Feek's macOS useful tools, utilities and applications thread

Feek · 2 May 2021 at 09:34

I'm going to use this thread to post details about applications and utilities that I use on a regular basis. Please note that I have no connections to any of these apart from being a satisfied customer).

Bartender
What a great little utility this is. I bought it a couple of years ago to tidy up the menu bar on my MacBook and have just installed it on my iMac. I don't need to hide anything on the iMac because there's plenty of space but both Catalina and Big Sur don't seem to remember if you move things around in the menu bar and of course, Big Sur has increased the spacing between icons up there and I think it looks rubbish.

This is so much tidier, no huge gaps and everything stays where I put it.

https://www.macbartender.com

Feek · 6 May 2021 at 08:30

HyperDock
This is a useful tool that does a couple of things although I only use one of them. If an application has multiple windows, you can hover over the icon in the dock and you get a preview of all the available windows. I often have quite a few terminal windows open and this gives me a very quick and easy way to switch between them. It also does window management and snapping but I don't need that.

https://bahoom.com/hyperdock

uvarvu · 6 May 2021 at 17:03

Can we suggest stuff too? I don't use MacOS anymore but when I did I used to run Grand Perspective to find out where my storage went.
The UI is pretty good, it's like WinDirStat but for MacOS.

GrandPerspective (sourceforge.net)

Feek · 6 May 2021 at 17:20

uvarvu said:
I used to run Grand Perspective to find out where my storage went.

I use something else for that.

DaisyDisk
Another application I've had for years is DaisyDisk. It scans drives (both local and network drives) and gives a nice GUI of where disk space is being used. You can click down into each segment for more detailed info and you can use it to clear purgeable space as well. Some time ago I used it to find a cache that just continually grew and grew (com.apple.bird/session/g) due to a bug in how WhatsApp backs up. That bug is still there and I run a script every day via cron to clear it out.

https://daisydiskapp.com

Feek · 7 May 2021 at 08:31

AutoMounter
This is useful for those of us with more than one computer, or those who have a NAS and want to ensure that they always have a network link to their other devices. I've found that macOS isn't especially good at remembering what other computers you're connected to and doesn't seem to reconnect if the other device goes off line and then comes back. AutoMounter gets around that and does it in a clever way. You can set conditions so that it won't try and mount shares if the remote system isn't available and you can set custom mount points.

Here you can see AutoMounter in the menu bar on my MacBook Air. It's showing that both my iMac and my NAS are available, that it's connected to them both and has mounted my shares. If they weren't available, it wouldn't attempt the mount.

https://www.pixeleyes.co.nz/automounter/

For each device, I've created a folder in my home directory and mounted the shares in there. Then I've added each one as a favourite in Finder.

I've done similar on my iMac, I've got two configured, one for my NAS and one for my MacBook Air. Whenever I want to access any network shared drive, I just open Finder and can go straight to it via favourites.

Feek · 8 May 2021 at 12:08

Carbon Copy Cloner
Backups are important. I hope everyone reading this has Time Machine enabled (if not, why not?) but I like more levels of backup. I've used both SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner and while they both do a good job, I've settled with CCC.

I have it installed on both my iMac and my MacBook Air with slightly different configurations. On my iMac, it's configured to run each day at 01:30 and backup to a 1Tb SSD which I have in a caddy plugged directly into the iMac. I always put my Mac to sleep when I go to bed but CCC is really clever. Macs tend to wake themselves up from time to time overnight for various housekeeping tasks so as soon as it wakes up after 01:30, CCC starts the backup process and then puts the iMac back to sleep afterwards.

On my MBA, I have it configured to backup when the external drive is detected. I take my MBA into the office with me each day and it's become second nature for me to plug both the power and the drive in at the same time. CCC detects that, runs a backup and then ejects the drive.

Because backups are so quick to SSD, it takes just a couple of minutes to complete and the end result is an up to date, bootable SSD that's a mirror of my system. I like that it sends me an email notification on completion and I just quickly glance at it each day to make sure it's completed successfully.

I run Time Machine as well to a couple of different destinations and I also have an offsite backup via BackBlaze. You can never have too many backups/copies of your data.

https://bombich.com

Bluecube · 8 May 2021 at 12:40

While I’ve nothing to contribute to this thread, please keep posting the apps you use. I can see myself using them all so far!

Feek · 10 May 2021 at 12:02

Downie
Downie is a video downloader, it installs as an extension in your browser and you simply click the icon to download the video you're watching. It works on 'thousands of different sites' although I mainly use it on YouTube and the BBC iPlayer to save stuff for offline viewing. You can configure it to download the best quality available or limit it to anything below a quality you define. When used on YouTube, if the video is part of a playlist, it will offer to download them all for you.

It'll download subtitles automatically if available, you can customise what it does with the file after it's downloaded it and you can tell it to automatically add the video into your Apple media library.

I don't think I've found a site where it doesn't work.

https://software.charliemonroe.net/downie/

Feek · 10 May 2021 at 14:51

WiFi Signal: Status Monitor
I have this installed on my laptop and I've disabled the macOS Network display. As you'll see from the screenshot below, what it displays in the menu is very customisable. I have it set to show whether I'm connected via 2.4GHz or 5GHz, the signal strength as a percentage and the connected speed. My home network consists of two Ubiquiti access points with the same SSID on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I'm not interested in the network SSID but I do like to know that I've got a decent connection.

When I click on the menu item (which I've included below, enlarged so you can see it properly), I'm presented with various details about the network as per the first main screenshot. The second main screenshot shows all the configuration options as to what you can display in the menu bar.

