My Mac OS essential tools list at work
I just switch to a M1 Macbook Pro at work and it rocks a lot. Here is my tools list for being more efficient using Mac OS. I am using them daily.
In this list, you’ll find free and paid tools because even if I am prefering open source or free tools some good tools are paid one. I will do my best to give you a free alternative if possible.
Enjoy it.
Usefull tools
Sound Control (paid)
Sound Control is a unique application that adds advanced audio controls (source, switch, equalizer, …) to your Mac. It gives you the ability to switch audio or microphone source and adjust the volume for each application.
Apple, please add this feature to Mac OS …
BackgroundMusic could be an open source and free alternative but I encountered some issues on recent Mac OS versions (Big Sur and Monterey).
Alfred (free / paid)
Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.
CleanShot X (paid)
CleanShot X is a screen capture tool with a lot of features (fullscreen or window capture, capture preview or edition, image annotation, screen recording, …). It’s a good replacement tool for gaining in efficiency.
Shottr is a free alternative with a lot of great features too.
Amphetamine (free)
Amphetamine is the most awesome keep-awake app ever created for macOS. Amphetamine can keep your Mac, and optionally its display, awake through a super simple on/off switch.
Amphetamine is extremely powerful and includes advanced features for those who need them, yet remains intuitive and easy-to-use for those who don’t need all of the bells and whistles.
Dropzone (free / paid)
Dropzone is a productivity app for the Mac that makes it faster and easier to move and copy files, launch applications, upload to many different services, and more.
It’s a very handy tool for copy/pasting a lot of files and quickly opening projects or doing automated actions.
Mini Calendar (free)
Mini Calendar is a lightweight application, which helps to access monthly calendar quickly and easily through the toolbar.
Magnet (paid)
Magnet is a window manager to keeps your workspace organized.
Activated by dragging, customizable keyboard shortcuts or via menu bar, Magnet declutters your screen by snapping windows into organized tiles.
Hyperswitch & Hyperswitch (free)
Hyperswitch is still in beta but already usable for managing your apps’s windows.
From the same editor, Hyperdock adds long awaited features to your Dock: Select individual application windows just by moving the mouse on a dock item, use mouse clicks to quickly open new windows and many more.
Bear (paid)
Bear is a beautiful, flexible writing app for crafting notes and prose.
After a long period of searches about the best markdown notes tool, I paid for it. For me, it is the best usable tool for taking markdown notes and organizing your daily work.
I know, I am a big fan of markdown content and I will wrote a dedicated article about it and especially about personal knowledge management (PKM) with Obsidian & Logseq apps.
Jabra Direct (free)
Jabra is specific to my own usage. I own a Jabra Evolve 65 headphone and this app is very usefull to keep it updated and customize it.
Dev tools
Fig (free)
Fig adds IDE-style autocomplete to your existing terminal. It gives autocomplete for cd, git, docker, npm, yarn, kubectl, brew, aws and hundreds more!
It works with Terminal, iTerm, VSCode, Jetbrains, and so on…
Starship (free)
Starship is aminimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!
iTerm2 (free)
iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. iTerm2 brings the terminal into the modern age with features you never knew you always wanted.
Termius (free / paid)
Termius is an SSH client for Mac OS with autocomplete, snippets, secret management and so on.
Brew (free)
Brew is the Missing Package Manager for Mac OS helping you for installing apps and packages on your system.
iStats Menu (paid)
iStat Menus is an advance tool to monitorize your Mac OS ressources (CPU, memory, disk, network and so on).
Stats is an great open source alternative.
Marktext (free)
Marktext is, for me, one of the best markdown editor. I previously used Typora for daily usage but I recently switch for this new open source MD editor.
Marktext features
- Realtime preview (WYSIWYG) and a clean and simple interface to get a distraction-free writing experience.
- Support CommonMark Spec, GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec and selective support Pandoc markdown.
- Markdown extensions such as math expressions (KaTeX), front matter and emojis.
- Support paragraphs and inline style shortcuts to improve your writing efficiency.
- Output HTML and PDF files.
- Various themes: Cadmium Light, Material Dark etc.
- Various editing modes: Source Code mode, Typewriter mode, Focus mode.
- Paste images directly from clipboard.
Git Fork (free / paid)
Fork is one the best Git client for Mac OS. Very powerfull and clean UI. It is a good replacement for Sourcetree.
RaindropIO (free / paid)
Raindrop is an all-in-one bookmark manager. It is the best place to keep all your favorite books, songs, articles or whatever else you come across while browsing.
You can use it directly on your browser with an extension (or not) but it also comes with an desktop app for quickly managing and searching your bookmarks.
Go further
If you want to share with me some apps or tools, feel free to comment this article.
