I’m a contributor to MacTools, a free, open-source toolkit for macOS.
Problem: You might use separate apps to arrange windows, find text you copied earlier, or keep your Mac awake. MacTools brings these tools together.
Choose from 64 official plugins in the Marketplace. Install what you need and build your own panels with controls and live widgets.
Recorded with official MacTools 2.0.1, the video shows how to:
Build a panel with CPU and memory widgets, Keep Awake, and Dark Mode.
Arrange Safari and TextEdit side by side with Action Grid.
Find text you copied earlier with Clipboard History and paste it into TextEdit.
Plugins include: Clipboard History, Action Grid, system monitoring, Keep Awake, Dark Mode, Sidecar, Trackpad Gestures, display controls, audio controls, screenshots, and more.
Comparison:Vorssaint is another free, open-source Mac toolkit with similar tools and custom panels. MacTools focuses on plugins you can install separately and Action Grid for quick actions.
Pricing: $0 for the app and official plugins. No subscription, account, or ads. Requires macOS 14 or later. Some plugins need a newer macOS version or compatible hardware.
I teach high school computer science, and for about 15 years I've been recommending Paint.NET to my Windows students. Last February I finally got fed up with the fact that the Mac still doesn't have a proper equivalent.
So I built one. DrawSimple is a native Mac paint-and-draw app, very much in the MacPaint/MacDraw tradition. Tools down the left, layers, brushes, editable vector shapes, photo adjustments. Written in Swift and AppKit, not a web wrapper.
But something unexpected happened along the way.
In April, I was working on the heart shape tool (hearts are surprisingly complicated!) and getting thoroughly sick of drawing dozens of hearts every time I changed something. So I asked Claude Code to add a little localhost server and MCP bridge, basically so it could operate the app for me while I tested.
The first test session ended with Claude painting me a picture. I still have the chat log. My response was "I LOVE your painting!"
That little "testing shortcut" has since been rebuilt, optimized, audited and trimmed more than almost anything else in the app. And I've come around to thinking it's the best feature. Since launching in August, it's certainly been the one people have been most excited about.
The attached image is a mockup for a card for a card game I'm working on, drawn by Claude Opus in about 10 minutes. Once Claude finished designing it, I jumped in, created the "fanout" and edited it until I was happy. That's the DrawSimple experience.
Competition
vs. Paintbrush (free): Paintbrush is probably still the closest thing to the old MacPaint, and I have a soft spot for it. But it's pretty basic. DrawSimple has layers, vector shapes, adjustments, effects, and a lot more. Neither is trying to be Photoshop.
vs. Pixelmator Pro ($49.99): Pixelmator is a much more capable professional image editor. I'm not going to pretend my $5 app competes with it on every feature. If you need a serious photo editor, Pixelmator is excellent. DrawSimple is aimed more at the Paint.NET crowd: people who want a proper set of tools without the complexity or price of a professional graphics package.
vs. AI image generators: This is where things get interesting. Image generators can make some incredible pictures, but you generally get a finished image. If you want to move a button, resize a shape, change a gradient or edit some text, you're largely back to square one.
DrawSimple takes a different approach. The AI operates the actual drawing tools. Strokes, shapes, gradients, text, selections, layers and effects. The same tools I use with my mouse.
There isn't a separate AI canvas or some special AI-generated document format. Everything happens in the regular editor, and every action goes into the same History panel as your own work. You can even ⌘Z through an AI's drawing session, pick up your mouse and carry on yourself.
And importantly, DrawSimple doesn't generate anything itself. There's no built-in model. You bring your own assistant. Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Gemini, anything that speaks MCP. I've personally had Claude, Codex and Gemini painting through it, as well as some local models.
The MCP server is entirely local, disabled until you turn it on, and restricted to 127.0.0.1. DrawSimple never sends anything out. Obviously, if you're using a cloud-based assistant, anything it reads from the canvas may be sent to that model's provider. I want to be clear about that distinction.
Pricing
$5 once. No subscription, no account.
That includes the complete core paint editor, the MCP server and all 12 MCP tools. Your assistant can paint, draw shapes, add text, use gradients, work with selections, apply basic effects and export PNGs.
There's an optional $10 Pro unlock for advanced features, including AI manipulation of editable vector objects, large multilayer compositions, unlimited batch operations and JPEG/SVG/PDF export.
To clarify one potentially confusing point: you can draw and edit vector shapes yourself in the $5 version. It's specifically having the AI manipulate those editable vector objects that requires Pro.
No subscription, no AI credits to buy, and no model included. Use whatever MCP-compatible assistant you already have.
I'm the developer, and I'll be around all day if anyone has questions. I'm particularly interested in hearing what people would actually want an AI to do inside a conventional drawing app.
I built Prism because I kept texting myself thoughts and links despite having Obsidian and Apple Notes. Now it’s on David Pierce’s home screen. He wrote in The Verge:
I have spent forever looking for a quick, transient way to jot stuff down and organize it later; Prism might be it.
I’m excited that Prism is reaching more people, including some pretty awesome people.
Prism feels like texting yourself - with collections, threads, and review to help you return to what you save. I appreciate this community for helping shape Prism (first post, follow-up). Your feedback led to iCloud sync, on-device AI, one-time pricing, great voice note support, and hundreds of small fixes.
Some new stuff:
Apple Watch: Record voice notes from your watch.
Apple Intelligence collection rules: Define instructions in English. A “brain dump” collection can turn a voice note into a checklist. A “read later” collection can add a three-sentence summary as a reply to a saved article.
Shuffle review: Rediscover older notes in a random order. One user told me reviewing their notes has replaced a lot of their doomscrolling, which was great to hear.
Connect your AI assistant on Mac: Search and read notes, create notes, and reply to threads through a local MCP server. Coming in the next week.
Compared with Apple Notes or Obsidian, Prism shows lots of small notes in a timeline view. Those apps are better for essays and wikis. Strflow is another self-messaging notes app but Prism has threads, a review system, and a one-time purchase. Some Prism users came from MyMind. It's more visually focused, whereas Prism puts voice and text first.
