The 46 Mac Apps I Actually Use and Why

I forgot about Mail Steward. It archives (Mac) emails into an SQL database that can be searched.
My archives go back to my first Macs ~2004! I have saved the archives on Bluray disks for long term storage (acknowledging that being able to read Bluray in the years to come may be an issue)

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Isn’t this a great topic!

In my small list above, I neglected to include BBEdit — how could I have overlooked it! It’s almost the one constant in everyone’s list.

I use it to preview HTML code — and above all to strip non-ASCII code from text to go into MailChimp or Affinity Publisher.

It’s always open… I can’t imagine life without it!

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Right, that’s why I mentioned it - at this point I wouldn’t suggest starting a subscription if you haven’t used this app already. I obviously have a lot of value stored in DayOne already and I’ll see what happens if this truly comes to pass - whether there will be an easy way to get info from DayOne into Apple’s app, whether the feature set matches what I want from it, etc. I do use this app more in iOS, as it tracks significant locations, so I can make entries based on those later on, but I do occasionally do draft posts on the phone and edit them later on the Mac.

No, I wasn’t aware of jwz and am certainly not trying to gain any credibility by association! jzw was the first Unix username I was assigned when I went to university (for reasons unknown since my middle name doesn’t start with ‘z’) and I liked it so have used it in various places ever since. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the explanation and for going back and checking things, it’s good to know that standard CCC/Arq backups are picking up the files in Mobile Documents. Your issue with using Spotlight to search in that folder is precisely why when I’m hunting for a file or folder, I don’t even bother with Spotlight, I go straight to Find Any File. Find Any File’s determinism is invaluable – I know it will search where I point it and search everything there. With Spotlight I’m never sure if there’s some place it hasn’t indexed or isn’t searching because it thinks I should never need to poke around there.

As you’ve noted regarding folder names, what you see in Mobile Documents is very different to what’s on disk. Not only are the actual names different, but there are loads of folders that don’t display at all in the Finder. For instance, if I list the contents in Terminal I have the folder N2WF5DAF43~com~runloop~seconds which must come from years ago when I tried out the ‘Seconds’ app on my iPhone. But it doesn’t show up at all in the Finder.

The other place to be aware of folder display name issues in case you’re trying to locate something is ~/Library/Containers. In the Finder, you’ll see loads of folders that appear to have identical names. For instance:

image

If you do a Get Info on these folders, they actually have very different names:

com.apple.mail
com.apple.mail.MailQuickLookExtension
com.apple.MailShareExtension
com.apple.share.Mail.compose
com.apple.share.Mail.compose-back-to-sender
com.apple.STMExtension.Mail

This is another area where Find Any File is excellent. You can toggle Show Localised File Names to see either what’s displayed in the Finder:

or what the actual folder name is:

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There was some discussion of utilities for this kind of thing in February – might be worth a read through if you missed it:

2 posts were split to a new topic: Using the Raycast keyboard launcher

Now that you mention it, I forgot to mention my all-time favorite editor - GNU Emacs. I either compile my own build from sources or (if I’m feeling lazy), I download a binary installation from https://emacsformacos.com/.

I realize that my preference is not typical. I think that’s because I came to Mac OS X (in 2002) from a Unix background. At the time, I was looking to switch away from Windows PCs and my first choice was actually going to be a low end Sun/SPARC system (at the time, I thought Linux was still just a fad). Then when Apple released a system based on Unix, I decided that would be the best of both worlds - all the Unix goodness I like, plus a pre-existing library of Mac software.

Hence my use of lots of apps that are popular in the Linux/Unix world - Firefox, Thunderbird, Emacs, Python scripting, X11 graphics, etc.

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My favourite app at the moment is TinkerTool System 8. It got me out of a massive hole when the permissions on a folder with hundreds of folders and thousands of files going back to 1984 got the dreaded duplicate “Every One” permission. After hours of research TinkerTool fixed it a couple of minutes. A “life” saver!

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I have also faced the prospect of reinstalling applications and have prioritized what goes first. After all the utilities and calendar and those that have already been mentioned, I need to install the main work programs that I use daily. I write scientific papers, so the first one I install is the TeX distribution from Mactex https://tug.org/mactex/. It bundles TeXShop as a front end, although I mostly use BBedit for my writing. I also need a program for visualizing my data and install (sigh of lament) Kaleidagraph. It does a lot of good things but does not have a good Mac interface. I have been trying DataGraph instead. To make my figures, I have to have a drawing program. I always liked the way Macdraw and then Freehand worked and moved to Intaglio once those were gone. Alas, Intaglio is also gone. I am replacing it with Eazydraw, but I don’t find that so easy. I add Scrivener for its ability to integrate LaTex templates. I have to have a spreadsheet program, so Numbers it is. As a footnote, I loved an ancient program called Trapeze. It could manipulate and plot data in many powerful ways. It also did not survive even the transition to Macs with more than 8 MB of ram and went the way of the dodo.

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I’d love to try this out but unfortunately, it does not run on Intel Macs. I guess I’ll have to wait until I get a new Mac.

