AppAddict

Guilt Free Digital Media Pipline Automation

After a nearly twenty year break from using peer-to-peer technology (torrents) to download movies and TV shows, I have decided that it's more ethically pure in 2025 to once again fly the skull and crossbones than it is to put money in the hands of the fascist billionaires who monopolize the entertainment industry. To be clear, I'm not advocating doing this to software from independent developers. It's the collaborating big tech companies that don't deserve your money any more. Don't do this without a VPN. Just to show you how easy it is for your ISP or anyone who has...

May 16th, 2025 Mac Apps

Mega Post: Protect Yourself Like Your Freedom Depends On It

Today was the day that I finally went through a comprehensive checklist to cut down my dependency on Apple web services to the fullest extent possible. I'm still a fan of their software and hardware, but despite their PR campaign to pose as a privacy first company, they cooperate with law enforcement a higher percentage of the time than Facebook does. Let that sink in. In a time when our right to due process in America is under question, I'm not letting any US big tech companies have any more access to my life than is absolutely needed. All of...

May 9th, 2025

Redirect Web for Safari

I've recently been using Safari much more regularly than I have in years. I found quite a few helpful extensions that improve the experience. One that I didn't find on my own, but that I am grateful to have discovered through a tip from a reader, is Redirect Web for Safari, which allows you to define how your computer handles links from certain sources. You can use predefined rules or build your own. Predefined Rules • Make Reddit links open in Old Reddit • Open Twitter links in Xcancel to avoid adding any traffic to the official site • Open...

May 8th, 2025 Universal Apps

BarCuts Brings Order to Your Shortcuts Menu

I make extensive use of shortcuts all day long on my Mac. I use them to import data into Obsidian, generate alt-text for images I post on my blog or social media, query Open.AI, dismiss notifications, quit all apps, launch multiple apps at once, perform backups and so much more. In the past, I've made extensive use of the option to add shortcuts to a native menu running from the Mac menu bar, but over time the list grew long and more difficult to mage. Just in the nick of time, one of the friendliest and most helpful developers on...

May 7th, 2025 Mac Apps

A Mac Guy Gets Into Self-Hosting

Before 2025, my self-hosting experience had been limited to running the media server software, Plex, on a 2009 iMac. When I retired that machine, I didn't resurrect Plex on my new Mac, although I did hang on to all the media files. I retired myself this year and resolved to start self-hosting some services as a learning experience. My home network consists of three Mac laptops, a Lenovo ThinkPad, that 2009 iMac I mentioned, plus five iOS devices and an Amazon Kindle Fire (Android). I elected to use the ThinkPad as a server, although the platform I chose, Unraid, will...

May 5th, 2025 Mac Apps

Five New to Me Apps for a New Week

iDrive Cloud Backup From Assaf at Labnotes - IDrive Cloud Backup I started looking into Backblaze alternatives, and so far iDrive is a strong contender. I chose the mini plan, 500GB of backup for $9.95 a year (it’s somewhere in the UI, look it up). It does have continuous backup, but so far I’m happy just running on a schedule. Can’t figure out how to get it to ignore repeat directories like every node_modules, or limit by file type/size (eg don’t backup large videos). And the UI is not pleasant, but neither is Backblaze (their restore is overly complicated), so...

May 4th, 2025 Mac Apps

How to Check All Your Apps for Homebrew Availability

I don't think there is any question on how useful the free Mac package manager, Homebrew, can be. You can download and install an app with just one simple terminal command, something like: brew install bbedit After it's installed, there is no ZIP archive or DMG file to clean up or manage. To update you apps installed with Homebrew, you don't need a special app or a subscription to anything. You just open a terminal windows and run: brew upgrade Your apps will be upgraded in place with nothing for you to clean up. To back up your configuration, you...

May 3rd, 2025 Mac Apps

Glide — A Reading Aid for Those With Concentration and Perception Challenges

Luckily, I don't have a diagnosis of ADHD or dyslexia, although anyone who spends much time online quickly becomes aware that those challenges are common among people of all walks of life, including tech. I'm old, so I lived a good thirty years before widespread Internet access arrived in the 90s. In the olden times, I was a voracious reader of books. Gradually through the years, my ability to concentrate eroded bit by bit until, like most people these days, I rarely even read all the way to the end of news articles unless I really force myself. The developer...