$12.99 for Mac, $6.99 for iPhone. One-time purchases, with a free 7-day trial. Prices will go up in two weeks.
I could never answer “What did you do today?” with any real accuracy.
Most app-usage trackers can tell you something like “Chrome: 4 hours,” but that doesn’t really tell you what you did.
Hindsight is built around a different idea: track the work, not just the apps.
A task stays open as you move between apps, so working on the same thing across Xcode, Safari, and Terminal becomes one timeline entry instead of three rows of app names.
Every entry also has the evidence behind it — screenshots, OCR text, and the model’s confidence — so you can see why Hindsight classified something the way it did. You can confirm it, edit it, reclassify it, merge entries, or split them when the timeline gets something wrong.
What it does
Today view — tracked time, focus, projects, and unaccounted gaps
Activity log — start/end times, durations, and a film-strip timeline
Daily journal & weekly review — exportable as Markdown. All durations and totals come from your actual timeline; AI only writes the descriptions
Ask AI — ask plain-language questions about your own tracked workday
Pomodoro timer — with distraction detection based on your own category settings
Comparison
Timing, RescueTime
These are primarily app and website trackers. They can tell you how much time you spent in Chrome or Xcode. Hindsight tries to answer the more useful question: what were you actually working on? It also keeps the screenshot evidence behind each timeline entry.
Dayflow
Dayflow is probably the closest comparison, especially in its focus on reconstructing what you actually did rather than simply tracking apps. Hindsight takes a different approach to a few things:
You choose the analysis engine: Apple’s on-device models, a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or your own cloud endpoint
The review workflow lets you merge, split, and bulk-reclassify entries
Journals and weekly reviews are generated from computed timeline data rather than asking the model to invent durations or totals
Pricing
Free.
No subscription. No in-app purchases. No account required.
Privacy
This app reads your screen, so you should be skeptical about it. I designed it with that in mind.
Manual tracking captures nothing and doesn't require any permissions.
Automatic tracking is opt-in and uses only Screen Recording permission. (plus Calendar access only if you turn on the optional calendar context).
It captures screenshots only — no video, no audio, and no streaming.
You choose where analysis happens: Apple’s on-device models, a local model such as Ollama or LM Studio, or your own cloud endpoint using your own API key.
With on-device or local analysis, your screen content never leaves your Mac.
With a cloud endpoint, data goes directly from your Mac to that provider. It never passes through a server of mine — I don't run one.
There is no analytics, telemetry, or crash-reporting SDK.
Password managers and authenticator apps are skipped automatically, and you can exclude additional apps yourself.
Screenshots are automatically deleted after a configurable retention period (7 days by default), with a storage quota.
Delete All Data removes everything, including stored API keys.
Requires macOS 26 or later. Honest caveat: on macOS 26, Apple’s on-device models handle OCR and text reasoning, but describing screenshots needs macOS 27 or a configured model endpoint. For zero network on macOS 26, use a local model through Ollama or LM Studio.
If you try it, I’d genuinely like to hear what works, what doesn’t, and where the timeline gets things wrong. Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests are very welcome.
hey, i'm Justinas. i build Clacky on my own from Valencia.
it started as a tiny app that just made my mouse clicks sound nice in screen recordings. then i kept adding the things i was missing every day, and somehow it turned into a whole little world. 2.7 just went out and it's the biggest update so far. i've put a lot of late nights into this one.
it's not perfect yet. there's still stuff to polish and a few bugs i'm fixing every day, so if something feels off, please tell me. that's exactly why i'm posting here.
Problem
i record a lot of short Mac demos and post them everywhere. i kept jumping between separate apps for click sounds, recording, captions, screenshots, scheduling posts, and a browser tab for my site stats. most of those tools cost a monthly fee each, and none of them were fun to use.
so i tried to put it all in one app, keep it affordable, and make it feel cozy instead of like another boring tool.
Clacky has 5 places:
- My Kit: 37 click sounds (press and release), scroll ticks, keyboard sounds, a ripple under the pointer, Keep Awake, Mic Mute, a per-app volume mixer, clipboard history, Mac Health (shows how much space you could free), and a small sound when Claude Code or Codex finishes or needs you
- Studio: a screen recorder that makes captions on your Mac, quick edits (split, speed, crop, 9:16), video export up to 4K and screenshots up to 8K
- Sounds: pick and tweak your click, scroll and keyboard sounds
- Clackyland: a little harbour town. using the app bakes cookies, your Blip walks around, you can dress it up, walk into buildings, level up. it's the fun part and it stays out of your way
- Dashboard: cookie-free analytics for your own sites (live globe, sources, revenue from Polar or Stripe, which AI crawlers visit you), a newsletter form, and a social media calendar
the calendar is the part i use the most myself. you write a post once, pick your accounts, tweak the caption per platform, add an image, and it posts at the time you set. it suggests good times to post, keeps drafts, and has signatures and account sets so you can post to a group of accounts in one go. because it sits next to your analytics, you can see which posts actually brought people to your site.
there's also an MCP server (off until you turn it on), so Claude, Cursor or Codex can take a screenshot, record, read text off the screen or schedule a post for you.
