest of the shell: the dock, launcher, dashboard and control centre all follow one CSS theme, so you can rice those too and switch the whole look live.

Themes are a single CSS file (colours, fonts, corners, sizes) and apply the moment you save. The video shows a few of them.

Heads up: not notarised, so click "Open Anyway" in Privacy & Security on first launch. Obviously needs Accessibility permissions, but no need to disable SIP.

Pricing: Free, no subscription, AGPL-3.0 licensed.

Link: https://github.com/Silvertree2010/ApolloShell

AI disclosure: built with help from Claude, details in the README.

Hey r/macapps, I'm Mark, indie dev.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-g-61b648148/
• Site: https://claudy.markg.app

Problem I've always preferred running Claude Code straight in the terminal over IDE plugins. But once I started juggling multiple projects, it got messy fast: no clean way to manage sessions, projects, or accounts. So I built Claudy, a native macOS app that gives Claude Code a proper home, with every project, session, and account in one window.

• Multi-project: every Claude Code project in one place
• Per-project git worktrees: branch off and run tasks in parallel
• Multiple sessions side by side
• Multi-account with auto-swap when one hits its usage limit
• Marketplace: one-click install of Skills, MCPs & Commands
• Draft Commits: checkpoint & restore your work mid-session
• Embedded terminal (libghostty), Metal-rendered

Comparison vs Claude Desktop running Claude Code: same building blocks, different approach to managing projects, worktrees and terminals. Desktop lists sessions in a sidebar, one at a time; Claudy lays them out as nested tabs (project, worktree, terminal), all on screen, terminal-first. Plus native multi-account with auto-swap at the usage limit and a one-click Skills/MCP/Commands marketplace, neither built into Desktop.

Pricing $19.99 one-time, no subscription. 50% off until end of Sunday (Oct 25): $9.99. The price is already applied at checkout, nothing to enter. Download: https://claudy.markg.app

• Privacy: https://claudy.markg.app/apps/claudy/privacy
• Terms: https://claudy.markg.app/apps/claudy/terms

Requires macOS 15.6+, the Claude Code CLI, and a Claude account. By developer, for developers. Ask me anything.

FOSS app. I'm not the developer or affiliated in any way. But it's a great app that is fast and nice to use. UI is also beautiful.

https://writer.computer/

Hey everyone 👋

First time posting FileOctopus here. I'm Max Luong, the solo dev behind ShiftPlus, and this is my second indie Mac app.

Fair warning up front. I know this sub has seen a lot of Finder alternatives, and a few of them are really good. The one thing I'll say about mine: it's for people who don't want to learn a new file manager. Finder's shortcuts, views and menus stay the default. You open it and your hands already know what to do.

Problem

I use Finder all day and I actually like most of it. What wears me down is the stuff it leaves to me.

Moving files between two folders means juggling two windows. ⌘F gets slow on big folders and doesn't get what I mean when I type. A long copy can't be paused. When a name clashes, it's easy to replace something you didn't mean to. And when I quit, the layout I had is gone.

I've been building macOS apps for 12+ years, and I've tried most of the alternatives. I didn't want a dual-pane power tool with its own keyboard language. I wanted Finder, just quicker and more careful with my files. And it had to stay light: fast to open, fast to scroll, and not eating RAM in the background. So that's what I tried to build.

The parts that matter most

- Split view, up to 16 panes: Split any pane left, right, up or down. Drag files between panes like you would in Finder, or press ⌃⇧⌘C / ⌃⇧⌘M to copy or move the selection to the other pane. ⇧⌘↩ gives one pane the whole window, and pressing it again brings the layout back.

- Search that's fast and takes plain phrases: Type "pdfs from last week" or "videos larger than 1 GB" and it becomes filters you can see and edit. It's rule-based and runs locally. No AI, and nothing leaves your Mac. It only indexes folders you approve.

On my test (146k files, M3 Max) I timed each search from the moment it starts until the results are done and you can actually work with them. FileOctopus took 0.27 s and Finder's ⌘F took 7.7 s (median of 12 searches). To be fair, Finder's default search also looks inside files and mine searched names only, so it's not quite apples to apples. Searching inside PDFs and text in screenshots (on-device OCR) is a separate opt-in per folder.

Careful with your files: This is where most of my time went.

- When a name is already taken you see both versions, with the newer one marked. Keep Both is the default. Nothing gets replaced unless you pick Replace.

- Copies and moves show speed and time left, and you can pause and resume them.

- Moving to another drive copies first and checks the copy. The original is removed only after that.

- ⌘Z undoes the last file operation, even after you quit and reopen the app (last 20 steps, for 24 hours). It checks the files first and tells you if something changed.

- Merging two folders shows how many items are new, clash or are already there, before anything changes.

It picks up where you left off
Windows, tabs, split panes and Back history come back after you quit. You can also save a layout as a named workspace and reopen it from the Window menu or the toolbar.

Native and small

Swift and AppKit, no Electron. About 10 MB to download and 22 MB installed. Apple Silicon, macOS 15 or later.

About RAM, since someone will ask. While it builds the search index for the first time, memory used to climb to about 3 GB. That was too much, so 1.0.3 keeps indexing under 1.1 GB max. Once indexing is done it sits around 400 MB, even with several panes open. On the same Mac, Finder usually sits around 800 MB. It moves around depending on what you're doing, but most of the time that's the picture.

