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 at just €8 for a five-seat lifetime license, it stops short of Keyboard Maestro’s complexity and price.

Crank can do all of this and a lot more:

• Stop notifications from interrupting Zoom calls
• Check and fic quarantine issues on everything you download
• Toggle VPN usage based on the connected wi-fi network
• Move downloaded ebooks right into calibre
• Change the audio output to bluetooh headphones or speakers when they connect
• Automatically adjust your display
• Disconnect Bluetooth devices before closing the MacBook lid

The Portfolio

It was the quality of Low Tech Guys' previous applications that made me happy to hear about their new release. I first encountered one of their apps a couple of years ago when I discovered Clop. Since then, I have systematically gone through their portfolio to take advantage of the extremely useful, free, and low‑priced powerhouses they’ve developed.

• Clop ($15) - Clop automatically optimizes (reduces) the file sizes of images, videos and PDFs copied to your clipboard. Optionally, it can also convert files on the fly. Clop can even feed the results to a shortcut for further processing. You can set it so that it watches specific folders for different file types. - Clop - Image, video, PDF and clipboard optimiser
• rcmd (FREE) - rcmd uses your right command key + a letter to launch applications. You get app-launching hotkeys without having to set them up manually, although you can do that too. You can use the same hotkey to hide an app or cycle through other apps. If you pait rcmd with Hammerspoon, you can even cycle through windows, not just apps. rcmd - Switch apps instantly using the ⌘ Right Command key

• Lunar ($23) - Lunar is the acknowledged leader in display control for all DDC capable monitors, whether it’s a brand new Apple Studio with a Mac Pro, or a no name brand connected to a Hackintosh. It’s features include:
• • Extending keyboard control for brightness and volume to all displays
  • Extra controls on Apple native displays
  • Sync mode to change the brightness of all connected displays based on the built-in Ambient Light Sensor
  • Exceed the brightness constraints on XDR Apple laptop displays
  • Dial screen brightness below the 0% setting (because that’s not really 0%)
  • Selectively black out any connected display
  • Facelight turns a connected display into a a light panel so that you don’t look obscured on video calls from locations with dim environmental lighting
    Lunar - The defacto app for controlling monitor brightness

• Startup Folder (FREE) - Startup folder gives you aw way to open anything at startup, apps. shortcuts, links and files. It can hide anything you wajt running but not on screen even when that’s not a native feature. You can optionally set it up to keeps apps from quitting and if they fo, they will automatically be relaunched. Startup Folder - Run anything at startup by simply placing it in a special folder

• Pipiri (€8) - Pipiri brings picture in a picture functionality to ant macOS window and that has more use cases than you would think"
• • Watching a long-running terminal command while working in another app
  • Keeping logs visible while debugging software
  • Keeping an eye on AI agent progress (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) while browsing
  • Streaming a video that doesn’t support native PiP (Twitter/X, Reddit, Twitch, etc.)
  • Monitoring a dashboard or CI pipeline without switching windows
  • Watching a community chat (Discord, Twitch) while coding or reading
    Pipiri - Picture-in-Picture for any macOS window
• To see everything The Low Tech Guys have to offer, check out this page,

"Low-Tech Guy \#1"

If you’ve ever wished your external monitor behaved more like a MacBook display, you’ve probably encountered Lunar, the powerful monitor control utility from developer Alin Panaitiu. Over the past several years Alin has quietly built a small ecosystem of thoughtful Mac tools including Clop, rcmd, Crank, and others that focus on real workflow problems rather than novelty.

I asked Alin about how he got started, the challenges of building hardware-adjacent Mac apps, and what he’s working on next.

How did you get started in app development?

I got started in 2017 after buying my first external monitor for my MacBook; an LG 4K display with USB-C.

It was a great monitor, but something felt off. Unlike the MacBook, it had no adaptive brightness. In fact, the brightness couldn’t be adjusted at all.

That sent me down the rabbit hole. I discovered DDC, the protocol used to control monitor settings, and started building Lunar so my external monitor could adapt its brightness automatically.

For about four years Lunar was completely free and open source. In 2021 I took the leap, quit my job as a Python engineer, and started working full-time on the paid Lunar Pro tier.

