Best MacOS tools in the day-to-day of a FullStack Developer
I have been a Mac user since 2009 when my parents bought me my first computer. One year ago I started working at CoverWallet as a Junior Frontend Developer and later as a Junior FullStack Developer.
In a recent conversation with a mate, she told me that she has never used a Mac computer and she felt really lost with this OS. I realized that there are a lot of people who are using this OS in a professional way but not taking full advantage of its real power.
For this reason, in this article, I am going to share with you some of the apps that help me improve my productivity on a daily basis as a developer. Most of them are not only useful for devs but also for other professionals.
If you find any of the tools in this list useful or if you know other amazing apps, I encourage you to leave us a comment in this article so that everyone can have it on hand. Let’s get started!
Spark
Every day I receive more than 100 new emails so I need a powerful app to handle them all. On one hand, I have configured some filters in Gmail, for example, when I receive a notification of a Pull Request, my filter moves that email to a folder named Pull Requests so I can have easy access to it later on and I don’t miss it in the sea of emails in inbox. However, using Gmail is not enough for me and I need something more.
For that reason, I decided to introduce Spark to my tool list. This application has a clean design and has multiple views where I can differentiate opened and new emails, as well as those I have marked as favorite. Also, I can see all the custom folders that I have created in Gmail and have the Pull Requests folder that I mentioned above.
This app also allows me to have multiple account emails at the same time, so, for example, I have my personal and professional emails in the same app but with different colors. This way I can differentiate between them.
Website: https://sparkmailapp.com
Bear
This is my favorite app to take notes. It has a beautiful design and a lot of amazing features that I love like writing code.
Currently, as a Junior Developer, I am constantly receiving feedback from my mates, so in order to not miss anything, I have multiple notes where I consolidate all of it. For example, I have one for javascript, one for git, others about architecture, etc.
Website: https://bear.app
Magnet
This is a window manager app. Magnet helps me to keep my workspace organized and be able to align windows in fullscreen, halves, quarters, and thirds with simple shortcuts.
Website: https://magnet.crowdcafe.com
Alfred 4
Alfred is a super-powered spotlight. This is an amazing tool and I could write a whole article only talking about this app but my favorite feature of Alfred is the workflows. Basically, a workflow is a way to replace repetitive tasks in order to boost your productivity.
I know this is super abstract but this app is complex, so let me explain one of my workflows I have created to help you understand the main idea.
I have a terrible memory and I always forget the URLs so I have created some workflows to open specific URLs when I write some keywords in Alfred. For example to see logs of projects, to open the pull requests of a specific project, etc.
This is just one of the basic things you can do with workflows, this app has integrations with Slack, Spotify, Amazon, Twitter… So you can imagine the real power of Alfred.
Website: https://www.alfredapp.com
Paste
Paste is a clipboard manager. It stores everything you copy and keeps your clipboard organized. One cool thing about this app is that it lets you define pinboards and later add those pins to the things you copied. This way, you can access them later with a simple click.
Website: https://pasteapp.io
iTerm
As a developer, I frequently use the terminal. I need one that is super light and powerful so my preferred one is iTerm. In my opinion, this is the best terminal for macOS.
Website: https://www.iterm2.com
Insomnia
This is a popular HTTP client to make requests. In my case, I work on 3–4 projects at the same time and this app allows me to create different workspaces and switch between them easily. In each workspace, I can define sub environments that have variables that can be used in the requests.
For example, in one of my projects I have 3 sub environments, local, beta, and production. Each one of them has a different base_url, so I can switch between those sub environments in order to make the requests to different environments.
One of my favorite things about this app is the ability to import/export configurations, so you can share your workspaces with your teammates.
I know that other tools like Postman exist and help you to do this, but for me, Insomnia is the best because it is super intuitive and has a clean UI with different themes that I can use.
Website: https://insomnia.rest
Mongo DB Compass
This app is the official GUI to visualize mongo data. If you are working with mongo data you need to have this tool in your arsenal.
Website: https://www.mongodb.com/products/compass
pgAdmin
pgAdmin is a popular platform to visualize PostgreSQL data.
Website: https://www.pgadmin.org
WebStorm
Yes, I know what you are thinking, this article seemed great but then I decided to use WebStorm and not the popular VS Code.
I have been using VS Code for more than 3 years and I like it. I am a big fan of this editor so much so that I have created my own configuration available on my Github which you can see here.
But then… Why did I decide to change from VS Code to WebStorm? One day I was talking with a mate that used WebStorm and he showed me the real power of this IDE so I decided to give it a chance. Currently, I have a 1-year license with WebStorm and at this moment I don’t miss VS Code. Each one of them has good things that the other does not have.
If you would like to know how I use WebStorm, what plugins I have configured or the main features about why I decided to give it a chance let me know, I also can write another article about all of this :)
Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm
