Recommended apps

This is a list of apps that I can recommend that do a really good job of what they're meant to do. Most are available in the app store but some are not. Generally apple does not allow apps in the app store that modify the behaviour of the computer itself (utilities).


A Better Finder Rename 9 - bulk rename files

Adapter - convert video files from one format to another

Adblock Plus - to block adverts online

Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF viewer - needed for form-type pdfs (e.g. tax returns)

Android File Transfer - to copy files off an android phone

AnyDesk - to remotely control your machine - cross-platform

Art Text 2 - to create logos

Backup and Sync - Google drive sync tool (copy files automatically from your machine to google drive)

Bartender 3 - to compact all the menubar icons into fewer icons

Battery Health 2 - to show your battery status

BitdefenderVirusScanner - to scan for viruses. Not that I've ever had one.

Boostnote - a notepad which is for programmers to save code examples

Carbon Copy Cloner - to duplicate a hard drive. Better than time machine for backups because the backup is bootable and it only makes one copy, not dozens of historical copies. Unless you need that, this is preferable. Basically attach an external drive, clone your internal drive, and you can boot off that external drive if need be. Great if you are upgrading hard drives.

Chicken of the VNC - to remotely control a machine - a bit older than Anydesk or Teamviewer but free and open source

Combine PDFs - to merge PDFs into one document or split them into separate pages one page per document.

CopyLess - to keep many items on your clipboard / copy/paste history or to strip off font formatting so you can paste plain text

Cyberduck - FTP client plus most other protocols

Default Folder X - to add features to the open/save dialog e.g. remembering which folder you last used, remembering which folder a specific document came from, etc.

DeltaChat - chat program that uses your email account hence does not store your messages on some server out of your control

djay - a DJing app (turntables)

dr.fone - to manage phones - back them up, copy their contents, etc.

draw.io - a cloud drawing app for flowcharts etc

Dropbox - cloud backup like google drive. On this blog we have a discussion of which cloud backup tool to use.

Duplicate Detective - to find and erase duplicate files

Duplicate File Finder - to find and erase duplicate files

Easy Movie Rotator - to rotate movies. Mostly useful if you forget to turn your phone sideways when filming.

EasyBatchPhoto - to batch process photos to resize them or add a watermark

Etcher - to make bootable flash disks

Firefox - web browser

FontLab VI  - to create fonts

FontXChange - to convert fonts from one format to another. E.g. if you like a google font you can convert it to a TTF to use in Word

FreeCAD - to do 3D drawings

FreeMemory - to see your computer memory usage stats etc

Front and Center - to keep all the windows that belong to a specific app, together, so that if you click one it brings the whole app and all its windows forwards. This is not the default behaviour on any system these days however it was the default behaviour on Mac OS 9 and below and some of us like it.

GIF Animator - to make animated GIF images. Pronounced "Ghif", not "Jif". If you say "Jif" you are wrong, because you don't jive or jet people christmas jifts.

GIMP - A free equivalent of Adobe Photoshop. Quite good.

Google Chrome - web browser. Lets you sync between devices and is cross-platform.

Google Earth Pro - look at earth with satellite images.

Graphic - To edit line art / vector graphics. Alternative to Adobe Illustrator/ Corel Draw. There is also Inkscape but I find it a bit clumsy, this is better. It also lets you edit PDFs. As in, really edit them.

HandBrake - To digitise your DVD collection. A bit slow, TBH.

Hazel - To automatically control and manage files and auto-sort them by date etc. Very useful.

Hex Fiend - to edit binary files like applications at the disk/assembly code level. If you aren't a programmer this won't be useful to you.

iBooks - To read your epub files, synchronises to iPhone.

iBooks Author - to create ePub files. It's since been deprecated in place of Pages (see below).

Image Capture - To pull pictures off your phone or scanner. I prefer this to iPhoto/Photos because the latter insists on putting lots of copies of thumbnails and metainformation and tries to hide the actual JPG file from you. This gives you more control.

Image2Vector - To convert bitmapped/raster images like JPG, TIF, GIF, BMP, PNG to vector like EPS, PDF, AI, SVG, etc.

iMovie - to edit movies.

IndexMaker2 - to create an index of a PDF (list of words on which pages)

Keynote - alternative to PowerPoint, free in app store. Apple.

Kindle - to read Amazon kindle book files

krita - A free equivalent of Adobe Photoshop. Quite good.

LibreOffice  - alternative to MS Office, free.

Little Snitch  - to control network connections on your computer, e.g. report on apps and stop them from "phoning home" or spying on you.

