The 46 Mac Apps I Actually Use and Why

tl;dr: There’s no reason to use ChronoSync to backup iCloud Drive files for the purpose of then backing them up with CCC, SuperDuper, or Arq.


@jzw [Any relation to jwz?],

Let me start by saying that, though I’m a long-time Mac user (1984) and, comparatively speaking, a “power user,” I’m no Mac expert — and am especially no expert when it comes to Apple’s implementation of iCloud / iCloud Drive / Mobile Documents / &c.

Not that long ago (one year? two?), I needed to restore an iCloud Drive file and was stunned to find that CCC hadn’t backed it up — or, at least, I wasn’t able to find it or any of its sibling files.

As I looked into this just now, though, to verify my memory and to point you to a definitive source, I find that Mike Bombich has specifically addressed this question:

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/limitations-online-only-placeholder-files

and he says point blank that CCC does automatically back these files up (though it doesn’t, of course, back up files that are only in the cloud — they have to be on your hard drive). So, it’s possible that I was right and that my backup selection criteria in some way missed these files, or perhaps that the version of CCC I was using at the time was buggy or didn’t yet support iCloud Drive documents, or ….

And of course Joe Kissell’s TCo iCloud (both v8 and v9) includes:

Looking at things from another angle, however, you should absolutely back up everything in iCloud Drive, along with the rest of your files, to one or more other drives or external locations. Thus, with whatever backup apps you may use—Time Machine, Backblaze, Carbon Copy Cloner, or whatever—make sure it includes the directory ~/Library/ Mobile Documents/, which is where iCloud Drive stores its local copies of your files. If something goes missing from your iCloud Drive for any reason, you’ll want another way to recover your data.

I’ve gone just now and checked one of my CCC backup drives (filled with APFS snapshots), navigating to the pseudo-folder ~/Library/Mobile Documents/, and comparing that listing to what I see when I navigate to the “same” pseudo-folder on my MBP.

The backed-up version of my “folder” contains 105 folders and the live version contains 87. The names of the folders, of course, are very different. What’s called Pixelmator Pro in the live version is called 4R6749AYRE~com~pixelmatorteam~pixelmator in my backup folder. The live version is empty, but the backup contains two folders, one of which has 26 Pixelmator “preview” files.

Ah… I think I see what must’ve happened last year. The file I was looking for should have been in a folder titled Notebooks. Since the folder names are completely different, and there is no backup folder titled Notebooks, I would’ve initiated a Finder search within the Mobile Documents backup folder — and found nothing, which might be because these files count as “System files” and I forgot to include those in the search criteria, or because I had my backup drive excluded from Spotlight indexing.

In fact, the folder is there on the backup drive, named iCloud~com~aschmid~notebooks/Documents/ — which is perfectly clear and parseable, but not predictable. And it includes all the files I’d expect it to.

Honestly, however, I get nervous enough about iCloud Drive that I think I’ll probably continue redundantly backing up the directories that contain my most important files. But it does indeed seem that there is no requirement to do so.

Thank you for triggering this research — I’ve definitely learned something!

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I went through this process when I bought a new MBP a couple of years ago - a cathartic experience to rid myself of unused apps. If I was doing it again this is what I’d have.

Absolutely required

Development (I’m retired so mainly supporting existing apps)
Script Debugger
Xojo
Filemaker
Sequel Ace (formerly Sequel Pro)

Graphics/Design
RePicvid Free Photo Recovery - the BEST photo recovery tool - truly amazing
Capture One
FinalCutPro (barely touch it so might switch to DaVince Resolve or just use iMovie)
Photoshop
Affinity Photo
Pixelmator Pro
I’m most comfortable with Photoshop but it’s likely I could make do with just Affinity Photo and C1
Affinity Publisher
I currently have Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat installed - but only because it’s paid for by my former employer so I can continue some consulting/development work for them.

General
1Password
BBEdit
Carbon Copy Cloner
Default Folder
Eagle
Find Any File
Forklift (has replaced Transmit)
LanScan Pro
Lingon X
Onyx
VideoProc Converter

Web
AdBlock Plus and 1Blocker (I couldn’t watch youtube or many other sites without these)

Others I’d install if needed but don’t consider necessary
Daisy Disk
Rapidweaver
Audacity
Sound Studio
FotoMagico
Permute
I used to do a lot of presentations and audio visual work - don’t really do it any more.