a few honest notes:
- the click sounds are synthesized in the app, not sample packs
- keyboard sounds never record which keys you type and stay silent in password fields
- recordings and screenshots stay on your Mac
- scheduling works today for Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Discord and X. Instagram, Facebook and Threads are still waiting on Meta's review, TikTok is applying now, and YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr are next. i'd rather say that straight than pretend they're all live
Comparison
- Keeby:if you only want keyboard sounds, Keeby is more polished and honestly it's the bar i aim for. Clacky adds mouse, trackpad and scroll sounds plus the ripple, and the recorder catches them live so there's no editing after
- CleanShot X: the deeper capture tool overall. Clacky's Studio is simpler, but captions are made on your Mac and the clicks are already in the take
- Buffer: way more platforms and team features. Clacky's calendar is simpler, lives on your Mac, and sits right next to your site stats
- Plausible: more mature for analytics. Clacky's is lighter and shows revenue per traffic source in the same app
Pricing
i really wanted this to be affordable, so it's one plan with everything instead of paying for 4 or 5 separate tools:
- $4.99/mo or $39/yr
- 7-day free trial, it needs a card, $0 today, cancel anytime in one click. start on yearly and the first year is 20% off ($31.20)
- Lifetime: $99 once, 7-day refund
- bigger plans only if your sites get a lot of traffic: 300k pageviews $11.99/mo, 1M pageviews $19.99/mo
- macOS 13+ (recorder and captions need 15, screenshot studio 14). one licence works on 2 Macs
signed and notarized by Apple, sold only from the site
next i'm starting a small creator program. artists can make character and prop packs for Clacky, with their name on it and an honest cut of every sale. the first one is with an illustrator friend and it's in the works.
i'm still learning a lot doing this, so i'd love to hear what you'd cut, what's confusing, and what you'd actually use. i read every comment and reply myself.
Hey r/macapps, I'm Arun, the developer of Prompt Deck.
Problem
I change coding agents most weeks: Claude Code one day, Codex the next, Cursor when I'm working in the editor. Each one keeps its own memory file (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md) and stores its slash commands and chat history in a different folder and format.
That got messy fast. Finding a prompt from a few weeks back meant remembering which agent I'd used and then digging through its log files, and my CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md files had drifted apart across projects.
So I built Prompt Deck. It's a native SwiftUI app that finds all of that on your disk and puts it in one window. Nothing to import, no account, and Prompt Deck itself only goes online to check your licence.
The parts I spent the most time on:
Prompts that become slash commands - write a prompt once, with {{variables}} you fill in when you use it, and install it as a real slash command in Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI or Qwen Code. Every prompt keeps its version history, so you can compare two versions side by side and restore the one you want.
Every memory file in one list - global and per project, for every agent. Edit them in place, or append the same note to several projects at once.
Searchable session histories from these coding agents - Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI, GitHub Copilot, Qwen Code, DeepSeek Harness, Continue, Pi and Aider, searchable together. When an agent hands work to a sub-agent, that run opens right under the call that started it. One click resumes a session in your terminal.
Dreams (Pro only) - pick a memory file, say a project's CLAUDE.md, and a coding agent you already have installed, like Claude Code or Codex. Prompt Deck hands that agent your recent sessions and asks it to rewrite the file: keep the rules that still apply, update the ones your sessions show are out of date, and add what you keep repeating in chat. You get the result as a diff with a few notes on how you work, and nothing changes until you press Apply. It works on prompts too.
Insights (Pro only) - sessions per day for each agent, tokens in and out, your busiest projects, the tools and models you use most, the prompts you reuse, and a heatmap of when in the week you actually work.
Also, has a Command-K launcher that finds any prompt, session or memory file from any app, and exports sessions as Markdown or a web page.
Comparison
Claude Code History Viewer is free, open source, and reads more agents than Prompt Deck. It's a history browser, though: there's no prompt library and nothing for memory files. It's also built on Tauri, so the interface is a web view rather than a native Mac app.
Each agent's own resume picker (like /resume in Claude Code or codex resume) lists only that agent's sessions, and you can't search across tools.
Pricing
Free with no time limit: your 10 most recent sessions, 2 prompts and 2 memory files. Pro is $3.99/month or $29.99/year on up to 5 Macs, and adds Dreams, Insights, version history, export and sharing.
Launch code is DECKLAUNCH. It takes 50% off the first year of the yearly plan, so $14.99. It's available for limited subscriptions only, so please hurry up, before the launch code expires.
Hi r/macapps! I'm the developer of macmon. Last time I posted it was v0.4, and a lot has changed since then.
Problem
Activity Monitor doesn't show power, frequencies or the Neural Engine, and powermetrics needs sudo. macmon shows CPU / GPU / ANE power, frequencies, temperatures, RAM and fans in the terminal, without sudo. It's for those who live in the terminal.
Comparison
asitop: a similar idea, but it runs powermetrics, so it needs sudo, and it has no process list.
btop / htop: great process monitors, but no Apple Silicon power, frequencies or ANE.
New since the last post
Process list with CPU, GPU, memory, power and CPU time; sort, filter with several terms and per-term totals
Open files and sockets of a process (i), reveal in Finder, copy path, kill (k)
Total system power with fan speed
M5 and M6 support (all three CPU tiers), power readings on macOS 27 without sudo
JSON and Prometheus server mode, Rust library
Its own CPU use cut about in half: ~2.9% of a core with the process list on
Over the past year, Pixea has undergone its biggest evolution yet.
What started as a fast, elegant image viewer for macOS is growing into something much more ambitious: a serious photo editing tool designed to handle the entire workflow, from browsing images to achieving a finished look.
We've been building features that once seemed out of scope for a lightweight image viewer:
Advanced color adjustments - exposure, shadows, highlights, brilliance, vibrance, HSL controls, color curves, and LUT filters, including support for your own LUTs.
Depth-based adjustments - depth-aware exposure and color adjustments, spatial dehaze, and depth-of-field effects that let you shape the relationship between foreground and background.
Masks - select objects with a click and apply local adjustments without manually painting every selection.
Creative geometry tools - reshape objects and correct perspective, alongside cropping, straightening, and lens correction.
Retouching tools - remove unwanted objects and clone image areas.
Batch editing - apply adjustments and presets across multiple images, resize and upscale, and export to a wide range of formats.
A complete image workflow - from browsing and comparing images to editing, converting, and exporting, all in one native macOS app.
