AppAddict

Stay is a Free and Useful Utility for Multiple Monitor Setups

When it comes to multi-monitor setups, users have wildly different demands. Some people make extensive use of spaces, while others won't; their applications must be tiled the exact same way at all times. My personal use case in the two-monitor setup that I use is that I want apps to open on the same monitor with each use. Although Stay does remember tiled window positions in its profiles, I don't care so much about that, because I tend to use most of my apps in full-screen mode. I absolutely do not want to have to drag windows around from monitor...

November 13th, 2025 Mac Apps

ExtraDock Simplifies Remote Work

On the computer, where I get most of my work done, I have a dual monitor setup dialed in over a period of time to match my preferences for the apps and processes that I use daily. I am partial to a keyboard-centric workflow. I have used keyboard-driven launchers for many years, including LaunchBar and currently Raycast. However, I deal with a great many files, primarily photographs, videos, music, and eBooks, moving them from different locations in my file system to other locations. This requires me to use a mouse and to do quite a bit of application switching. When...

November 12th, 2025

tinyMediaManager - Power User Toolbox for Movie and TV Show Collections

My personal media collection dates back to the days of ripping Netflix DVDs, back when the Internet used to come in the mail. Consisting of thousands of titles and weighing in at 20 TB, it presents some management challenges. Keeping things organized and standardized is important to me, and while I value automation, I also want full control over my files. To that end, I use tinyMediaManager (aka TMM), a cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux) app written in Java. Since it is optimized for Apple Silicon, I use it on my M2 MBA rather than my vintage Intel MBP. The actual...

November 10th, 2025 Mac Apps

Calibre Keeps Getting Better

The free and open-source e-book manager, Calibre, by developer Kovid Goyal, has been around for quite a few years now. It is multi-platform, with versions for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is somewhat homely, although it includes functions to customize its appearance. It definitely does not follow typical macOS interface standards, so if that's something you require, you might have to compromise if you want access to Calibre's features. However, for anyone with a moderate to large-sized collection of e-books, it is a must-have toolbox, and after using it for a decade, I am still finding new things it is...

November 9th, 2025 Mac Apps

People Sure Are Picky About PDF Tools

Few categories of software arouse as much debate as apps designed to work with PDFs, primarily because there are such a variety of use cases and work flows around these documents. As anyone who has ever worked in IT support can tell you, every ignorant enterprise user that has ever lived is convinced they need Adobe Acrobat Pro - to hell with its huge footprint, huge cost and hefty learning curve. Even knowledgable Mac users who are infrequent users of PDFS, remain in the dark about all the powerful features available in the native macOS Preview app: • Annotate and...

November 7th, 2025 Mac Apps

Ping Uptime Monitor - Simple and Configurable

Ping Uptime Monitor by Neat Software is a lightweight menubar app that monitors the availability and response time of any entity with an IP address: websites, APIs, servers, routers, devices and workstations. When problems are detected, it alerts you. It has a limited free tier and a pro upgrade to unlock the full feature set(one-time purchase, not subscription). You may be thinking that you don't ned a tool to do your pinging, since that's a command line tool that's among the first that many of us ever learned, but bear with me, because Ping Uptime Monitor can do some useful...

November 6th, 2025 Mac Apps

PowerPhotos Supercharges and Complements What Apple Provides

I've been taking iPhone photos since 2009, lots of them. I also own and use a DSLR, and my hard drive is full of huge raw photos stretching back to the last century. I've used a variety of photo management apps through the years, but let's face it, for all its many faults, Apple's native Photos app makes it super simple to create and share images right out of the box. This makes it tempting to use, and few people abandon it entirely, even if they also use something more powerful. PowerPhotos by Fatcat Software is a powerful tool that...

November 5th, 2025 Mac Apps

Mountain Duck Version 5 Has New Features and It's on Sale

Mountain Duck is an app that allows you to integrate a variety of remote storage providers directly into Finder without the need for other proprietary software. This gives you the option to "open remote files with any application," just as you can with the ones on your hard drive. Some key features are:• Multiple protocols supported: SMB, FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. • "Smart Synchronization," where files remain remote until you open them; at which point, it opens and caches them. This can be complicated and a little tricky. • Full Finder integration (via...