I also have a lot of company/business specific apps - mostly things I’ve written over the years.

My apps.
In my menu bar:

  • iStat Menus
  • 1Password Quick Access
  • OneDrive
  • Maestral (to access DropBox; I don’t have an account, just a few files)
  • Sync.com (for now - I’m having trouble with this app on iOS and iPadOS)
  • Bartender (because of the notch on the MBA)
  • TailScale (VPN-ish service - mostly to access a computer that’s behind double-NAT at the summer cottage using Screens, the VNC app/service)
  • Arq (Backup)
  • Carbon Copy Cloner
  • Alfred
  • Proton Mail Bridge (I don’t use Proton for much. I was considering moving from Gmail to Proton Mail but the lack of integration with iOS Mail bothers me.)
  • Hazel

And on my dock:

  • Safari
  • Messages
  • Mail
  • MoneyDance (personal finance)
  • Photos
  • Maps
  • Calendar
  • Contacts
  • Reminders (not often used on Mac)
  • Music
  • News
  • Agenda - switched from Notes to this several months ago
  • Notes (to access old notes)
  • Sonos
  • 1Password
  • DayOne (Personal journaling app)
  • Excel

And other apps that I use:

  • Word
  • Pages/Numbers (occasionally)
  • FaceTime (rarely on Mac)
  • BBEdit
  • Disk Decipher (this is really an iPadOS app, but I use it to access disk images and old TrueCrypt vaults)
  • Firefox and Chrome (for occasional use to check if it’s Safari that’s having issues with web sites)
  • Screens
  • Zoom
  • OneNote (I keep a few Notes in here for a consulting client, slowly switching to Agenda)

I don’t use a 2FA app on my Mac, though I suppose I could install the iPadOS version of the one I am currently using - OTP Auth. If I need an OTP I just check my phone, watch, or iPad, at least one of which is always with me.

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As a heavy user of computers for 60+ years (anybody remember the IBM 650? Univac 1100 series? card punches?), with nine working computing devices in the house (and lots more that are dead), I was mildly astonished to find only six of Adam’s 46 apps on my primary machine (1PW, Dropbox, BBEdit, FF, MS365, Zoom). Other commentors have mentioned some of the four critically important apps that I would add: DOSBox, Fetch, Graphic Converter and Reunion. But I will certainly explore some of those mentioned by Adam and others, especially as I know I need to do more in the way of systematic backups.

What I most need, which seems not have been mentioned here yet, is a really good duplicate file & folder finder that doesn’t insist on automagically deleting “excess” files. I may end up rolling my own using REXX and AppleScript.

I’d never heard of DayOne but it looked interesting (as do many of the other apps mentioned). I would happily have bought it but I’ll never subscribe.

At the moment the only subscription apps I have are the Adobe apps and the moment someone else stops paying for them they’ll be deleted. Same will apply to any other app I’m using which goes the subscription model.

I’ve enjoyed seeing new and interesting apps in this thread, and it’s also interesting to see those which are popular amongst advanced users. 1PW, DefaultFolder, Find any File, BBEdit and CCC all seem to have nailed their target audience.

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There’s a rumor this week that DayOne may be Sherlocked this fall when iOS 17 and MacOS 14 are released with an included journaling app that can draw info from the many apps on your device (email, calendar, health, photos, etc.)

That said, DayOne is a great app. It’s worth it for me. I have a 1640 day streak going (at least one entry per day) right now.

Is there a good REXX interpreter for macOS? I last used it years ago when i was running OS/2 (which uses it as an extension of the DOS-style batch file language). It’s a great language, but I have always assumed it to be an IBM-proprietary language.

I don’t do much scripting on my Mac, but on Linux, where I do a lot of it, I tend to use shell scripts for simple things and Python for more complicated things. I used to use perl a lot, but it’s too hard to remember everything you need to use it effectively if you aren’t using it all the time.

Yes, it has been interesting, so many listed I forgot to mention, Default Folder X and others.

Would be interesting to see a similar listing for iOS.

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Yes, there is – see https://www.rexxla.org/ and https://regina-rexx.sourceforge.io/ for details.

As much as I don’t want to pay a subscription, I also don’t like stuff getting Sherlocked. Apple throws around its significant weight when it comes to smaller developers.

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.