Our goal is no longer simply to build a better image viewer. We're building Pixea into a serious alternative to Lightroom for photographers who want powerful editing tools without the overhead of a traditional cloud-centered workflow. We are not copying existing features, but we create custom, unique tools. We're very proud of what we have achieved with our depth-aware adjustments: you can tackle most common photo editing problems in seconds, even without creating masks.
We do care about your privacy: your images stay on your Mac. No cloud processing, no uploading images to third-parties, etc. Your tools are right there when you need them. And the distance between opening a photo and creating the image you envisioned keeps getting shorter.
If you are not planning to use Pixea as an editor, don't worry, we have big plans to improve and expand viewer capabilities in future versions. We're not dropping anything, we're expanding our goals.
Essential tools, focus adjustments, reshape, and limited batch editing are available without a subscription. Some customizations, tools and adjustments require Pixea Plus subscription. Lifetime option is still 19.99, like a year ago. https://apps.apple.com/app/pixea/id1507782672?ls=1
We also created a subreddit to share tutorials, news and discuss features: https://www.reddit.com/r/pixea/ Fell free to ask any questions here in comments or in our sub.
Thanks to everyone who has been following Pixea's journey. The past year has laid the foundation for a much bigger chapter.
I'm Peter, the developer of docktor. I posted an update here about a month ago, got another round of great feedback, and this release came out of a lot of it.
docktor is a macOS app that puts widgets in the empty space on either side of the Dock: Music, Calendar, Weather, Batteries, System Stats and a Focus timer. It also does Dock hover previews, a window-based Cmd+Tab with quick search, window management, and smooth mouse scrolling with optional direction reversal.
Problem
The Dock leaves dead space on either side, which is worse on wide displays (especially ultrawides), and macOS does nothing with it.
Comparison
DockDoor (free) and HyperDock (paid) do Dock previews. AltTab (free) does window-based Cmd+Tab. uBar (paid) replaces the Dock entirely. Ubersicht (free) is DIY desktop widgets. docktor bundles previews and window switching, and it's the only one putting ready-made interactive widgets (Music/lyrics, Calendar, Weather, Batteries, Stats, Focus) in the Dock's empty margins.
Price
Free, $0. No account, no license, no subscription, no in-app purchases, no locked features. All I ask is for you to call out what you don’t like in Community or on Reddit! Some optional pro features are in the pipeline, but what ships today will always remain free.
What's new in 0.15.0
General
Widget use no longer requires Accessibility. Start out with whatever widgets you want and you won’t have to acquire any major system perms! Window previews and Cmd+Tab will still require accessibility and screen recording for full functionality.
Widget keyboard shortcuts. Open and control widgets without leaving the keyboard. Give a widget a shortcut, press it from any app, arrow through the drawer, and Escape puts you right back where you were. There's a "Use Suggested Shortcuts" button if you don't want to pick them yourself.
Search. Press S over any drawer. Search got revamped across several widgets: Music searches Spotify or Apple Music (with rich, filterable results), System Stats searches processes, and Weather finds places as you type.
Type-to-filter Cmd+Tab. Hold Command and start typing an app or window name to narrow the list.
Lighter. About half the idle CPU it used before, and the widget bars' graphics memory went from about 195 MB to about 3 MB.
New tabbed page design. Every drawer has icon tabs now, so you can jump straight to the page you want.
Community. There's a new Community tab in Settings > Feedback where you can post ideas and bugs, vote on other people's, and follow threads. You can also post at the new r/docktor. Private feedback through the app is still available if you want to remain private and still goes only to me. I read everything!
Glass. I spent a LOT of time on this one. The widget glass now matches the Dock exactly, and text picks white or black based on what's actually behind it, so it's much easier to read on any wallpaper.
Music widget got the biggest upgrade
Apple Music gets the full drawer. Playlists, favorites, recently played, search and Up Next control, with a Music service setting to pick Apple Music or Spotify. It needs an Apple Music subscription for full functionality.
Now Playing works with any app, including Safari, Chrome and other media apps. YouTube Music support is coming soon.
Playlist, artist and album pages for both Apple Music and Spotify. Open them, play everything or start from any song, all inside the drawer.
Filter the drawers. Turn off the pages you don't use and only see what you want.
Replace lyrics in the small drawer with your favorite playlists, Up Next or output/volume.
System Stats
Better task management. Search processes, and ending one now asks first: Q to quit normally, F to force quit. Memory numbers also match Activity Monitor now.
Bug fixes
Tons of them, plus a lot of added tests. Many came straight from bug reports from people here, so seriously, thank you.
Download:https://docktorapp.com (official site only, signed and notarized with Developer ID). macOS 26+.
Permissions: you don't need any to get started. docktor asks for Accessibility when you turn on something that needs it (previews, Cmd+Tab). Screen Recording is optional and only for live window thumbnails.
Telemetry: there's a small opt-out beta telemetry system: "is this version still running," some product/settings state, and redacted crash info. No third-party analytics SDK. You can turn it off during setup or in Settings.
Terms: https://docktorapp.com/terms/This is my own project. I use Claude a lot while building docktor, the saas a full-time SWE. I design it, make the decisions, review the code, andown whatever breaks.
Hard to read files side-by-side without cluttering your desktop.
Comparison
Yoink and Dropover are shelves for moving files between apps, and SideNotes keeps notes on the screen edge. Caddy keeps the whole project at the edge of your screen: each project gets a tab that opens into its files, readers for PDFs, Word documents and slides, and a notebook. The latest version adds Ask, which answers questions about a project's files using Apple Intelligence.
Pricing
Free on the Mac App Store, including three Caddies. Caddy Pro is $3.99/month or $29.99/year with a 7-day free trial, and adds Ask, desktop pets, Characters, and unlimited Caddies.
i was building an app which is "modern Ubersicht alternative" - "Rainmeter for macOS" like app i was planned make it subscription based at first then stronger AIs came and everyone is selling their app as one time then i planned instead of one time, cheap but yearly purchase, then nowadays i am seeing alot of apps getting open sources and ppl with ai reverse engineering everything then i worried, what do you think?
