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I emphasize honest, practical reviews from my perspective as a power user and productivity enthusiast — not a marketer I have a particular fondness for the indie Mac scene, privacy-respecting software, open-source tools, and workflow automation. I also cover self-hosting, the de-Googling/de-Apple-ification of digital life, and the art of building efficient Mac workflows with the right combination of small, focused apps. Posts range from single-app deep dives to multi-app roundups, workflow walkthroughs, and developer spotlights. If you're a developer and have an app you'd like me to check out, let me know.
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Why I Replaced Jettison with Ejectify after 15 Years

In trying to be open-minded, I recently agreed to try Ejectify, an app that performs a task for which I already had a solution: to automatically eject external disks from my Mac before it goes to sleep and to remount them when it wakes. I worked off a MacBook for a long, long time, and I needed a way to just shut it, unplug, and move on without getting nagged to death about thumb drives and external volumes. I've been using Jettison to do that since I saw it in Macworld in 2011. The developer, St. Clair Software, also makes Default Folder X, History Hound,...
May 26th, 2026 Mac Apps

10 Ways to Get More Out of Apple Shortcuts

I like using Apple Shortcuts when it fits my workflow, but advanced features can be confusing. I manage simple loops and variables, but it’s slow and tricky. That’s why I was happy to see MacStories release Shortcuts Playground, a free plugin for Codex and Claude Code. It lets you describe what you want in natural language and creates a real Apple Shortcut you can use or share. You can read about it and get installation instructions for free if you have those platforms. It’s been years since I updated my list of free and cheap apps that boost Apple Shortcuts, so here’s...
May 23rd, 2026

Marked 3 Is the Markdown Companion a Lot of Mac Writers Have Been Waiting For

Brett Terpstra has released Marked 3, and this is not just a routine update. It’s one of those releases that makes you stop and think about where a tool actually fits in your workflow. If you write in Markdown on a Mac, there’s a very good chance Marked has been the missing piece all along. For years, I lived in Microsoft Word for anything that wasn’t email. That was the EdTech world: Word was the standard, `.doc` and `.docx` were the expected formats, and no one wanted to hear about alternatives. Never mind the huge app footprint, the licensing mess, the...
May 21st, 2026

Airspace: A Polished Fix for a macOS Friction Point

Airspace, an app I downloaded today, has a lot going for it. It removes a classic Apple friction point by letting you name your virtual desktops, customize their appearance, and assign keyboard shortcuts to jump between them. It also helps me illustrate a point. Making a decision about the right price for an app has to be one of the hardest parts of releasing something new. Some of the most versatile and useful apps in the Mac ecosystem are priced absurdly low. I am looking at you, BetterTouchTool. On the other hand, we have all seen apps with plenty of...
May 14th, 2026

DockDoor Pro - The Dock Apple Wouldn't Build

When the free app DockDoor was released in 2024, it was the first time I had seen a developer add window previews to the Mac Dock in much the same way that other operating system from Redmond handles them. For kicks, it also included a Windows-style application switcher, also free. I have been updating some older reviews, so I went back to check on DockDoor. Not only does the original free version still exist, but the developer has also added a paid Pro version with a much larger feature set. The splash page for DockDoor Pro puts its claim front...
May 13th, 2026

Bartender Enters a New Era with Top Shelf

For the past few weeks, I’ve been beta testing a new release of Bartender; an app with an interesting, and at times slightly controversial, history. Despite that, it’s a utility I’ve relied on for years. I recently did a deep dive into the problems macOS changes have created for menu bar managers and what those changes mean going forward. Even with a few lingering issues in the category, I still came away viewing Bartender as the best overall option for serious Mac users. The new release, called Bartender Pro, expands beyond traditional menu bar management with a feature called Top Shelf. The idea is...
May 12th, 2026

New Droppy Release is a Full Featured Utility Suite

An update to Droppy by developer Jordy Spruit dropped this weekend. What started as a free notch app has evolved into a paid, but still inexpensive, suite of Mac productivity tools. The licensing recently changed so that Droppy’s one-time payment now gets you a license for two Macs instead of one. The change is retroactive and applies to all users. From now until May 31st, the price is €6.99. After that, it will be €9.99. Both prices include lifetime updates, including major version releases. Droppy is written in native Swift. It’s signed and notarized by Apple, runs on macOS 14 and later,...
May 11th, 2026

