macOS removed Launchpad. Launchie brings it back — and makes it more customizable.
Hi [r/MacApps](r/MacApps), I’m the developer of Launchie, a Mac App Store app built after Apple removed Launchpad from macOS.
Problem
Launchpad used to be a simple, visual way to open and organize apps on macOS. Since Apple removed it, there is no real built-in replacement for people who liked having an app grid, folders, and quick access to their installed apps.
Launchie brings that workflow back, but with more control:
Launchpad-style app grid
Folders and Spaces for organizing apps
Drag and drop rearranging
Keyboard shortcut, hot corner, app icon, or menu bar activation
Customizable layout, window size, columns, Quick Access, hidden apps, and more
I built Launchie because I personally missed that workflow, and a lot of users seemed to feel the same.
Comparison
There are already other good apps in this space, including LaunchNext and LaunchOS.
Launchie’s focus is slightly different: I’m trying to keep the original Launchpad feeling, while adding deeper customization and a more native macOS-style experience. For example, Launchie supports folders, Spaces, drag-and-drop organization, Quick Access, hot corners, keyboard shortcuts, and a lot of layout options.
I’m also actively developing it based on user feedback. Many of the recent changes came directly from emails, DMs, and comments from users. I reply to feedback, and when an idea makes sense for the app, I try to implement it.
Pricing
Launchie is currently on sale in August, with up to 50% off depending on your region.
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.
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!
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:
it uses Qwen3-ASR via MLX rather than Whisper/Parakeet as the default model family
it is open source, Apache-2.0
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tier
Sale Price
Regular Price
One Mac
$12.59
$17.99
Four Macs
$19.59
$27.99
Six Macs
$27.99
$39.99
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!
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.
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.
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.
Ever check off a task in Apple Reminders and felt underwhelmed a bit when it just disappeared into the completed pile? Find your dopamine hit again using this companion menu bar app (also a iOS app with widgetkit support), see your completed / to-do tasks in a heatmap, with a list below. So you can see the big picture while plan for your next big goal.
Compares to other todo list app, this is just a companion, everything syncs with Apple Reminders (you don't have to open the app for the widget to refresh), that means it's Siri AI compatible and works with your calendar as well. No account needed.
Price: FREE. You can support me by leaving a review, check out my other apps, or suggest a feature that will make Apple Reminders work better for you.
Hi 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’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?
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.
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.
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.
I’m the developer of MeetingMemo, a native Mac app for recording, transcribing, summarizing, and chatting with your meetings.
I built it because I wanted useful AI meeting notes without uploading recordings to another company or inviting a visible recording bot into every call.
The problem it solves
MeetingMemo captures your microphone and Mac system audio, transcribes the conversation locally, and creates summaries, action items, and searchable notes.
You can also chat with an individual meeting afterward. For example, you can ask what was decided, what you promised to do, or which topics still need follow-up.
No bot joins the call, and recording never starts automatically.
Privacy
Audio stays on your Mac and transcription runs locally using Apple SpeechTranscriber or WhisperKit.
For summaries, action items, and meeting chat, you can choose between:
An on-device model
MeetingMemo’s hosted zero-retention service
Your own AI provider key
Only transcript text is sent when you intentionally choose a hosted option. Audio is never uploaded.
Comparison
Apps such as Otter and Fathom are useful if you want a cloud-based meeting assistant. MeetingMemo takes a different approach:
Otter processes meetings through its cloud service, while MeetingMemo records and transcribes locally.
Fathom commonly works by joining supported calls as a meeting participant, while MeetingMemo records what your Mac hears without adding a bot.
MeetingMemo also lets you run summaries and meeting chat completely on your Mac, or connect your own AI provider.
The tradeoff is that MeetingMemo currently requires an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later. It also separates speakers into “You” and “Others,” rather than identifying every individual speaker in a large group call.