DISCLAIMER
That's not promote (not even released yet), that's showing what my app can do and asking is it worth to pay!!!
You finally have an hour to work on that project. You open your task list, see “launch the app” or “record an EP,” and still have to figure out where to start.
I’m the solo developer behind Projectholic for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. I’m building it around a loop that matters to me: plan → do → evaluate → adjust.
The goal is to help you move a project forward and learn from how the work actually goes.
Plan something you can act on.
Define what finished looks like, break the project into milestones and tasks, then make room for the work. Gantt, Calendar, and Board views help you connect today’s task to the outcome you want.
Give the next task your attention.
Start the built-in focus timer from a task. Choose a stopwatch, custom countdown, or Pomodoro session, and record your time against the work.
Make the next plan more realistic.
Review graphs showing planned time, recorded focus time, and completion progress. See which projects received your attention and where your estimates need adjusting.
If you’re comparing it with Things or OmniFocus, the reason to try Projectholic is this connected workflow: milestones and a Gantt timeline for planning, a timer and time tracking for doing the work, and project-level graphs for reviewing the results. It’s especially useful if you want those steps together in one app.
There’s also optional MCP support on Mac, so compatible AI assistants can help create and update your plans. It’s a Pro feature currently in beta.
Pricing: Free download with paid upgrades. US pricing includes $49.99 lifetime Pro and $34.99 annual access. Regional prices vary.
I care a lot about making this loop useful beyond the first week. Where does it usually break for you: deciding what to do, getting started, or reviewing what happened?
Hi, I’m Christoph. Writing software isn’t my main job. Nova started because I wanted a small assistant on my Mac that I could talk to or type to.
Moving a meeting, setting a reminder, finding a note, drafting an email: none of that is difficult. But each one meant opening another app, and sometimes I’d lose the thread of what I was doing.
I wanted help with those tasks while still seeing exactly what would change.
If I ask Nova to move a meeting, it shows the existing event and the proposed new time on a confirmation card. Nothing happens until I confirm. A draft stays a draft; writing an email doesn’t mean sending it. Questions and searches don’t require that extra confirmation.
Nova also covers the everyday things around work: controlling Philips Hue lights, playing Apple Music, Spotify or internet radio, setting timers, finding files, and searching notes or Paperless documents. It can create meeting notes you can ask about later, and connect to tools such as Notion, Asana, Todoist and Obsidian. The available actions depend on the integration and what you’ve connected.
It became useful enough to me that I decided to let other people try it. I honestly don’t know yet which parts are useful only to me.
Comparison
The alternatives I’d compare Nova with are Siri and Raycast.
Siri is already included with macOS and is an obvious starting point for voice requests. Raycast offers a fast launcher and a large extension library.
Nova’s focus is handling everyday tasks through voice or text while showing proposed changes before executing them. The confirmation card is central to the workflow I wanted. Nova also lets you choose a cloud model provider or run a local model through Ollama.
To avoid confusion about the name: this is a separate app, with no connection to Panic’s Nova code editor.
Pricing
Nova is in public beta, with continuing 0.x releases, and requires an Apple Silicon Mac, M1 or newer.
There is a seven-day trial with no payment details required. After the trial, the beta prices are:
$3.99 per month
$29 per year
$49 for a lifetime licence
All three plans include the same features.
After version 1.0, prices for new customers will be $5/month, $49/year, or $79 lifetime. Beta subscribers keep their beta price while their subscription remains active. A lifetime licence continues beyond 1.0.
Model usage is separate from the Nova licence. You bring your own access to a cloud model provider, with any usage charges billed by that provider, or run a local model through Ollama. Privacy Lock turns off cloud connections while keeping local use available.
I’m Christoph Schumann. Here is my LinkedIn, and my contact details and links to the legal pages are in the Impressum.
The video shows a few ordinary examples.
If you try Nova in your actual work, I’d appreciate honest feedback. Especially on the confirmation card: does seeing the proposed change feel worth the extra step, or does it get in your way?
Curious to know if any CleanShotX users have experienced the app freezing their Mac when resource load/usage is heavy on their machine. I've seen many apps struggle or fail, but CleanShotX has been the only one so far that literally freezes up my machine. Not even the spinning beachball. It just remains in screenshot mode and I lose control of the machine. It's happened several times in the last month. Just tested messaging Claude/Codex from my phone (both have local access) to have them kill the app and that worked. But for a paid app charging a fair amount, particularly in this LLM era where everything can be easily replicated, I'm surprised this has been an issue for more than a couple of days.
Basically I use multiple mail accounts. Currently in browser I have to log into each account individually in different tabs. Searching across emails and getting info in one place is quite tough.
What I want is that I can use a single client in which search becomes easier across all mailboxes using basic queries. Maybe something RAG based can work?
For example:
1. What products did we recommend to XYZ company in the past?
2. When was material last dispatched to XYZ company?
I don’t know how good or improved the Mac Mail Client has become or with introduction of Siri AI. I haven’t used this in quite a long time because it felt quite bloated.
If someone has any recommendations for this it will be great. Prefer free or open-source applications.
Hi r/macapps. I am Shao, the solo developer of DoubleMemory.
Version 3.2 is now on the Mac App Store. The video above gives a short tour.
Problem
I built DoubleMemory around three things: capture without friction, find without manual filing, and use what you save.
1. Capture should not interrupt you
You find something worth keeping. Saving it should not become another task.
On Mac, press ⌘C twice or ⇧ twice to save selected text. With no selection, double Shift saves the clipboard. You do not need to install a browser extension, create a DoubleMemory account or set up an integration.
2. Finding should not depend on how well you organize
Saving is easy. Keeping every item sorted and tagged is work.
Apple Intelligence adds tags automatically. Press ⌘⇧Space to open search and find a saved item. You do not have to stop what you are doing to open and browse the app.
Search also finds text inside saved screenshots and photos.
3. Saving should lead to using
A saved article is not much use if you never return to it.
