6 MORE macOS Utilities That Should Become Real Features
Here we go again…
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I’m back with another list! The title says it all (or if you want more context, read this article first and come back here!).
Let’s get started, shall we?
1) AppCleaner
The cool way to uninstall any macOS app.
Coming from Windows, just deleting the .app file from my Applications folder felt a bit unsettling for me when I started using macOS. I was used to uninstallers with progress bars that would take minutes as it showed each file—preferences, temp/cache files, and more—deleted off my disk.
AppCleaner makes me feel right at home: it finds all the files on my macOS install that is related to the app I want to remove and deletes them along with the .app file. It’s sometimes quite surprising how many files/folders it could find apart from the application file itself, but for me, it’s the peace of mind that makes AppCleaner so satisfying to use. Keep in mind that it may not work for apps installed through the App Store, but otherwise this is a must-have!
Link: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
TLDR: AppCleaner thoroughly removes all files from your disk related to any app you wish to uninstall.
2) Rectangle
Default macOS window management is a joke.
I already went on a huge rant over how macOS manages its windows by default in one of my past articles:
I talked about emmetapp, which in its own right is a creative approach to managing macOS windows. The mainstream alternative to this is Rectangle, a utility to move windows to your liking with keyboard shortcuts. Rectangle even enables window snapping, something which I can’t believe macOS still doesn’t have to this day!
Link: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
TLDR: Rectangle is the essential free and open-sourced utility to move and resize windows without any hassle.
3) LinearMouse
No more dumb mouse acceleration!!!
To this day, there is no built-in way to disable physical mouse acceleration on macOS. As an ex-Windows user that has been used to using the mouse without acceleration for years, this was extremely annoying to adapt to. Now, let me introduce to you LinearMouse, a utility app that fixes this very issue.
LinearMouse isn’t a one-trick pony though. It actually has a bunch of features up its sleeve, such as reversing the scroll direction for only the mouse, and the ability to make your back and forward side keys on your mouse useful in macOS again!
Link: https://linearmouse.org/
TLDR: If you want the choice of not having mouse acceleration, LinearMouse is a clean utility that does exactly that and then some.
4) Phoenix (or Hammerspoon)
Create new features and shortcuts from scratch.
I’ve also had my fair share of experience with a tiling window manager, i3, on Linux. There was a shortcut for almost any action you wanted to do with your windows or workspaces (the equivalent of spaces in macOS). If you wanted to change or add a new behavior/shortcut, you modified the i3 config file to your liking. Unfortunately, macOS is notorious for its customizability (or lack thereof).
Hammerspoon was among the most popular to allow macOS customization entirely dependent upon the user itself. You can bind custom system and window behavior operations to custom shortcuts in the Lua programming language. However, I stumbled across Phoenix, a newer duplicate of Hammerspoon except you would script in JavaScript, which is much more popular of a language now a days compared to the former.
Here is the code I used for the custom feature I made above:
Link: https://kasper.github.io/phoenix/
TLDR: Phoenix lets you create completely new window behaviors and system shortcuts on macOS using JavaScript.
5) AlDente
The savior of your laptop battery.
My M1 MBP has fantastic battery life when I first got it, but I noticed it discharging faster over time. It doesn’t help that I leave my MacBook plugged and juiced up to 100% every single night, which actually hurts the battery and its capacity. macOS has a feature to guess when you usually take your laptop out of the charger so it’ll optimize its charging rate, but it usually doesn’t work to my expectations.
Enter AlDente, an app which actually does what that macOS feature hopes to accomplish. You can set a charge limit for your laptop battery, and it’ll continuously keep your battery to at most that limit. The free version just does this, while its premium version has a lot more goodies to help safeguard your battery. Trust me though, AlDente free is all you’ll need to keep your battery in tip top shape.
Link: https://apphousekitchen.com/
TLDR: AlDente keeps your laptop battery in shape by limiting how much it charges.
6) Pock
What the MBP touch bar could’ve been like.
I’ve already raved a whole ton about Pock in a separate article listed here:
Btw, rest in peace touch bar, you will be missed by me 🥲 …
In short, it brings a dock, battery percentage, clock, music controls, weather, and more, all onto your touch bar (again, RIP). It’s finally useful for once! If you do need to switch back to the normal touch bar UI for an app, you can double press the control key to toggle in and out of pock. If you have an older MacBook Pro, this is definitely a must-try!
Link: https://pock.app
TLDR: Make your touchbar actually useful!