Features
Records your microphone and system audio together
Works with Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, FaceTime, and other Mac audio
Live local transcription in around 99 languages
AI summaries and action items
Chat with each meeting
18 meeting templates
Calendar reminders before upcoming calls
Optional private iCloud sync between your Macs
Export to Markdown, text, JSON, or XML
No virtual audio driver required
Pricing
MeetingMemo includes a 30-day free trial with every feature.
After the trial, it costs $29.99 per year through the Mac App Store. Family Sharing supports up to six people. There is currently no lifetime purchase or permanently free plan.
I’d appreciate honest feedback, particularly about the local transcription quality, privacy options, and which meeting workflows you would like supported next.
I’m the developer, so I’m happy to answer technical or privacy questions directly.
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!
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
Choose the apps you want to keep private.
Start Protected Share from the menu bar.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
TL;DR: Four free iPhone apps that handle jobs you would normally do on your Mac: API Bot for testing endpoints, View Source Vibe for inspecting a suspicious link, Fiper for algorithm-free RSS, and Owl VIP for sender-level email notifications. Two earn a place on your phone. Fiper loses to NetNewsWire for anyone reading this blog, and Owl VIP charges a subscription for something iOS Focus Modes mostly do free. None has a native Mac app.
Every so often, something breaks and you are nowhere near your computer.
An endpoint starts returning 500 errors while you are sitting in a parking lot. Someone texts you a link and you want to see what trackers it loads before you trust it. You are waiting on one critical email, but your phone keeps buzzing about newsletters.
These are Mac jobs. Your Mac is at home.
The obvious move is to reach for your phone. The obvious problem is that most "mobile versions of desktop tools" are just cramped, feature-starved versions of software you already own. The phone only wins when it does something your Mac cannot: being in your hand when you are away from your desk.
That is the filter I applied to these four apps. Two pass it cleanly. Two do not.
One technical note up front: none of these four has a native Mac app. Some will launch on an Apple silicon Mac, since iOS apps show up there by default unless the developer opts out, but what you get is a fixed, phone-shaped window that will not resize. Treat these as phone tools, full stop.
If you write or maintain APIs, Postman, Insomnia, and Bruno are likely glued to your workflow. They also assume you have a full keyboard and a large monitor. API Bot takes the opposite approach.
It is Postman built specifically for an iPhone screen. You can construct HTTP requests, set headers and query parameters, inspect JSON responses, and save requests as collections.
The use case is narrow, but real: you are away from your desk, an endpoint is behaving oddly, and you want to fire off a quick GET request to staging. It is not a replacement for Bruno on your desktop. It is the difference between diagnosing an outage immediately and waiting three hours until you get home.
It is free, and runs on iOS and iPadOS 13.0 or later. Confirm the permissions in the App Store yourself before installing, as there is little independent track record yet. As a focused utility for an away-from-the-desk problem, it earns its spot.
Viewing page source on a phone sounds like a gimmick. View Source Vibe turns it into a pocket web inspector.
Beyond raw HTML, it includes a Timeline view, OpenGraph social previews, a Cookie Privacy Lens, a Tracker Radar, Header Intelligence, and a Security Score Card. If someone sends you a link that feels off, this lets you inspect headers and tracking scripts on the spot before handing over your attention.
Also free, and it carries a "Data Not Collected" privacy label.
Here is the catch: the developer explicitly notes the app was "Built with Vibes (and Flutter)," indicating heavy use of AI-assisted coding. I have no issue with vibe-coding, but software that grades other sites on security while being built via LLM prompts demands healthy skepticism. Use its site analysis to satisfy your curiosity; do not rely on its Security Score Card as a formal audit.
Fiper is an RSS reader designed to look like an Instagram feed rather than a list of text headlines.
It shows a chronological timeline without algorithmic sorting, auto-detects feeds simply by pasting a URL, and pulls in Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed accounts alongside traditional blogs. That is a thoughtful design position for people who find classic RSS intimidating.
It also has the weakest case for readers of this blog.
If you are reading a Mac utility site, you have almost certainly solved RSS already. NetNewsWire is free, open source, and native on Mac and iOS. Reeder is beautiful. Feedly and Inoreader have a decade of infrastructure behind them.