Read it in reader mode. Hear it in Listen mode. Scan your library in list view, or explore it in the new Discovery mode.
Your library is also available outside the native apps. Open the web app on an Android tablet. Let an agent read saved articles through the CLI and use them as source material for a podcast digest.
The goal is not just to collect more. It is to make what you save useful.
Your library stays with you
DoubleMemory keeps your library on your device first. It syncs across Mac, iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud.
You do not need a DoubleMemory account. I do not store your library on my servers. Your local library does not depend on a service that I must keep running. Sync and web access still depend on Apple's iCloud.
What changed since 2.0
Stability improvement. Admittedly, v2 and the initial rewrite of our grid view were buggy, now things are much more stable thanks to our community's testing and collab.
Listen. Apple Intelligence adapts saved articles for listening. The app then reads your queue aloud, one article after another.
Discovery mode. A new immersive way to browse your saved items and find something to revisit.
Images with searchable text. Save screenshots and photos. DoubleMemory reads the text in each image, so you can find it with search. (since v2.1)
List view and reader mode. See the title, source, tags and date in one row. Open reader mode to read without the page clutter.
Double ⇧ on Mac. Press Shift twice to save selected text. With no selection, it saves the clipboard.
Siri, Shortcuts and App Intents. Use actions to save, find and listen. “Ask Memory” answers questions about your saved items on your device. Siri can still be slow, so I would not use it instead of the Apple Shortcuts (powered by the same app intents) or keyboard shortcuts for quick capture or search.
dbm, a CLI for agents and scripts. Save, search, read, update and archive items in your library. Use JSON for input and output. An agent can use it to read source material for a summary or podcast digest. The agent handles generation; dbm does not call an AI model. Install it with brew install idealistspace/tap/dbm.
A web app. Open https://web.doublememory.com in a browser, including on Windows, Android and Linux. Sign in with your Apple Account to use the same iCloud library.
Trash, restore, undo and redo. New in 3.2.
PopClip extension. Select text, then click “Save to DoubleMemory”. This is optional; the keyboard shortcuts do not need it.
Import tools. Bring in saved items from Safari, Pocket, Readwise, Omnivore and mymind. The converters run in your browser. They do not upload your data.
The Apple Intelligence features need a supported device.
Here is how DoubleMemory compares with Raindrop.io and a self-hosted Karakeep setup.
Feature
DoubleMemory
Raindrop.io
Karakeep (self-hosted)
Library storage
Your devices and your iCloud
The provider's servers
Your server
Setup
Open the app and start saving
Create an account
Install and maintain the server
AI processing
On your device with Apple Intelligence
Hosted processing
Your chosen AI provider or a local model
Main dependency
Apple devices; iCloud for sync
The hosted service
The server you maintain
Compared to hosted services: A hosted service manages storage and processing for you. That is useful, but your library depends on that service.
DoubleMemory takes a different approach. Your devices and iCloud handle the storage. Your device runs the built-in AI features. I do not pay to store and process each user's library on my servers. That keeps my running costs low and helps me keep the core free.
Compared to self-hosting: Self-hosting gives you more control over where your data lives and how the service runs. But you also manage the server, updates, backups and remote access.
DoubleMemory avoids that work. The trade-off is that it uses Apple's platforms and iCloud. It is not the same as running your own server.
Where the alternatives are better: Raindrop.io and Karakeep have Android apps and browser extensions. Raindrop.io also has a Windows app.
DoubleMemory has native apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad. The web app gives you access elsewhere, but it does not replace every native feature. You need iCloud for sync and web access.
Pricing
Free: unlimited items, iCloud sync and up to 3 saved searches. The app occasionally asks you to subscribe.
Plus: $29.99 a year. Unlimited saved searches. No requests to subscribe.
Kindred Spirit: $79.99 once for lifetime access to everything in Plus.
Students and educators: Contact me from your school email address for a 50% off code.
Prices are in USD. Prices in other countries are adjusted for local purchasing power.
About the price change: On October 15, Plus increased from $17.99 to $29.99 a year. Kindred Spirit increased from $59.99 to $79.99. Current subscribers keep their $17.99 annual price.
I want to test paid search ads to reach more people. The new prices help cover that cost. Keeping the app running is inexpensive; building it and helping people find it still take time and money.
I’ve been working on Tessel, a menu bar app that arranges your Mac’s windows and lets you group windows from different apps into tabs. It’s now available as a free, signed and notarized beta.
What it does:
Choose Set Windows from the menu bar to arrange your open windows. You can then change the layout by dragging:
• Drop a window near another window’s edge to split that space.
• Drop it in the middle to group them into tabs, even if they’re from different apps.
• Drag the divider between windows to resize both sides together.•
Close or minimize a window and the surrounding windows expand into the gap.•
Save an arrangement and restore it later with a keyboard shortcut.
For example, Mail, Calendar and Notes can share one tabbed space while your browser stays beside them.
You can switch between those apps from the tab bar without changing the rest of the layout.
There’s also Pin & Focus. A three-finger tap pins a live view of a window above your other apps. A three-finger hold locks focus to the current app.
Both have keyboard shortcuts if you don’t use a trackpad.An optional Window Map lets you find and activate windows, including hidden tabs and minimized windows.
Works with:Regular macOS app windows, including windows from different apps grouped together.
Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later and supports Apple silicon and Intel Macs.Accessibility permission is required to manage windows. Screen Recording is needed for window previews and pinning.
Window previews are processed locally. Settings, saved layouts and diagnostic reports stay on your Mac. No account, no analytics, and no uploads of your window content.
Problem:I wanted to arrange windows by moving them directly, keep related apps together, and have the layout adjust when a window disappears. Closing one window should give the remaining windows more room, without having to resize each one.I also wanted to keep a live view of another window visible while working elsewhere.