Liqoria: The Mac Dock Player That Should've Been Built In

The promise: A universal music controller that lives in your Dock and unifies Apple Music, Spotify, browsers, and more with animated artwork, real waveforms, and native Apple design. If Apple were the company that so many people pretend that it is, it would make a music controller lives in your Dock and plays not just Apple Music but also Spotify, Youtube and more with animated artwork, real waveforms, using real native Apple design. The reality though, is that Apple Music is a storefront, not a music player. Thankfully, we now have Liqoria, which quietly removes the whole category of app-switching...
May 8th, 2026

Corel Painter Is Still Alive and Still Ridiculously Good

Corel’s Spot on Memory LaneI hadn’t thought about Corel graphics apps in a long time until I saw their flagship app on sale recently. I got my first tech-related job in 1994, when my ability to figure things out in Windows 3.1 earned me a promotion from the manufacturing floor to the quality department at the Westinghouse factory where I worked after getting out of the Army. The tools I worked with felt absurdly expensive at the time: a Pentium PC, a Kodak digital camera, and the first color laser printer I’d ever seen. And then there was Corel; a...
May 6th, 2026 Mac Apps

Substage - A Natural Language Command Line Tool for Finder

Substage is a command bar that attaches beneath your Finder window. Select files, type what you want in plain English, and Substage generates a Terminal command, previews its side effects, and runs it with confirmation when needed. Think of it less as an AI assistant and more as a natural language layer between your intent and the Unix tools already built into macOS. The key distinction; the AI’s role ends once the command is generated. After that, real shell tools do the work: sips, ffmpeg, zip, qpdf, pandoc, git. No hallucinated output. No “trying until something works.” The command either...
May 5th, 2026 Mac Apps

I Got a Sneak Peek at the Spring Sale at BundleHunt

For bargain hunters, BundleHunt makes the holidays happen four times a year. Many well-known and popular apps have appeared there over the years at prices 70% to 90% below what's the apps typically sell for. This current bundle is no exception The oldest receipt I have for a purchase from them is from 2015. I've purchased over 50 different apps without ever having a bad experience. Here's the current selection. I've posted links to ones I've reviewed in the past. Apps I've Reviewed• Find Any File (FAF) -- File search tool that goes deeper than Spotlight, reaching locations Spotlight ignores...
May 3rd, 2026

Find any File for $2: New BundleHunt Sneak Peek

The spring sale for Bundle Hunt doesn't officially open until tomorrow, but I have some inside info on what's coming this time around for the bargain hunters out there. One of my favorite apps for over two decades is going on sale for $2. Mac users have a wide range of file search tools, from the built-in Spotlight to professional options like Foxtrot that cost north of $100. The right choice depends on how you actually search. I tend to run the same kinds of queries repeatedly, so saved searches and reusable templates matter. I also frequently need to locate...
May 3rd, 2026 Mac Apps

Tolaria: a files-first Markdown app for Mac designed for Git workflows and AI agents

Tolaria is a free, open-source desktop app for macOS and Linux built by Luca Rossi, the author of the Refactoring newsletter. Rossi created Tolaria to manage his own collection of 10,000+ notes. That origin story matters. The feature set feels like it grew out of solving real problems for a real workflow; not something assembled by a product manager or stitched together from an AI roadmap. At its core, Tolaria is a very 2026-style Markdown editor; modern, opinionated, and not trying to clone Notion or compete head-on with Obsidian. The sweet-spot user is someone who: 1. Already lives in Markdown...
April 28th, 2026

Dockside Turns Drag-And-Drop Into a Real Workflow

Most Mac users already rely on drag-and-drop constantly, but macOS never really gave us a good place to stage things temporarily. Finder windows work, but they’re clumsy for quick hand-offs between apps. Dockside turns that gap into a system. It acts like a permanent drop zone beside your Dock where you can park files, preview them, batch them, trigger actions, and move them between apps without juggling Finder windows. Turning Drag and Drop Into a SystemJust because you want to use a file shelf utility doesn’t mean you should have to manage yet another window cluttering your workspace. Shelf location...
April 21st, 2026

Seeking Feedback from Mac Power Users

I’m looking for feedback on a few apps. I’m looking for the answers to the following questions: 1. Did this app solve a problem you had? If so, what was the issue and the solution. 2. Who do you think is the target audience for the app 3. What’s your favorite feature or biggest aggravation with the app? BookShelves eBook Reader - BookShelves is a modern ebook reader and library manager for macOS and iOS. It supports EPUB, PDF, MOBI, PRC, and Kindle formats with iCloud sync, a customizable reading experience, and thousands of free classic books built in. Sidebar - Sidebar...
April 16th, 2026
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