November 4th, 2025 Mac Apps

The New BundleHunt Mac Bundle Is Live — Here’s What’s Worth Grabbing

The bargain software shopping spree that happens every November leading up to Black Friday is officially underway. The new Bundlehunt offering debuts today with an unusually strong offering of power user tools as opposed to a collection of cookie-cutter clipboard managers and AI chat wrappers. It's got good automation tools, some real creative apps, and a few niche power-user picks that would normally run you $40 or more. I've been buying apps from Bundlehunt since 2015. When you make a purchase from them, you get a personally generated page with download links, license codes and installation instructions. Some apps are...

November 3rd, 2025 Mac Apps

How My Self-Hosted Server Fits My Mac Life

When I retired in February, one of the first things I did was set up a home lab using the various components that I've been socking away for years. For me, 2025 has been the year that I've left the tech giants in my rearview mirror. To that end, I wanted to experiment with Linux, even though I don't plan to abandon the Mac or iOS as platforms. After a couple of months fooling around with Ubuntu on an old Lenovo ThinkPad, I decided to build a self-hosted server using the same computer and a bevy of external hard drives...

August 13th, 2025 Universal Apps

ProcessSpy

When troubleshooting system issues or thoroughly evaluating a piece of software, experienced and knowledgable Mac users often turn to activity monitor to get information on memory, CPU usage, power consumption and more. It's often helpful but at times it can be cryptic. The developer of Process Spy has an example. "I was juggling several Java apps, each using a different JDK version — and I couldn’t tell which process was which in Activity Monitor. All I saw was “java”. No version, no path, no details. So I built ProcessSpy — a developer-focused tool that shows full command-line info, version details,...

June 20th, 2025 Mac Apps

MountMate - A Tool I Didn't Know I Needed

I have an "always on" Mac on my desk with several external drives connected to it, drives I need frequently, but not continuously. I'd been putting up with a cluttered Finder and needless spin-ups for months when I discovered MountMate this week. MountMate is a menu bar app that mounts and unmounts external drives. Without MountMate, after a drive is ejected, I'd have to go into Disk Utility to mount it back, or more likely I'd just unplug and replug the drive, not a small task on a desk with three computers and eight external drives. Some people use shell...

June 19th, 2025 Mac Apps

Five Recent Finds at MacMenuBar

MacMenuBar.com is the best place on the Internet to find apps with that particular interface. Its recently added section is always worth checking out for new free, freemium and paid apps. Here are five recently added apps that are worth checking out. Always on TopAlways on Top lets you choose any window on your Mac to pin above all other windows. It's got a nice menu-driven interface and is a nice addition to your multi-tasking routine. (Free)[Always on Top] Signal ShifterSignal Shifter gives you a convenient location to control the inputs, outputs, Bluetooth devices and volume control right from your...

June 15th, 2025 Mac Apps

My Mac Contacted 63 Different Apple Owned Domains in One Hour - While Not in Use

During a one hour period today, my computer contacted 63 different Apple domains while i was not logged on and using it. I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big tech into my life. A full 25% of the DNS queries from one of my computers (M2 MBA with macOS 15.4) are to Apple owned domains - even though my DNS provider (NextDNS) blocks Apple's native telemetry. Additionally, since I do not use Apple for my mail, contacts, calendars, podcasts or news, I already have the routes to those Apple services blacklisted. Interestingly, my...

June 11th, 2025

A Photo Management Workflow Without Big Tech

One of the things that make the tools of Big Tech so seductive to use are their rich feature sets. Photo management apps from Google, Amazon, and Apple require little more than flipping a toggle switch to begin uploading photographs from your phone. Each company provides you a ready-made website with the ability to create albums, share photographs, and do basic editing. All you have to do is to give them your data, your privacy, and I suspect your soul. This year I opted to remove all of my personal photographs from the servers of the big tech companies and...

June 10th, 2025