April 30th, 2025 Mac Apps

NameQuick Comes in Handy

No matter how consistent you are, your computer is more consistent. One of my hobbies requires me to do frequent file exports, and I've just never come up with a consistent naming scheme to provide me the information I want at a glance. I always have to get info or switch Finder to show details to differentiate between different versions of the files I use. NameQuick, an Ai-driven file naming utility by indy developer Josef Moucachen, is a full-featured app with numerous automation options. There isn't a free trial, but there is a three-day period to get a refund, so...

April 29th, 2025 Mac Apps

It Might Be Time to Get Rid of Backblaze

Backblaze offers two products to Mac users. The first and oldest is an always on backup service that backs up your entire hard drive to the cloud. In the event of a hard drive crash, theft or disaster, they will mail you a USB drive with the entire contents of your drive so that you can restore to a new device. For incremental restorations, you can recover files online after making a request for what you want. Their other product is online storage similar to Amazon's AWS or Microsoft Azure. The personal backup plan is $9 a month or $99...

April 28th, 2025 Mac Apps

Make dupeGuru Part of Your Maintenance Toolbox

As a non-developer, I appreciate how difficult writing good software must be. There are a few tasks that it seems are nearly impossible to prefect. Finding duplicate images is one of them. Apps that use machine logic to identify images with different file names, different creation dates, file sizes and even image dimensions seem to have an almost impossible task. One of my ongoing projects is curating a lifetime of photos that include scanned paper photos, images from various digital cameras and every smartphone my wife and I have ever owned. The images have been in iCloud, in Google Photos,...

April 26th, 2025 Mac Apps

Apps For Travelers

When I travel, my phone ceases to be an entertainment and diversion device and turns into a real tool. Whether I'm staying in town or on an outdoor adventure, I rely on my phone for directions and information about things to do and places to go. Here are a few of the apps I find helpful. History PointerHistory Pointer uses your current location to show you locations on the National Historic Register. I was amazed to see how many places in my own hometown were listed. You get maps, Wikipedia excerpts and an augmented reality tour. ($4.99) Gas BuddyLast weekend,...

April 25th, 2025 iOS Apps

Get Plain Text - Adds a Feature the Mac Lacks

People who work with text a lot are familiar with the Mac shortcut to paste the clipboard as plain text - Command + Shift + Option + V. This shortcut works in many native Mac applications like Pages, Mail, and Safari. When you copy content from a source and use this shortcut to paste, it automatically strips away any formatting. While the shortcut is highly versatile, it only works sometimes. Applications like Microsoft Word or third-party software may not support it natively. You can learn application-specific methods of pasting as plain text. Word has a way to do it. So...

April 24th, 2025 Mac Apps

Quick App Launcher - Pro, A Well Thought Alternative

There are various ways to launch apps on a Mac. The most obvious and the one used most by new Mac users is clicking icons in the dock. Apple also has Launchpad another built-in launcher. More advanced users sometimes move on to keyboard-driven methods, starting with Spotlight and advanced launchers like Raycast or Alfred, although some don't want the added system overhead or extra features. Some like the convenience of a menubar launcher like Xmenu or Folder Peek. Lately, there has also been a growing popularity among so-called pie menu launchers like Pieoneer. Another choice now available from developer Baser...

April 22nd, 2025 Mac Apps

Free App List Number 4

This is the fourth collection of free apps reviewed on AppAddict. Links to the first three collections are posted below. I've downloaded and installed each of these on my Mac. I've added many of these apps to my workflows for getting stuff done. Previous Collections• A Curated Collection of Free Apps • Another Curated Collection of Free Software • AppAddict Free App List Number 3 Free App List Number 4• Permissions Reset 2 - Free Troubleshooting Tool • Zotero as a Free PDF Library Manager • UTM for Virtualization • rclone - An Easy to Use and Powerful CLI •...

April 21st, 2025 Mac Apps