Beauty in utility

Several times each year, I’ll inevitably find myself speaking with someone looking to make the jump from Windows to Mac. I’ll then undoubtedly find myself recanting a rather long, tedious list of all the little tools and utilities I install on each new machine to help improve my experience and why they should do the same.

Needless to say, the conversation (usually) continues after this discussion, so I’m inclined to believe I wasn’t talking complete nonsense!

Therefore, I decided some slight value might be found in sharing a list of the best little free and paid tools I’ve encountered to date that have elevated my workflows, in the hope anyone reading this finds at least one new tool that makes their Mac life a little bit easier.

I would describe the majority of these apps as utilitarian. However, in looking at the definition of utilitarian I don’t think that’s quite accurate.

Utilitarian: designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive

Most of the reasons why I use these apps daily are not only because of their usefulness but also because of how beautifully they’ve been designed and crafted. I will almost always choose an app with fewer features that just feels good over one with more functionality.

These are apps I have currently installed. Some are paid, some are free. My recommendations are based on my own experiences, and there are likely many more tools I haven’t mentioned also available.

Raycast

Launcher

If you have used Alfred, you’ll feel right at home with Raycast. Long story short, Raycast replaces Spotlight by adding hundreds of powerful shortcuts and functions augmented by a seemingly limitless extension library.

• App launching
• Window management
• Extensions for hundreds of apps
• Text translation

I’m still blown away by how much I’m underutilising it.

Notion Calendar

Calendar

I battled with iCal for a long time to manage my personal and work life. While I knew various power-user calendar apps existed, such as Fantastical, I never felt confident that I could utilise them to their full potential without dedicating time to restructure how I plan my time (especially with a monthly subscription model).

Luckily for me, several new players have entered the arena in recent years. Three notable examples being Daybridge, Amie, and my personal favourite, Cron — since acquired by Notion and now known as Notion Calendar.

With a polished companion iOS app, it’s a powerful calendar app that works and feels slick. Oh, and it also has an excellent dark mode and ⌘K menu if you’re into that sort of thing.

Numi

Calculator

Every few weeks, I’ll find myself needing a notepad-style calculator to list out multiple calculations simultaneously. The most recent example was calculating the taxable benefit value of a company car for a project at Pento.

Numi was invaluable in achieving this by allowing me to list calculations using variables and writing conversationally, such as $20 in euro - 5% discount.

Bartender

Menubar management

As someone who has already professed their love for utility apps, a natural consequence is a menubar that grows larger and larger. With the MacBook’s notch, this often leads to icons disappearing. Not ideal, right?

Bartender lets you take control over what appears in your menubar and when. Most notably, with an expandable panel for apps you need only occasionally, which don’t require a permanent place in your view.

Rocket

Emoji access

Ever since Slack was released, I find myself using : to try and insert emojis into wherever I’m writing.

Paying for Rocket Pro has made this a reality. Its simple purpose allows you to type a colon wherever you need to add the emoji you’re after. It even lets you specify apps where it shouldn’t activate. Incredibly useful for apps such as Slack and WhatsApp, which already support this feature.

TripMode

Tethering data control

While I’ve found myself using it less and less over recent years, I’m always keen to recommend TripMode to anyone who travels a lot and worries about their mobile data usage while tethering.

Self-described as an “install it, forget it” tool, TripMode lets you monitor your network usage directly. Then giving you control over which apps can access the web while TripMode is enabled.

Find that iCloud is syncing large files that are obliterating your data allowance? Toggle off iCloud’s internet privileges.

HazeOver

Focus

Especially with larger displays, it’s easy to get distracted. I’ve never found it easy to tune my mind to focus when needed, so occasionally I employ tools to help.

HazeOver has been invaluable in this. It’s incredibly simple in how it works. All those apps in the background that aren’t in focus? They’ll be dimmed for you. Only the window you’re actively working in will receive full brightness and, therefore, your attention. With graceful fade-in/out animations, it feels like part of Mac OS.

iStat Menus

System monitor

Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a control freak, but I have to know exactly what my Mac is doing. And, having been around for seemingly forever, iStat Menus gives me that with glanceable insights into my Mac’s CPU, RAM, network, and more.

The most useful for me has been to monitor network traffic. Especially when on slower connections, I need to ensure that background apps aren’t hogging all my bandwidth with less essential tasks.

While I’ve seen newer tools enter the market lately (Sensei being one), I’ve always felt confident and trusting of Bjango’s software.

Honourable mentions

Sensei and Usage

Possible alternatives to iStat Menus. The former has an added focus on optimisation and cleaning features, while the latter aims to be a lightweight monitoring tool.

BetterTouchTool

While I installed this primarily to customise the TouchBar on my older Macs, it still has a lot of value to offer in customising input devices. With keyboard shortcuts and mouse/trackpad gestures customisability, it’s undoubtedly a powerful partner for any power user.

Moom

Superseded mainly by Raycast these days, Moom still deserves mention as a window management tool. At this stage, its ability to save and restore window layouts is its MVP for me.

CleanShot X

After being a Droplr Pro subscriber for many years, CleanShot X is the tool that will likely cause me to cancel my Droplr renewal this year. Quick annotations, cloud sharing, all with a custom domain, I find invaluable.

Sleeve

While I have this installed now, it’s only an honourable mention for me because it doesn’t really improve my workflows. I simply have a nice affinity for seeing album artwork on my desktop.

Needless to say, the app itself is beautifully designed. I hope they will one day add a “curl” theme where the desktop wallpaper peels back to reveal the artwork underneath. If I’m correct, I recall Bowtie supported this style back in the day?

Folder Peek

The list of apps that Sindre Sorhus has released is staggering. I became aware of Folder Peek recently, thanks to @usrnk1, and I’m desperate to find a use for it. Perhaps for my downloads folder?

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve found my recommendations useful. If you have any apps you feel would be worthy additions to this list, please reach out and let me know :)