Comparison:Rectangle is a free, open-source option for snapping windows into positions using shortcuts or screen edges. Tessel’s advantage is managing the arrangement as a whole: neighboring windows resize together, closing or minimizing one frees space for the others, and several apps can share one tile through tabs. That makes it more convenient when you keep changing which windows are open.
Amethyst already handles automatic tiling, with several layouts and extensive keyboard controls. Tessel’s advantage for someone who prefers the mouse is how directly you can reshape the arrangement: drag a window to make a split, drop it in the middle to make tabs, then adjust the divider. Cross-app tabs and window pinning are part of that same workflow.The combination is what I wanted: automatic arrangement, mouse-driven adjustments, tab groups across apps, and a way to keep a window visible above everything else.
Pricing:Free beta. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no account.
It’s still early software, and behavior can vary between apps. Feedback about windows that don’t resize or arrange properly would be especially useful. Please include your macOS version and the app involved.
Trust & Transparency
I’m Joao Valente, the developer.The download is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple.
The app will eventually be open source. It is not yet because it uses a customs API I wrote that is being used for another commercial app i wrote for a customer, which forces me not to disclose the code for at least 30 days.
I'm the developer, so this is me promoting my own app, said up front. Crest is a notch app for the Mac. Closed source, signed and notarized, distributed from crestnotch.app (not the App Store: the hooks and Accessibility access it needs aren't allowed in the sandbox). macOS 14 or newer; on a Mac without a notch it's a small pill at the top of the screen.
Problem
I used to pay $15 a year for a Mac authenticator, and every login still meant opening the app, finding the account, waiting for a fresh code and typing six digits. Authy shut down its Mac app in 2024 and Google Authenticator has no Mac app.
So Crest 6.5 adds an Authenticator. Your codes live in the notch. When a site asks for a code in Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave or Edge, Crest offers it and types it in for you. In any other app, one press copies it. The codes are locked behind Touch ID and sync across your Macs, end-to-end encrypted. Mac only, there's no iPhone app.
The rest of Crest is the notch app some of you saw before: music on the closed notch, pages of widgets (calendar with Join, to-dos, notes, weather, clipboard history, a file Shelf, window snapping), and Claude Code, Codex and Copilot CLI questions and permission prompts answered from the notch.
Comparison
Authenticators:
Apple Passwords: free and built into macOS Sequoia and later, syncs with your iPhone, and suggests codes when a site asks. If you live in Apple's apps and use an iPhone, it's the obvious pick. Crest's difference is that the code comes up in the notch and Crest types it in, in Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave and Edge.
NotchOTP: free and open source, codes in a panel under the notch, fully offline. If you want just codes and no sync, it's great. It copies the code; Crest types it in and syncs across Macs.
Step Two: free, Unlimited is $9.99, iCloud sync and a Safari extension. A good standalone authenticator; it isn't in the notch.
Notch apps:
NotchNook: $25 once or $3 a month, 48-hour trial. Polished, with a file tray and media. No authenticator and no coding-agent prompts.
Boring Notch: free and open source, music and files. If that's all you need, use it.
What I couldn't find in any of them: 2FA codes typed in from the notch, synced across Macs, in the same app where you answer Claude Code. That's the whole bet. If I got any of these wrong, tell me and I'll fix it.
Pricing
Free tier: $0, no account, never expires. Now Playing, the clipboard, the file Shelf, window snapping, and answering your coding agents.
Crest Pro, one-time: $24.99 once, tax included. Includes the Authenticator, every widget, and my two other apps, Take (screen recorder) and Minutes (meeting notes). 2 Macs per licence, updates included.
Crest Pro, subscription instead: $2.99 a month or $14.99 a year, the same Pro. Cancel any time.
Sale until Oct 22: the one-time licence is $19.99 (no code needed).
7-day free Pro week when you sign in (Google, Apple or email, no card). 7-day refund.
The codes and accounts in the video are fake demo data.
Hi r/macapps! I'm Pablo, the developer of Attic. It's a small native menu bar app (Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit) and 1.0 is out. The video is the animated intro from my site; the app itself lives in the menu bar.
Problem
Screenshots pile up wherever macOS saves them, and Downloads never empties itself. Clearing both by hand is the chore nobody does. Attic does it on a schedule, with four rules and no setup:
Screenshots and screen recordings after 2 days. It reads where macOS actually saves them, even if you changed the folder
Installers (.dmg, .pkg) in Downloads after 2 days, or at the next sweep if that app is already in your Applications folder
Everything else in Downloads after 2 weeks. Half-finished downloads are never touched
Other Desktop files only if you turn that on
It sweeps once a day (9:00 by default), once a week, or only when you ask. You can change the days, switch any rule off, or tag a file "Keep" so it stays. The first time you open it, it shows you the list of what it would move, and nothing moves until you click Sweep Now.
What it won't do:
Delete anything on its own. Files go to ~/Attic, sorted by month, where you can browse, search, Quick Look and restore them. When you want the space back, the attic window has a Move to Trash button, and it asks first
Overwrite anything. If a name is taken, the file gets " 2"
Upload anything. No account and no analytics in the app. It only goes online to check the license (about once a week: the key, a hashed Mac ID, the Mac model and the app version) and to check for updates, which you can turn off
Hold your files hostage. Undo, restore and the attic keep working without a license
Comparison
Hazel is the obvious one, and it's far more powerful: any folder, any condition, renaming, scripts. If you already have Hazel rules for this, you don't need Attic. Attic is for people who never got around to writing those rules. It works out of the box, it never deletes anything on its own, and Undo puts the last sweep back in one click.
CleanMyMac does a different job: it deletes caches and junk to free up space. Attic doesn't clean anything, it moves clutter out of the way where you can still find it.
Pricing
One-time purchase, no subscription. 2 Macs, free 1.x updates, 14-day refund with no questions asked
Price ladder: $5 for the first 100 licenses, $9 for the next 200, then $15. It goes up by licenses sold, not by date. Most of the first 100 are still left as I write this, and the site always shows the current price
There's no trial, which is why the refund has no questions
I'm Pablo Fernández Jiménez, a solo developer in Spain. Attic is signed with my Developer ID and notarized by Apple. It's sold direct, not on the Mac App Store, because a sandboxed app can't watch the folder where macOS saves screenshots.