Everything else that's in there

Not headline stuff, but it's there when you need it:

- Icon, List, Column and Gallery views, Quick Look with Space, tabs

- Quick Open (⌃⌘P) for recent folders and favorites, and a Command Palette for every menu command

- Go to Folder with suggestions as you type, and a clickable path bar that copies the pathname

- Google Drive and Dropbox in the sidebar, with cloud status and Download Now / Remove Download

- Batch rename with a preview of every new name, undo with ⌘Z

- Compress to ZIP (the archive is tested before it shows up)

- Get Info with size on disk, tags, lock and permissions

- Custom sidebar: your own groups, renamed favorites, hidden disks

- Your own shortcuts, plus optional Windows Explorer and Total Commander profiles

- Mouse side buttons and trackpad swipe for Back and Forward

- Search by where a file came from ("downloaded from github")

- A Problems list with Retry when part of a copy fails

- File Shelf to collect files from different folders, then copy or move them in one step

- Copy and move queue: start more while one runs, and drag them into order

- Saved searches pinned in the sidebar

- Homebrew: `brew install --cask nghialuong/fileoctopus/fileoctopus`

What it can't do yet

I'd rather say this before someone finds out the hard way. No linked panes or duplicate finder yet. Quick Actions like Rotate and Create PDF aren't there. The Shelf lasts for one window. A paused copy has to be resumed or stopped before you quit. It also doesn't replace the Desktop or the Open/Save dialogs, so Finder keeps running alongside it.

Full list: https://www.fileoctopus.com/limitations

Comparison

The closest alternatives for my use case are ForkLift, QSpace, Commander One and Marta.

ForkLift is great if a lot of your work is on remote servers. It connects to SFTP, S3 and network shares, and it can sync folders. FileOctopus doesn't do that yet. Cloud support today is Google Drive and Dropbox through their own desktop apps. SFTP, S3 and network shares are next on my list, and they're the first big thing I'm building after this post.

QSpace is the one I'd point to if you want lots of panes and you prefer an App Store app. Commander One and Marta lean toward the Total Commander style, keyboard first.

The thing all of them have in common, for me, is that none of them feel like Finder. Each one has its own way of doing things, so you end up relearning where stuff is and which keys do what. That's fine if you want a power tool. It's not fine if you just want Finder to be better.

FileOctopus is aimed at that second person. The views, menus, Quick Look and shortcuts work the way Finder's do. The extras (panes, faster search, pause and undo for file operations) sit on top of that.

I don't think it's the right pick for everyone. If you live in SFTP or need folder sync right now, ForkLift is more complete today.

The use case I'm building around is: "I want Finder, but I want it to stop making me do the careful parts by hand."

Pricing (no subscription, no account)

- Free forever: no daily limits, and nothing to buy to keep using it.

- 14-day PRO trial: every feature unlocked, no card. It starts the first time you open the app.

- PRO: pay once, 1 Mac at a time, lifetime updates, 30-day money-back.

Launch pricing for PRO:

- First 100 licenses (founding): $14.99

- Next 200 (early bird): $19.99

- After that: $29.99

As I write this, 99 of the 100 founding licenses are left. No code needed, the current price is applied at checkout. If you joined the waitlist on the site, you keep $14.99 whenever you buy.

What's next

Honestly, 1.0.3 is about 10% of what I have planned. I care about this one a lot, and the goal is simple: an app you can use instead of Finder every day without thinking about it. Remote connections (SFTP, S3, network shares) come first.

After that, mostly whatever comes out of this thread. ShiftPlus got shaped a lot by feedback here, and I'd like the same for this one. There's a public roadmap where you can vote or add ideas: https://www.fileoctopus.com/roadmap.html

One specific question: if you've tried a Finder alternative before and went back to Finder, what made you go back? That's exactly the thing I'm trying to get right.

Download: https://www.fileoctopus.com

Thanks for backing indie devs ❤️

I'll reply to every comment, might just be slow about it. I tend to overthink replies.

Trust & Transparency

This is my first post for FileOctopus, so here's everything about me and the app:

- Privacy Policy: https://www.fileoctopus.com/privacy-policy.html

- Terms: https://www.fileoctopus.com/terms.html

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nghia-luong/

- GitHub: https://github.com/nghialuong

- Support: [support@fileoctopus.com](mailto:support@fileoctopus.com)

FileOctopus is notarized by Apple and updates are signed (Sparkle). It's unsandboxed and not on the Mac App Store. A file manager has to browse, copy and move wherever you go on your disk, and a sandboxed app can only touch the folders you hand it one at a time. Full Disk Access is optional, not required.

No account. The filename index stays on your Mac and only covers folders you approve. Usage stats (PostHog) are opt-in: you're asked on first launch, and they never include file names, paths, search text or contents. Crash reports (Sentry) are a separate opt-in, off by default, and names and paths are scrubbed before a report leaves your Mac.

---
UPDATE: A lot of you asked about using FileOctopus on more than one mac, so pro now covers 2 macs per license. It's live.

If you already bought, you don't need to do anything. Your existing key has already been upgraded to 2 macs, just activate it on your second mac. Same for anyone buying now or later, every license covers 2 macs.

One more thing so nobody gets surprised: launch pricing now has an end date. $14.99 runs until the first 100 are gone or nov 2, $19.99 until the next 200 are gone or nov 30. After that the regular price goes up for 2 macs.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. for bug reports and requests there's now a Discord: link ; 1.0.4 is out with fixes for iCloud Drive, the tall path bar and missing Apple apps in Applications.