5 useful productivity tools for macOS
From window management to clipboard history: a collection of little helpers we can’t imagine working without.
Hey there, we’re diesdas.digital, a digital studio for strategy, branding and product development. When we’re not talking to clients, burning through stacks of sticky notes or eating lunch together, we’re usually sitting in front of our laptops, juggling Sketch files, code snippets and keynote documents. Those laptops tend to run macOS (except for a few miserable testing devices) and so we’re always looking for little tools to improve our workflows.
Last week I asked a few people in the office what they’re using on top of the core operating system … you know, those little helper apps that are so integrated into your daily routine that you feel handicapped when they’re not available. The result is the following list. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments or via social media. 🙌
Without further ado…
1. Magnet for window management
Magnet is easily the best window manager out there: It helps you organize the clutter of windows on your desktop, letting you drag them to the sides/corners to make them fill half/quarters of the screen instantly. Highly recommended.
Website: http://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
Price: It’s a steal at 0.99€.
Cringeworthy video review
2. Paste for clipboard history
Paste stores everything you add to your clipboard and gives you quick access to the whole history, including thumbnails for text, colors and images. Over time I’ve recovered so many things from that handy drawer that I can’t understand anymore why you would want to work without this safety net.
Website: http://pasteapp.me/
Price: 9.99€ and worth every cent.
Cringeworthy video review
3. Yoink for dragging & dropping
Drag&drop how it should be: Yoink provides a little drawer where you put files, then navigate to the destination and then recover those files from the drawer. Super handy.
Website: http://eternalstorms.at/yoink/
Price: 6.99€
Video demo
4. iA Writer for notes
Does this one need an introduction? Anyhow, iA Writer is a delightfully simple and focused Markdown editor for taking notes with minimal formatting. Comes with a night-mode, a cloud-based library for synchronizing notes across devices and a minimalistic interface.
Website: https://ia.net/writer/
Price: 9.99€, but a trial version is available.
Video introduction
5. Rocket for emojis
Digging the way Slack lets you add emojis by typing a colon combined with the first letters of the symbol’s name? Rocket adds that to every app, across the whole operating system. 🎉
Website: http://matthewpalmer.net/rocket/
Price: Free, with a pro version.
Quick demo video with startuppy music
From Kreuzberg with love!
We hope you could take something away from this list and in case you downloaded one of the tools we mentioned, consider clicking the little heart below. 💞
I’ll leave you with some office impressions from last week. 😊
And that’s it for this week … thanks for checking in, take care and see you around. 😊 👋
diesdas.digital is a nimble branding and product development studio in Berlin, featuring a multidisciplinary team of designers, developers and strategists, each with years of experience in branding, interaction design and programming. We create tailor-made digital solutions with an agile mindset and a smile on our faces. You can hire us — let’s work together and make rad internet stuff! 🙌
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