AppAddict

Setting Up a New Mac the Easy Way

[M4 Mac Mini]When I bought my last new Mac two years ago, I set it up the way I had been setting up my personal computers for years: plug in a Time Machine drive and run Migration Assistant. On a modern Mac with an SSD, even if you have hundreds of apps installed like I do, the whole process takes about 20 minutes. It recreates your Applications folder, brings over preferences, and generally makes the new machine feel finished almost immediately. Nothing could be easier. There is a downside, though. Migration Assistant faithfully brings over all the accumulated cruft along with...

March 16th, 2026

Four Indie Mac Utilities That Quietly Improve Your Workflow

Independent developers continue to build some of the most thoughtful utilities on macOS. These are small, focused tools that solve real workflow problems instead of trying to become the next all-in-one productivity suite. Here are a few that recently caught my attention. StealthlyFor anyone whose workday involves frequent Zoom, Teams, or other online meetings, presenting a professional, distraction-free screen matters. The same is true if you record tutorials or training videos. You want viewers focused on the content; not scanning your Dock, desktop, or menu bar for clues about your life. I installed Stealthly for both myself and my wife as soon...

March 13th, 2026

Developer Spotlight: The Low-Tech Guys, Maker of Clop, Lunar, rcmd, Pipiri and Crank

It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted me to approach the lead developer to learn more about the past, present and future of the company. But first, the apps. Crank Crank acts on triggers you define to take action without requiring user intervention. It’s more powerful than just Apple Shortcuts or Shortery, but...

March 10th, 2026 Mac Apps

My Stream Deck Setup for macOS Automation

I get a lot of use out of my Elgato Stream Deck. It’s one of the best hardware purchases I’ve made in a long time. It didn’t start that way. Shortly after I bought it, I discovered that the device falls under the privacy policy of its parent company, Corsair. The policy reads like it was written by lawyers trying to cover every possible future use case. According to the policy, potential data categories include: • identity information (name, account ID, email) • device identifiers and serial numbers • IP address and network data • usage data and clickstream behavior •...

March 9th, 2026

Mac Menu Bar Chaos

Where We Are… And WhymacOS 26 (Tahoe) is now months into its lifespan. The UI chaos it caused for menu bar management apps has calmed down a bit, but the situation is still far from stable. A combination of API limitations, OS-level redesigns, and tighter security controls broke many of the assumptions apps like Bartender, Ice, and Barbee relied on. As a result, behavior that used to be predictable is now anything but. Common symptoms include: • icons disappearing and reappearing randomly • the OS overriding the order of icons • management apps losing track of icon positions • items reindexing themselves...

March 8th, 2026

ScreenFloat is a Different Kind of Screenshot App

I only recently realized that my use of screenshots falls into two very different categories. On one hand, I use screenshots to illustrate blog posts and social media. That usually amounts to two or three captures a day. On the other hand, I take screenshots constantly for technical reasons; learning a new application, documenting my self-hosted server configuration, keeping track of network settings in my home lab, or simply capturing information during everyday tech work. For the past couple of years, I’ve relied almost exclusively on CleanShot X for screenshots. Recently I discovered ScreenFloat, which is designed for the second scenario. It’s not...

March 6th, 2026 Mac Apps

Why I'm Ditching Third-Party File Managers

I’ve long been in the habit of using third-party file managers on macOS. I used Pathfinder for years, then switched to Qspace Pro a couple of years ago. I also bought Bloom during a Black Friday sale last year to see what it could do. Recently, though, I’ve grown tired of paying the RAM tax these apps demand. Both Qspace and Bloom routinely use over 1 GB of memory. In my setup, they are often the most RAM-hungry applications running other than Chromium- or Gecko-based browsers. I still don’t understand why Apple hasn’t implemented an optional dual-pane interface in Finder. But if the goal...

March 5th, 2026

NeoFinder: The Mac App That Makes Offline Drives Searchable

[Image]Why NeoFinder MattersNeoFinder is a macOS app that catalogs disks and media, creating a searchable database of your files no matter where they live: internal drives, external drives, NAS volumes, shared network drives, removable media (CDs, DVDs, USB drives), and even inside archives. The real magic is its ability to search offline drives; drives that aren’t currently mounted. NeoFinder does this by maintaining an inventory of file names, folder structures, and a surprisingly deep set of metadata. It can even generate thumbnails and previews for many media types, so you can visually identify files without connecting the original drive. For...

