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A running list of the Mac apps I reach for. Every time I reinstall macOS, I forget to grab one or two of these and only notice once I actually need them (I don’t always restore from Time Machine). One quick piece of advice: if an app has a standalone (non-MAS) version, buy that one — the sandbox and Apple-ID coupling on the MAS version often eat into functionality and flexibility.
Updated 2018-10-07 Switched image host, refreshed images.
Updated 2018-08-10 I subscribed to Setapp a while back and quickly realised I’d already bought a bunch of the apps on it. Sigh. That said, if you use Ulysses or MoneyWiz 3.0, a Setapp subscription pays for itself fast.
Office
I can’t really get work done without these.
AirMail
My mail client. What sold me on AirMail is its third-party service integration.
Slack
Where most of my day-to-day work chat happens. I’m not in love with the overall UX, but the integrations are powerful and let you automate a lot.
Fantastical 2
My calendar app. Seeing a packed day laid out at a glance feels surprisingly satisfying.
Tunnelblick
I use it to VPN into the office network. A must-have for remote work.
Microsoft Office
The Microsoft Office trio — Word, Excel, PowerPoint. I don’t reach for them often, but when I need them, I need them.
GTD
The usual suspects you’ll see in every productivity round-up.
2Do
I only fully switched over to 2Do recently. It was actually the first GTD app I ever bought, but I shelved it because the automation story was weak. I’ve picked it up again in the last few months. What pulled me back:
- Colourful tabs
- Mail auto-capture
- Smart lists
The one catch: the only reliable sync option is Dropbox, which is a real obstacle for most people in China.
Things 3
I owned Things 2 too, but it was so bare-bones that I basically just bought it and stared at it. Things 3 caught my eye on design alone.
OmniFocus 3
The main reason I use it is great AppleScript support — especially in combination with Keyboard Maestro. For example, I have a scheduled task that runs every Friday afternoon and auto-generates a weekly report listing the tasks I closed that week.
I just upgraded from 2 to 3 at the half-off price of $39.99.
The big change in 3 is that Contexts have been replaced with multi-attribute Tags, which puts it on more even footing with its competitors.
System utilities
Filling gaps the system either has or has too thinly.
1 Blocker
iStat Menus
Bartender 3
Surge
Yachen Liu recently released a preview of the Mac version of Surge 3.
Technically it’s a network debugging tool, but most people use it to get around the GFW. Its pricing has sparked plenty of flame wars; my take is — it’s a product, if you don’t think it’s worth it, don’t buy it. No point complaining about the price while also wanting to use it.
Wallpaper Wizard
A wallpaper app from MacPaw. I grabbed it during a free promo.
TinkerTool
A system tweaker — lets you customise Dashboard, the Dock, and more.
Capto
Screenshot and screen-recording tool.
Productivity
1Password 7 for Mac
Alfred 3
LaunchBar 6
BetterTouchTool
Keyboard Maestro
Yoink
Unclutter
ToothFairy
PopClip
Copied
A clipboard manager — probably the most powerful one on the Mac right now.
Writing
Day One
My journaling app. I bought the iOS and Mac versions outright, and when they moved to a subscription model I was automatically upgraded to Plus, which already does everything I need. The newer Premium tier adds audio entries and a dark theme.
Ulysses
A total impulse buy — I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Honestly, I still haven’t gotten used to its custom Markdown flavour, but I do reach for it occasionally. Went from a one-off purchase to a subscription.
MWeb
I recommend the non-MAS version. Download
Recently bumped up to 3.0. The UI isn’t on Ulysses’s level, but it’s well-localised and integrates with a lot of services I actually use — image hosts, static-site generation, that kind of thing.
Notability
GoodNotes
MindNode 5
Reading
DEVONThink Pro Office
I’ve gone all-in on DEVONThink as the tool for building out my personal knowledge base. Essential.
Reeder 3
MarginNote 3
Developer tools
IDEs
Xcode
Nothing to say here — grab it from the App Store like everyone else.
AppCode
What makes AppCode great is the same thing that makes every JetBrains product great: refactoring. That said, even on a 15" MacBook Pro it stutters now and then — I assume the JVM underneath is partly to blame. Recommended for solo developers or smaller teams without massive codebases.
Editors
Visual Studio Code
Hands down the best editor right now. Doubles as a lightweight IDE for plenty of scripting languages.
Source control
Tower
Tower is a cross-platform Git GUI. The command line is faster in some ways and feels geekier, but viewing diffs is not exactly its strong suit, so a good Git UI matters a lot. Tower is paid software, and 3.0 moved to a subscription model. I just renewed for another year on the basic tier — switching tools has its own cost.
OhMyStar
SnippetsLab
Design
Sketch
Sip for Mac
PaintCode
For complex shapes, drawing them in code is painful — picture a tricky Bézier curve that you’d otherwise have to plot point by point. PaintCode solves exactly that, and supports both Objective-C and Swift output.
Pair it with Playgrounds and you’ll see what I mean.
Eagle
What designers use to organise their reference material.
Debugging
Charles
I use the company licence, and I picked up the iOS version too — though on iOS it doesn’t have the same dominance it does on the Mac. On iOS I prefer Surge or Thor for packet capture, and Thor is probably the most feature-complete app of its kind on the market right now. On the Mac, though, Charles is still untouchable.
Paw
A great API debugging tool.
Reveal
Other
Monodraw
Spice up your code comments with ASCII art.
CuteBaby
A model-serialisation tool. The problem it solves: backend hands you a JSON response and you have to hand-map it into classes in your project. Repetitive busywork, especially when the response shape is complex and the field names are messy. There are open-source projects that can do the same to some extent.
Social
Telegram
Tweetbot 3
Other
RescueTime
I sprung for the Premium subscription. It tracks what I do on my Mac day to day, and I’ve got about two years of data on file at this point — very illuminating.
PCalc
A veteran calculator app.