You can read the full story here:
https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/

“I discovered DDC and started building Lunar because I wanted my monitor to adapt its brightness automatically.”

Is Low-Tech Guys your full-time job?

Yes; if you can call it a normal job.

It’s my only source of income and where most of my effort goes. But the rhythm isn’t typical.

Sometimes macOS changes break something important and I end up working 14-hour days. Other weeks are quieter; answering support emails and fixing the occasional bug.

Which of your apps has been the most challenging to build?

Lunar, without question.

It operates very close to hardware; communicating directly with monitors, Raspberry Pis, and ESP32 chips. That’s very different from most macOS software.

Hardware is unpredictable. Firmware quirks, kernel panics, monitors that stall or behave strangely; problems that only occur on a particular user’s setup.

Those are incredibly difficult to debug because they can’t always be reproduced locally.

“Hardware can be unpredictable; stalling, kernel panics, wrong firmware, missing bits. Things that only happen on a user’s very specific setup.”

Which developers do you admire?

Sindre Sorhus for building an enormous ecosystem of Swift packages that macOS developers rely on, including Defaults and Hotkeys.

I also admire Ryan Hanson for creating Superkey, which finally allowed me to ditch Karabiner-Elements.

And Saagar Jha, whose work on macOS reverse engineering taught me a great deal.

You recently released Crank. What are you working on next?

No new apps for the moment. Crank and Pipiri took a lot of effort and I’m a bit drained right now.

Instead I’m focusing on rcmd v3 and Clop v3.

rcmd v3

The next version of rcmd will include:
• Native window switching
• Launching apps by holding rcmd and typing letters
Example: rcmd S P O launches Spotify
• Window search with quick typing
Example: rcmd X C jumps to Xcode → Crank window
• Searching windows by title
• Stages; saving sets of apps and windows as workspaces
• Instant switching between stages using rcmd + letter
• Optional trigger keys such as Caps Lock or Fn

Clop v3

Clop is moving toward a pipeline-based optimization system where multiple file operations can happen without repeatedly re-encoding data.

Example workflows might look like:

Images dropped into ~/Desktop/blog
• optimize
• resize to 1600px width
• convert to WebP
• move to ~/Projects/blog

Videos dropped into Dropzone
• optimize using a high-quality encoder
• speed up to 1.5×
• remove audio
• upload with Dropshare
• copy the URL to the clipboard

PDFs dropped into an Invoices folder
• optimize
• crop to A4
• extract text to a file

Other improvements include a dropzone that appears near the cursor and better support for external storage.

I wrote a review of Cling that was a bit tough on it. You handled that gracefully. What’s the current state of Cling?

You can read that review here:
https://appaddict.app/post/new-file-finding-app-cling-is-not-everything

Cling is something I still want to develop further, but time is the limiting factor.

I started building a custom fuzzy indexing engine for it and got about 90% of the way there. As usual, the last 10% is the hardest.

The goal is to remove external tools like fzf and fd and bring everything directly into the app with faster and more accurate results.

Right now the fzf scoring algorithm simply isn’t well suited to what Cling is trying to do.

Why did you remove Clop from Setapp?

My original Clop review:
https://appaddict.app/post/clop-copy-big-paste-small-send-fast

Tax laws in my country changed significantly, forcing me to move from an LLC to a sole proprietorship.

To simplify accounting I consolidated everything under Paddle.

That meant ending contracts with Setapp, Apple distribution agreements, and other marketplaces. As a result, my apps are now free on the App Store, while paid licensing is handled through Paddle.

I don’t expect that arrangement to change anytime soon.

Closing Thoughts

Talking with Alin, a theme keeps surfacing: the most useful Mac utilities often come from developers scratching their own workflow itch. Lunar began with a simple frustration; an external monitor that couldn’t adjust its brightness.

Since then that curiosity has grown into a small but influential set of tools used by Mac power users around the world. And if the roadmaps for rcmd v3, Clop v3, and eventually Cling are any indication, Alin is far from done refining the Mac experience.

For users who care about thoughtful utilities and deep macOS integration, his work is well worth watching.