Window Management/Misc Util
Spectacle, Free, Open Source
BetterTouchTool, Donationware
Magnet , Mac App Store, about $2.
Winner: BetterTouchTool
Spectacle App is really, really good window management; shortcuts to dock windows to left/right half (or quadrants, or top/bottom) of screen. Some stuff, like hitting the ‘dock right’ shortcut (ctrl + cmd + right) twice makes a window use the right third then right half then right 3/4ths etc. It’s just magically good. Having said that you can replicate (95%) the functionality of Spectacle App with BTT and since BTT does Window Management and Keyboard/Mouse Remapping and so much more – it makes sense to use BTT alone.
Magnet is Spectacle App with the added ability to dock windows on drag (i.e. drag to top of screen to make a window full screen). BTT does this out of the box too; but takes it further… BTT lets you define snap areas / layouts and activate them using the mouse alone!
BTT does not come batteries included, so you have to make your own shortcuts and assign window management operations to them. There’s a community forum for sharing presets but it’s still a chore. Also BTT can do Touchbar based Window Management (though I’ve not found that very useful; and I hate the touchbar anyways).
Application Launcher / Search Everywhere
Alfred, Freemium
Better spotlight, including deep integration with Google / Gmail / Drive and other custom searches (via plugins). Really good, no competition here. No discussion, just install it and thank me later.
Alfred Workflows
Note Taking
OneNote, Free, Proprietary
The best note taking app out there. Period. I’d say Apple Notes is now the best note taking app out there, because it’s so fast and has great integration with iOS & macOS. The web version is not too shabby either. It’s not very cross platform though and if you have thousands of notes (as I do) sync breaks every now and then. It doesn’t have all the “nice” touches of OneNote – like napkin math or keyboard shortcuts to apply styles like Heading 1, Heading 2 etc.
Screen Sharing / Collaboration
ScreenHero (now owned/murdered by Slack)
AnyDesk
TeamViewer: The free version just randomly stops workign for me — it says commercial use detected and stops. So AnyDesk, though TeamViewer is very good.
Other:
CleanMyMacX, Freemium
Itsycal, Freemium
Developer Tools
- PHPStorm
- Visual Studio Code
- Homebrew,
Homebrew packages/bottles:
brew install php swaks htop telnet ffmpeg mysql pstree aria2 pv q jq autojump keychain nmap readline node redis beanstalkd ripgrep rsnapshot wget rsync bzip2 git xz yarn speedtest-cli parallel composer go sqlite curl grep sshfs coreutils
Other Stuff
Google Chrome, FireFox, Microsoft Edge (Chrome)
XCode
Office 365
Parallels Desktop
Coconut Battery
WhatsApp (Desktop)
Blackmagic Speed Test
Amphetamine
Reeder
Dropbox
Tinkerwell
VLC
Beyond Compare: Don’t leave home without this!
Paw
SuperDuper
(Git) Tower 2
Docker
Pocket
SecurePDF
XQuartz
Calibre
Intel Power Gadget
Mailplane
Backup and Sync from Google
MacDown
WireGuard
MySQL Workbench
Skype
OpenAudible
Resolutionator
Local By Flywheel
JetBrains Toolbox
Trello
GIPHY Capture
Yoink!
OpenInTerminal
MacsFanControl
Trader Workstation (IB)
Infinite Curiosity 