March 4th, 2026

A Deep Dive on Rocket Typist

Every text expansion app promises the same core trick: type a short trigger; get a longer block of text. What actually matters is reliability, friction, and whether the app helps you build real workflows instead of just automating ⌘V. Rocket Typist is a one-time purchase Mac text expander from Witt Software. It focuses on dynamic snippets built with simple macros, all managed from a centralized library that lets you preview exactly what will be inserted before you commit. It’s normally $19.99 for the Pro version; it’s currently on sale at BundleHunt for $3.50. It’s also available through Setapp, although some...

March 3rd, 2026 Mac Apps

I'm Glad I Revisited Typora

Typora is a long-established Mac Markdown editor that renders as you type; no dual-pane preview, no “toggle to see what it really looks like” mode. It’s especially strong with tables and code blocks. If you write with math, it’s one of the cleanest LaTeX experiences on macOS. Mermaid diagrams are also straightforward. It doesn’t try to be everything. It’s not a platform. It’s not a note system It’s not an IDE. It’s a text editor for creating production ready documents. What It DoesTypora is a Markdown editor built around a single-pane, live-rendered approach. You write Markdown You see the formatted...

March 2nd, 2026 Mac Apps

Octavo: Real Booklet Imposition Without the Pro Print Tax

Veteran Mac developer Amy Worrall of Double and Thrice Ltd. recently released Octavo, a focused macOS app for booklet printing and imposition. If you’ve never dealt with imposition, here’s the short version: it’s the process of arranging individual pages on a larger sheet so that, once printed, folded, cut, and bound, everything lands in the correct order. When you see a press sheet with page 1 next to page 16 and page 2 upside down on the reverse, that’s not chaos. That’s math doing its job. Historically, tools that handle this well have been aimed at print professionals and priced...

March 2nd, 2026 Mac Apps

OCR Options in macOS

When you're faced with text that you can't select in the conventional way on your Mac (meaning with the cursor), there are several options. They all work in slightly different ways, and I use the one most appropriate for the task. Live Text RecognitionThe operating system has a feature called Live Text Recognition , an on-device computer vision feature that detects and extracts text from images and video so you can interact with it like normal text. It uses Apple’s Neural Engine to perform optical character recognition; OCR, directly on your Mac. That means you can: • Select and...

February 28th, 2026 Mac Apps

Droppy - Updates and New Features

I have tried a variety of notch apps, and I haven't been truly happy with any of them. I am not sure whether the novelty of the interface is the problem, or if it's the design of the apps I've used that bothers me. I recently installed Droppy, an app built entirely with Swift for speed and stability, and I like it more than the other notch apps I've used. I don't say this lightly, but it could be the best $7 you ever spend on software. It isn't overloaded with superfluous features, and the features it does have can...

February 27th, 2026 Mac Apps

MacPilot Tweaks Some Hard to Get To Settings in macOS

On Sale at BundleHunt for $3.99 MacPilot, a customization and utility app from Koingo Software, normally sells for $29.95 but it is currently $3.99 on Bundlehunt. There are similar apps like Onyx and Tinker Tool out there that are free, but for the price I thought I'd take a look. Applications Mac Pilot contains settings for several system apps. Here are just of the few things it can control. • Calendar - change event duration • Disk Utility - modify core storage • Dock - single app mode, enable window previews • Finder - enable "Quit Finder" • Help Viewer...

February 27th, 2026

Trace Helps You Make Informed Disk Management Decisions

Unless you’re seeing severely degraded performance during large writes, or macOS is actively warning you that you’re out of space, you can usually let the system manage storage. It does a solid job. If you do need to step in and make selective deletions, a newer app from Switzerland—Trace—offers genuinely informed assistance. When it was introduced on Reddit, some commenters dismissed it as yet another vibe-coded “optimizer.” That assumption doesn’t hold up. Trace has thorough documentation and a deep feature set. It’s not a one-click wrecking ball, a “system optimizer,” or a fake RAM cleaner. It’s a disk analysis tool...

February 25th, 2026 Mac Apps