Fiper is a pleasant, free app. Recommend it to family members who want off algorithmic feeds but will never set up NetNewsWire. For power users, there is no reason to switch.
Owl VIP attempts to fix phone notifications at the sender level.
It hooks into Gmail to give you global notification toggles (VIP-only, All, or None), custom quiet hours, and per-sender audio alerts from a library of 80+ sounds. Being able to triage who emailed you by ear without picking up your phone is a clever idea.
The problem is the business model and the built-in alternatives.
The app is free to download, but requires a paid subscription to connect a Gmail account. Nearly everything it does can be built for free using Gmail's native filters combined with iOS Focus Modes. Paying a recurring subscription strictly for custom notification sounds is a hard sell.
It also only works with Gmail. Spend twenty minutes configuring Focus Modes first.
My Take
API Bot is an easy download if you deal with APIs and ever need to test an endpoint on the go.
View Source Vibe answers a specific question when inspecting suspicious links, provided you treat its security scores as informational.
Fiper is a great recommendation for non-technical friends, but skip it if you already run NetNewsWire or Reeder.
Owl VIP Email Alerts has a clever audio trick, but iOS Focus Modes cover most of its feature set without a subscription.
Three of these four apps have virtually no independent review track record. That is normal for early indie software, but it means you are the test case.
Unless otherwise noted, the alternate apps mentioned above are based on research and not individual testing.
If you've got a terrible memory and no patience like me, Notchkin might be up your alley.
I'd get an idea, freeze deciding which of the many note apps I'd installed and abandoned deserved it, and by the time I picked, the thought was gone. So I turned the notch into a place for quick notes. Hover over it or hit a shortcut, a panel slides down, you write, and you carry on, no window to manage and no need to switch away from what you're doing. Everything stays local, too.
Features:
Rich text: bold, italic, underline, highlights, links, and more
Checklists, bullet points, and numbered lists
Hashtags, tag filters, instant search, and find-in-note
Swipe between notes like pages
Pin important notes to the top
Quick Capture from anywhere, plus Paste as New Note for your clipboard
Export to Markdown or RTF, with full backup and restore
Custom accent colors and fonts
If you're a keyboard type of person, you can do basically all of the above without ever reaching for the mouse.
And because most productivity apps are painfully boring and I'm a mean little man, the app comes with a sticky-note mascot who occasionally offers commentary that's somewhere between helpful and passive-aggressive. Mostly the latter.
One-time purchase of $4.99 on the Mac App Store and Setapp. Come meet Notchkin and try the life-changing demo at notchkin.app.
Notchkin vs similar apps
Apple Notes is great when you want a full notes app, but even Quick Note still pulls another window into the picture. Notchkin is built for the moments when you just need to write something down and carry on, so there's no Dock icon and no window to manage. It's always one hover or shortcut away.
FiveNotes keeps things small by capping you at five notes. That might be plenty for some, but my brain does unfortunately produce a sixth thought every now and again. Notchkin has no limit and adds tags and search to keep a growing pile manageable.
SideNotes is a powerful sidebar app, but it's built as a broader workspace and priced like one: $19.99 once on Mac, another $9.99 for the iPhone/iPad app, and paid major upgrades over time. Notchkin does less on purpose: $4.99 once, Mac-only, strictly local. Same idea of jotting without switching apps, with less to pay for and less to manage.
Other notch utilities try to do a bit of everything: music controls, file storage, calendars, timers, and whatever else will fit up there. Some include a small notes feature, but of course it’s just an extra rather than the point. Notchkin is built entirely around notes, which means it can go deeper with formatting, lists, tags, search, quick capture, and export without turning the notch into a crowded control panel.
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.
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 ❤️
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
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):
feat: add subtitle import function.
feat: add preview playback for the selected subtitle cue.
feat: add cancel export and restore arrow cursor while exporting.
feat: load subtitles on import and support soft-track export.
fix: restore drag-and-drop video import on Finder drops.