Ooo, good point. I’m not sure if there’s an article here, but the Chrome extensions that I really depend on are:

  • 1Password: For autofilling passwords, of course
  • CopyTables: This extension is brilliant for extracting data from tables
  • Grammarly: I rely on it for proofreading of all TidBITS and TCN articles
  • Wikiwand: Does a nice job of reformatting Wikipedia pages to be easier to read; someone

Currently testing:

Others I use occasionally:

  • BuiltWith Technology Profiler: For TCN, it’s helpful to figure out what clients use on their sites
  • ClearURLs: Removes tracking codes from URLs so they don’t end up in TidBITS. No longer necessary in my new world order.
  • Clip to DEVONthink: For snagging tech specs for Apple products
  • Google Translate: Just in case I hit a page in another language. I was just trading email with my old friend Akif Eyler, author of the Easy View app for viewing setext files like TidBITS from the early 1990s, and he pointed me to this page in Turkish.
  • Library Extension: For revealing books that I can get from a public library
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OK, thanks. I’ll try that. In LaunchBar I have always used the very explicit ⌘A to Assign Abbreviation.

As a retired scientist (physics), I have a somewhat different set of must-have Mac apps. I have written a physics textbook and am working on another one. I also do some occasional development of physics demos using Xcode. I originally developed for iOS but, now that Apple has dumped Intel, I am developing for the Mac again, the Apple platform of greatest interest to me.

So far as everyday apps are concerned, I am happy with the stock Apple apps for the Mac:

Safari - great browser (also have Firefox for the rare occasion when I need it).

Mail - meets all my current email needs.

Keychain - works well for me (I avoid subscription apps or ones based on electron on principle and don’t use any non-Apple platforms. I cringe when I use electron-based Zoom which uses up so much of the Mac’s resources, but I have little choice).

iCloud Drive - indispensable for me. I used Dropbox until I found that its was using 2 GB of RAM with 1100 threads for some routine activities. I try to keep poor platform citizens off my computer and have been very happy with iCloud.

Xcode - development. Huge (and updates take forever) but necessary if using the macOS/iOS GUI is important. I never got the hang of autolayout.

My “scientific” apps, mainly for publication, are:

TeXshop - a superb free TeX and LaTeX app with excellent support. Makes beautiful documents with a bit of mathematical content.

ViaCAD - a superb clone of the award-winning Vellum CAD app (from the previous century) with an excellent user interface and a great price compared to the Aslhar (Vellum) products. I use it for making diagrams for publishing.

LaTeXiT - a free and indispensable app for short LaTeX items which I use for graph labels.

DataGraph - a very good graphing app which makes publication quality graphs (I formerly used Igor Pro, but the developers seem about to abandon the Mac platform. It is also very expensive.)

OmniGraffle - Used mainly to produce a PDF page with PDF components inside which can be easily moved around and resized.

Homebrew - source for compilers and apps like Octave for doing scientific calculations. Octave does most of what MatLab does but is free.

That’s about it. Sorry for the longish list…

Warren Nagourney

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The publisher of the American Heritage Dictionary changed developers for the iOS app awhile back. I discovered this when iOS 9, I think, broke the app, and I went looking for an update. At the time, the new/current developer didn’t honor purchases of the previous app, so if I wanted AHD5, I would have had to pay for it again. Is it possible you’re in the same situation now I was in?

I think a few years ago, the current iOS app was updated to recognize the purchase of AHD5 from the previous developer, and it was supposed to detect the old app and automatically give access to the full dictionary without having to pay again. In my case, it didn’t work, so I contacted the developer. I was surprised to actually get a prompt reply with a code for an in-app purchase. That code didn’t work, but we eventually got it straightened out.

Years back, I used test pre-release versions of OS X, which involved a lot of clean installs, so I streamlined the process of setting up a new system.

It’s interesting to see what app other physics/science-oriented people are using.

The first two app that get installed are 1Password and LaunchBar. I need 1Password so I can log into web sites, get my license codes, etc., and I’m so used to my shortcuts in LaunchBar that it’s kind of difficult to use the computer without it.

If I were pressed for time, these apps would be installed first:

  • Apple apps – Pages, Numbers, Keynote
  • Arq – for backups to Backblaze B2 storage
  • Graphic – for making simple drawings
  • MacTeX – mostly LaTeXiT

Next priority would include the apps and extensions I could live without but whose absence I would quickly notice:

  • 1Blocker
  • 1Password browser extensions for Brave and Firefox
  • StopTheMadness
  • Vinegar – makes YouTube a lot less annoying
  • Default Folder X
  • BBEdit (free version, I use this for simpler text stuff)
  • Emacs (for more complicated text manipulations)

The rest include:

  • Adobe Acrobat (b/c it’s paid for by the school)
  • Affinity Designer 2 (for when Graphic finally dies)
  • AppCleaner
  • Brave and Firefox (Safari’s my main browser, but I like to have alternatives)
  • DEVONthink 3
  • Geogebra Classic 5 (useful for showing some math stuff in class)
  • iCompta 6 (financial software)
  • Mathematica
  • Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive (b/c they’re paid for by the school)
  • Paprika Recipe Manager
  • Transmit
  • VLC
  • Zoom
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No list, but I note that if you are paying for Microsoft Office anyway, it comes with the excellent OneNote, which stores notes in many formats in a hierarchical system. Also syncs well with mobile devices.

I may have missed these in the lists, but …
Personal VPN for protection when at a cafe
Silverfast for scanning
SMART Reporter to check my hard drive
Flycut Flycut Flycut to remember recent clipboard contents and select when desired

Re Napkin app … having no knowledge of how it works (just Adam’s description) I thought that perhaps Freeform (Apple’s new app) could achieve the results Napkin users desire?

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“… I still rely on BBEdit regularly to manipulate text files, take ephemeral notes, and store random text files.”

… nothing beats BBEdit’s taming of regular expressions!

I just went through my apps and added to the list with some descriptions - just realised there were quite a few apps that I relied on every day but take for granted!

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