Feek's macOS useful tools, utilities and applications thread

Feek · 14 May 2021 at 09:14

whitecrook said:
Does anyone have a good finder alternative

I do actually have a Finder 'alternative' installed but I only use it for one thing. I hear people slagging of Finder a lot but I don't really know what they're expecting it to do, it's a file manager and it manages files! I'll add it to this thread later.

coconut Battery
Another useful tool which sits in the menu bar, replacing the standard macOS battery indicator and shows a lot more info once opened. It has detailed info about the charge rate, the discharge rate, the number of cycles, the battery temperature, battery life, Mac life and various other things. There's a free version which is perfectly good but the paid for version adds stuff like displaying battery details about iOS devices via WiFi. I have this on my MBA running all the time and occasionally fire it up on my iMac to look at the battery cycles on my iPhone.

Yes, I do only have 27 cycles on my six month old M1 MBA

https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

Valo · 14 May 2021 at 12:33

@Feek Hope you don't mind a contribution

App Cleaner
If I'm uninstalling an app I use App Cleaner to remove the app and any associated files completely.

https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

visibleman · 14 May 2021 at 13:00

OnyX
General MacOS maintenance utility for cleaning caches, rebuilding various indexes and databases, and configuring misc/hidden options in (some) Apple apps.

Price - FREE

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

Feek · 14 May 2021 at 13:03

Both AppCleaner and Onyx were on my list

MacRS4 · 14 May 2021 at 20:06

Ha, we have a very similar set of apps!

Additional ones I use:

Turbo Boost Switcher - when I'm just doing low power stuff would rather have longer battery life.
Alfred - Surely everyone knows about this? I like the shortcuts for emptying the trash etc.
TextExpander - so many shortcuts & macros in that now. Like typing ; pn (no space) gives me a log entry like 2021-05-14 20:00, never mind for entering email addresses and all kinds of shortcuts.
Better Rename is ace too. Getting lots of files with a name format you don't like - easy enough to sort on the command line but even easier with an app.
KeyboardCleanerTool - turns off the keyboard so I can clean it.
Macs Fan Control - another well known one.
MacTracker - handy app for looking up Mac specs.
PDF to Word+ - best I've seen for keeping formatting.
Project Viewer 365 - view/edit MS Project files.
SimpleMind PRO - Brilliant mind-map software. I use this a LOT for getting my ideas together.
VSD Viewer - View Visio diagrams.
CountDown+ - gives me a graphical countdown to specific events on my desktop. I find this really useful.
Unclutter - drop down app for files/notes/clipboard history. Drops down from the toolbar. Really handy.
PathFinder - as a Finder replacement I find it one of the better ones. I don't have a massive issue with Finder, but on my main 'every day' machine that does my complex stuff I find PathFinder really useful.

I'll add some links to the above shortly, and perhaps update too.

whiskycycle · 15 May 2021 at 22:56

HazeOver - an app I didn't know I needed, and one that's invaluable now. Dims all windows but the active one. Well worth paying for in my ways of working.

Mountain Duck - mount server and cloud storage in Finder, allowing you to use them like local drives. Works wonders when dealing with multiple GSuite accounts and throwing files between clients.

roman59 · 16 May 2021 at 11:49

Feek said:
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.

Just spotted this many thanks, I have currently got 2 shared hard drives on my windows pc that I have to manually add my username & password when I start up my Mac mini M1 to access them.

Bit of a pain doing this every time the Mac boots up, will auto mounter eliminate this for me ?

Dont mind paying for it once on the App Store, any idea what the in app purchases are ?

Cheers all

MacRS4 · 16 May 2021 at 13:16

~~Pro Mode~~ - you can set conditions and stuff. So on my MBP if I'm on my main WiFi it auto-mounts the volumes I want - if I'm not, it doesn't. EDITed not sure if that's a pro feature? It really is unclear isn't it.

You can also add script actions. I find that fairly useful. When I connect to my work WiFi for example it picks up specific logs for me and stuff like that.

About 3 or 4 quid for the in app-purchase, ~~and it's per machine too if I remember rightly~~ I did not, in fact, remember rightly. Full list:

Open Apps and files when a share mounts
Run command sand scripts on mount events
Mount to custom locations
Export and load settings via profiles

roman59 · 16 May 2021 at 13:20

MacRS4 said:
Pro Mode - you can set conditions and stuff. So on my MBP if I'm on my main WiFi it auto-mounts the volumes I want - if I'm not, it doesn't.