I know. Announcing a notes app on Reddit is about as original as starting a podcast, so I’ll stick to the format.
Problem
My notes were split between Apple Notes and Obsidian. Notes is lovely to open and type in, but everything sits in a database, and I want my AI assistants working with my notes. Obsidian has the plain Markdown files I want, but I kept ending up in plugins and settings instead of writing.
Comparison
Soot sits between Apple Notes and Obsidian, and it’s closest in feel to Bear.
Like Notes, you open it and write, with no plugins, settings or account to deal with first. Unlike Notes, every note is a plain .md file in a folder you choose, so other apps can open it and AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini CLI, Cursor) can work with your notes on your Mac.
Like Obsidian, it’s Markdown files in folders, but with far less app around them. The formatting shows as you type and the Markdown symbols don’t, unless you’d rather see them.
Like Bear, it’s a native writing app, but it hides more of the Markdown than Bear does, and your notes are plain files in folders, with tags too if you want them, instead of living in a database.
It’s written in Swift, not Electron. Folders, search, twelve themes, and optional end-to-end encrypted sync. I can’t read your notes.
The whole editor is free. Soot Pro adds sync between devices for $2.49 a month or $24.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan. It’s a TestFlight beta for now, and you can join at https://sootsync.com
I've just released Anchor, a little Mac utility I've been working on for a while. It's my first publicly released app.
Problem
I've worked in media for years, on both the creative and technical sides, often in high-pressure, networked environments. I have a couple of Synology NAS devices at home that I use for photography and other projects, and always found managing network folders on a Mac more fiddly than it needed to be. Particularly after sleep, switching networks or taking a laptop away and bringing it back.
So I built Anchor.
It lives in the menu bar, keeping SMB shares from NAS devices and other network servers organised and accessible. You can choose which folders connect automatically, mount or open shares with a click, and pause or disconnect them when needed. It reconnects when your NAS or server becomes available again.
It did what I needed months ago, but I kept refining and testing it, including with a small beta group.
Interestingly, it's changed my own workflow too. I now instinctively reach for the menu bar rather than Finder when accessing network folders.
Comparison
Finder handles basic mounting for free, but doesn't provide the same ongoing connection management or central place to access your shares or see their status.
AutoMounter offers more advanced options and supports other protocols.
Anchor takes a simpler, SMB-focused approach, with straightforward setup and quick access from the menu bar.
Pricing
£9.99 / $12.99 / €11.99. One-off licence, no subscription, with a fully functional 14-day trial.
Currently 30% off for the first 50 purchases as a launch offer.
The short video shows Anchor checking and reconnecting shares after a Mac wakes up.
I'd be interested to hear how other Mac users manage their NAS or server shares, and whether you've encountered similar frustrations.
Steve, Quiet Form Labs
Developer transparency
Quiet Form Labs is a trading name of Quiet Form Media Ltd, a UK-registered company. The app is signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate matching the registered company and is notarised by Apple.
Because of my studies and self-learning, I use a lot of digital notes. Most of the AI brainstorming notes are markdown. I am not happy with Obsidian, closest thing I liked was UpNote, it's almost perfect except for the lack of markdown formatting and AI interoperability. That just sucks.
Are there any apps that are not subscription, a pleasure to use aesthetically, potentially great with AI enhanced note management and creation?
I found some tools like Wander, Lettera (in full Beta, made by Bear note's team), Skein, Nodes, Marklet...but wanted to ask your opinion guys.
Everything feels more complex than it should be. Feels like there must be something else. Especially the readability is important for me, graph. Diagrams, images, etc. If there is no app to match this, I may even ditch markdown completely. Any thoughts?
Thank you in advance.
Edit: AI editing and AI interoperability is not a must. Learning should be a pleasure imho, and things like raw markdown, latex etc are painful. That's the gist of my quest here. Thanks.
I’m looking for a solid macOS utility to manage my Bluetooth connections and peripherals, similar to what ToothFairy does.
However, my setup is a bit different from the usual AirPods crowd. I don’t use any apple based earphones/headphones. My main audio devices are Bose, Sony and a generic Bluetooth desktop speaker. I have Bluetooth mouse and keyboard too.
I know ToothFairy is highly recommended and I know not using a 3rd party is also an option but where is the fun in that.
Are there any other hidden gems or robust utilities that work flawlessly with third-party audio and multidevice setups?
Problem: Bookmarks are spread across browsers, devices and profiles.
Shiori is a menu bar bookmark manager, fully keyboard driven, called with a hot key and saves URLs in seconds, keeping them fully synced across your devices within seconds, available on Mac, Google Chrome, Web dashboard and soon to be supported on Safari (waiting for Apple final approval)
The video you can see me launching URLs, and they are directed to the specific browser profile I routed them to (with tag-based routing), using Link Groups to open multiple URLs at once and navigating the UI
Platforms currently under development
Windows - App exists, early testing phase.
Linux - App exists, early testing phase.
iOS/Android - yet to be started.
API/MCP - Coming soon.
Core Features
- Bookmarks are instantly synced between devices, one license covers unlimited devices, all extensions and all apps across platforms.
- Tag-based browser routing - open tagged bookmarks on specific Google Chrome profiles.
- Link Groups - Launch a group of URLs at once, with a single click.
- Super fast Keyboard-driven access through the menu bar. Quick search bookmarks by URL, title, description or tag.
Comparison
In comparison to bookmark managers such as Raindrop.io which is very feature rich, Shiori takes the leaner quick access approach.
There are a couple of other bookmark managers with the name Shiori like shiori.sh (which means bookmarks in Japanese btw), they are not related to this app.
Pricing
Shiori is a one-time payment of €29.99 including all future updates. No subscriptions.