When moving from Windows to macOS, a lot of people feel the need to install lots of system monitoring tools, such as CPU use, memory use, etc. These things really aren't needed when using a Mac and this is one of the very few system monitoring tools I actually use. It's not really a system monitor though as it's the network rather than the computer itself.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wifi-signal-status-monitor/id525912054

LabR@t · 10 May 2021 at 19:08

no opensource software on mac? All paid for apps?

Feek · 11 May 2021 at 08:47

LabR@t said:
no opensource software on mac? All paid for apps?

I never really considered that, if I want a piece of software to do something, I look for it and if it does what I want, I pay for it.

Menu Bar UTC
This is a bit more specialised than anything else I've posted. As an amateur radio operator, I need to know the time in GMT (UTC) and so I wanted a clock to sit in my menu bar and just display the current time in GMT. This does that and nothing else! The display can be customised to show the time in the way you want but apart from that, that's literally all it does. It's a clock and nothing else. I struggled to find an app that does this so I saw the author has other clock related apps and I emailed him. This was quite literally made for me

You can see the clock in the first post of this thread where I show a screenshot of my menu bar.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/menu-bar-utc/id1505489419?mt=12

Scythe · 11 May 2021 at 09:22

Great idea @Feek

One app that I really like is Mimestream. It is a Gmail client for those who want a simple yet effective email client that is visually similar to Apple Mail, after I found Apple Mail & Gmail don't always get on so well.

Another one is the obvious Amphetamine if you want your Mac to stay awake/on for prolonged periods.

MrRockliffe · 11 May 2021 at 09:37

Better Touch Tools/Magnet is a must IMO

Makes a massive difference to productivity.

Loving the thread! Even though I don’t have a Mac anymore

Feek · 11 May 2021 at 10:10

MacUpdater
I've mentioned MacUpdater before and it's another app that I love. It sits in your menu bar and once a day (or whenever you configure it for), it scans your Mac for software that's out of date and with just a couple of clicks, will update everything for you. It's surprising how often apps are updated and I used to get frustrated when I'd open something, just to be prompted for an update.

It can be configured to ignore specific apps, ignore specific updates, show or hide App Store updates, keep version backups, ensure updates are verified so the downloads aren't corrupted/hijacked.

It's just a great, really useful tool.

https://www.corecode.io/macupdater/

shiver · 11 May 2021 at 11:08

Feek said:
WiFi Signal: Status Monitor
I have this installed on my laptop and I've disabled the macOS Network display. As you'll see from the screenshot below, what it displays in the menu is very customisable. I have it set to show whether I'm connected via 2.4GHz or 5GHz, the signal strength as a percentage and the connected speed. My home network consists of two Ubiquiti access points with the same SSID on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I'm not interested in the network SSID but I do like to know that I've got a decent connection.

When I click on the menu item (which I've included below, enlarged so you can see it properly), I'm presented with various details about the network as per the first main screenshot. The second main screenshot shows all the configuration options as to what you can display in the menu bar.

When moving from Windows to macOS, a lot of people feel the need to install lots of system monitoring tools, such as CPU use, memory use, etc. These things really aren't needed when using a Mac and this is one of the very few system monitoring tools I actually use. It's not really a system monitor though as it's the network rather than the computer itself.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wifi-signal-status-monitor/id525912054

FYI (you may know this already) - a lot of that info is available just by Option+Clicking the Wifi icon in your menubar.

Feek · 11 May 2021 at 11:24

shiver said:
Option+Clicking the Wifi icon in your menubar.

Aye, I do know that but it's worth it to me just for the constant (and highly customisable) display of network, signal strength and speed.

Terminal_Boy · 11 May 2021 at 12:29

I also found DaisyDisk really useful of digging out the buried files from old apps that Clean My Mac would often leave behind.

Transmit was really useful for securely sending large log files to various development offices where the use always on shared NAS drives wasn’t possible.

SMCfancontrol is a must for laptops and iMacs as Apple is a big fan of “silent until thermally throttling” fan profiles.

visibleman · 11 May 2021 at 14:17

Apologies for hijacking @Feek but a few tools i've come across that i use and deploy to users here...

OverSight
Great little security tool (from Patrick Wardle, security researcher) that is essentially a bouncer for your webcam and audio input(s), displaying a notification if a process (active malware for example) attempts to access either of them. You can then either allow or block the process as well as place the process on a permanent black/whitelist.

Price - FREE.

https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html

Patrick Wardle does have a load of other apps (https://objective-see.com/products.html), like LuLu (firewall), Do Not Disturb (maid attacks), BlockBlock that are worth looking at too, plus most of them are free which is a bonus. And his blog posts on Apple security research is also well worth a read (https://objective-see.com/blog.html).

MalwareBytes
As the name implies, it's a malware scanner that all MacOS users should be installing now that malware is on the rise and MacOS's own defences have been broken/bypassed in the past. Easy to use, extremely quick and unless you want continuous real-time protection, completely free.

Price - FREE / £30 per year for real-time protection (usually on offer a few times a year).

LabR@t said:
no opensource software on mac? All paid for apps?

There's plenty and you have the likes on Homebrew too but generally they aren't as "polished" as commercial apps (stating the obvious) which is what you're paying (some times the outrageous price) for.

Ryan-3 · 12 May 2021 at 09:27

Giving HyperDock a go. It's the only place where I find Windows has better functionality than Mac and this brings it over. Rather good for switching between multiple files in the same bit of software quickly

@Feek - do you ever find it opens the app settings when you are using it, or is that a Trial thing? It's bloody annoying but I'm just leaving it in the background and ignoring it.

whitecrook · 13 May 2021 at 14:41

Great thread. Downie looks good, but I use use clipgrab which is free. Does a similar thing, most websites you can paste the link in. https://clipgrab.org

There's also a piece of software called Hermit Crab, which is like a video downloader personal repository. Has some interesting features. Worth checking out https://iamhermitcrab.com

Does anyone have a good finder alternative