You can also add script actions. I find that fairly useful. When I connect to my work WiFi for example it picks up specific logs for me and stuff like that.

About 3 or 4 quid for the in app-purchase, and it's per machine too if I remember rightly.

Many thanks for the info

Cheers all

Feek · 16 May 2021 at 13:41

MacRS4 said:
About 3 or 4 quid for the in app-purchase, and it's per machine too if I remember rightly. Full list:

It's one off, I've got it on both my iMac and my MBA and I only paid once.

Your post, along with the ones above has crossed off a whole load that I was going to mention.

MacRS4 · 16 May 2021 at 14:07

Yeah, I've just tried it - you go through to purchase again on a new machine, and you get the 'already purchased'. Cool. It's a very handy app that one.

visibleman · 17 May 2021 at 14:12

roman59 said:
Just spotted this many thanks, I have currently got 2 shared hard drives on my windows pc that I have to manually add my username & password when I start up my Mac mini M1 to access them.

Store credentials in Keychain and then stick the mounted shares in your 'Login Items' (Settings > Users & Groups > Select your account > Login Items) - the shares will mount upon login.
Shares won't reconnect on disconnect unfortunately, which is where AutoMounter is handy (a long with a few other features) but you can create (/bodge) a script if need be - what i do here as the cost of AutoMounter isn't feasible for it to be dished out to everyone unfortunately.

MacRS4 said:
PDF to Word+ - best I've seen for keeping formatting.

Have you got a link to this? As my Google-Fu is failing me today

MacRS4 · 17 May 2021 at 14:16

Here you go.

visibleman · 17 May 2021 at 15:12

MacRS4 said:
Here you go.

Brilliant, thanks for that :cool:

smogsy · 17 May 2021 at 17:14

Feek said:
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

does this still work on big sur? seem like its not been updateds in 4 years.

Feek · 17 May 2021 at 17:14

smogsy said:
does this still work on big sur?

Yes.

whitecrook · 18 May 2021 at 23:21

Feek said:
I do actually have a Finder 'alternative' installed but I only use it for one thing. I hear people slagging of Finder a lot but I don't really know what they're expecting it to do, it's a file manager and it manages files! I'll add it to this thread later.

There's a whole bunch of things, but I can just about live with it. What really gets my goat is there is no Tree view. Yes, basically like windows explorer. And the multi column thing isn't the same. Neither is the semi-tree foldy in-out view. A proper tree on the left and the current folder on the right. I deal with multiple filesystems on various servers, each with hundred of directories, and I need to go up and down the trees a lot, moving files, copying data, comparing and having a 'state' is quite important. It's so cumbersome in Finder, it's unreal. I actually remote into my windows PC if I need to do any 'file' work, it's literally a magnitude easier.

I read something like this:

https://mac.eltima.com/best-finder-alternatives.html#features

and None are asuitable. They all have major flaws. One even says 'trouble connecting to network shares. If that's not a seling point of a bit of filemanagement software i don't know what is. Sorry if this derails this thread, delete this post if need be.

visibleman · 19 May 2021 at 11:56

whitecrook said:
What really gets my goat is there is no Tree view.

Have a look at XFile by Rixtep - https://rixstep.com/4/0/xfile/
It's been a fair few years since i've used (10.6/7 days) and it was fairly expensive to buy a license (£30/40 if i remember correctly) but it was a handy tool to have if you needed decent filesystem tree-views.

Edit - Looks like it might be free along with the rest of their tools; https://rixstep.com/1/20200910,00.shtml

whitecrook · 19 May 2021 at 12:07

visibleman said:
Have a look at XFile by Rixtep - https://rixstep.com/4/0/xfile/
It's been a fair few years since i've used (10.6/7 days) and it was fairly expensive to buy a license (£30/40 if i remember correctly) but it was a handy tool to have if you needed decent filesystem tree-views.

Edit - Looks like it might be free along with the rest of their tools; https://rixstep.com/1/20200910,00.shtml

haaaaa

after my post i went on a search again and i found that exact software. (as well as dozens of forum posts with people asking the same thing) I checked it out ... it's interesting but a license is now £120 but checking that free link out above. It might be usable, I need to test it out. it was a bit laggy on remote connections over VPN but i will give it a good test in coming weeks.

Edit, yeah -- it's free to try, and free to update, but you still need to buy it. It may be worth it.

whitecrook · 19 May 2021 at 12:08

.

edit/quote fail...