M3 BitLocker Loader  - to attach Windows(tm) bitlocker drives

M3 Data Recovery - to recover damaged hard drives

MagicCopy - cloud clipboard so your copy/paste follows you between machines. Apparently iOS is supposed to do this but this works cross-platform.

MarsEdit - to edit blogs.

Memory Diag - Tell you status of your memory usage, clear out memory, etc.

MenuStrip - to compact your menubar icons into a strip tab like Mac OS 8/9

MindNode - Mindmapping

MiroVideoConverter - convert video files from one format to another

MSG Viewer for Outlook - to open Outlook emails

Numberer - to put page numbers on a pdf

Numbers - alternative to Excel, free in app store. Apple.

owncloud - opensource free cloud backup solution which uses your own server rather than some random server being spied on

Pages - alternative to MS Word, free in app store. Apple.

Papers - to manage academic papers and referencing. Useful for professors etc. Similar to Endnote and Zotero.

PDF OCR X Enterprise Edition - to make it possible to copy/paste text out of a PDF which doesn't allow it (where the PDF is just a bunch of scans of paper documents)

PDF to JPG - as it says.

PDF to Word - Convert PDF to Microsoft Word - as it says.

PDF Toolkit - as it says.

PDF-to-EPUB - as it says.

PDF-to-HTML - as it says.

PDF-to-Text Converter - as it says.

PDF-to-Word Pro - as it says.

PDFelementPro6 - powerful PDF editor.

PDFKey Pro - to unlock locked PDFs

Pixelmator - A cheap equivalent of Adobe Photoshop. Pretty good. My preferred alternative.

Preview - powerful PDF editor and image viewer, even lets you scan your own signature and add it to documents. Similar to Acrobat but better. Apple.

PST Bridge - To view PST files

Pst Easy Convert - To view PST files

QR Crafter - to create QR codes

QuickTime Player  - To play videos. Normally I use VLC (below) but this one lets you also record your screen if you need to do a demonstration video.

Safari  - Web browser. Main advantage is you can force it to open a developer menu which lets you turn off video completely if you are like me and hate it when websites automatically play videos.  Open a terminal and type: 

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDevelopMenu -bool true

Then restart safari.

Shazam - to identify songs by ear.

Signal - Messenger preferred by Snowden.

SketchUp 2020 - another drawing program (CAD)

smcFanControl - to control your CPU fan speed. If you think the machine is running too hot you can speed them up

Sound Studio - to edit audio files (WAV, MP3, M4A, AIFF)

Standard Notes - a notepad which syncs between devices and is cross-platform and encrypted.

Stickies - 3M postit-notes (tm) on your screen

StuffIt Expander - An unarchiver app that opens basically any archive file (ZIP, GZ, RAR, etc)

Syncios Data Transfer - copy files from iOS

TeamViewer - remote control your computer. A bit whiny, asks for money all the time.

Telegram - Text messenger, apparently it's only encrypted if you specify "secret chat"

TextWrangler - Text editor with Grep, Regex and multi-file search/replace. If you aren't a programmer you won't need it.

The Unarchiver - An unarchiver app that opens basically any archive file (ZIP, GZ, RAR, etc)

To MP3 Converter - as it says.

Toolbox for MS Office Template - lots of great templates for MS Office, e.g. infographics, logos, etc.

Toonly - To make animated cartoons

Tunnelblick - a Free opensource VPN client

Tuxera Disk Manager - To attach Linux and NTFS drives (writable)

Unik - to identify duplicate images in image collections and let you delete them in one shot

vCardConverter for Excel - to take a spreadsheet and convert it to a Vcard format for the addressbook, e.g. if you have a spreadsheet of 1000 people, this will make a VCF file that will import all 1000 into your phone in one shot.

VeraCrypt - to create encrypted disk images. If you aren't sharing large amounts of data in passworded chunks with other people, probably don't need it.

Video Crop - To crop videos into different shapes e.g. if you film things in vertical mode instead of landscape mode and want to crop off the black sides of the video.

VLC - Video player. The best there is. Plays anything and seldom drops frames or goes out of sync with audio.

WhatsApp - Messenger.

X-Assist - To make your apps behave like Mac OS 9 - ie come to the front when you click  on them, etc. Similar to "Front and Centre" above, but adds an application menu like Mac OS 9 as well, meaning you can hide your Dock.

Xilisoft Video Joiner 2 - as it says

Xilisoft Video Splitter 2 - as it says 

zoom.us - video conferencing.

Zotero - Academic papers manager. Comes with a web browser plugin to help add papers to its collection. Mostly useful to professors.



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