Windows and Linux users what are your must have apps/programs when you set up MacOS for the first time?
For me these have entered into my must haves
- BetterDisplay: For better scaling support for external monitors
- Rectangle: To be able to use a mouse to drag and snap windows
- Pixea: To be able to double click an image with a mouse in any folder and then use arrow keys or scroll wheel to proceed to the next file in the folder. Replaced the stock preview with this.
Something I'm looking for now is the ability to use the forward and back buttons on my mouse when I'm in Finder and want to go back to the previous folder I was in. Doesn't work in Safari either. Works in good old dependable Firefox though.
And separate volume controls for each applications.
How could I have forgotten iTerm2... These are all great suggestions though! Going to give Amphetamine and IINA a try!
IINA looks promising. Especially if it can output a HDR signal instead of tone mapping. Open source too!
Massive fan of Hidden Bar, but now with a nodge it is lacking progression, but it seems this repo has picked up the pace: https://github.com/UeharaYou/HiddenBar
Some of my general programs
For anyone reading this Horo is a timer for your menu bar. It’s simple but I can’t recommend it enough, I use it so often these days that I don’t know how I ever got by without it.
With pixea I can just double click to open an image no matter the folder view it is set to and use arrow keys or scroll wheel to look through the images in the folder.
Meanwhile in Quick view I have to reach for the space bar. Mind you I'm using a macmini so my hands are more likely to not be near the space bar as it would be using a TouchPad on a laptop.
And then my preferred view is grid, but then the arrow key navigation stops at the row it started on instead of automatically proceeding to the next row. So I have to click down then have to use the opposite keys to look at the previews then down again and go the opposite direction. And scroll wheel navigation doesn't work either. So then if I want to use one key I have to go through the process of changing to list or column view so I can just click down to view the next. But, why would I have to do that? It just seems like too many unnecessary steps.
No need to highlight anything with Pixea. Or switch to space or whatever. Simply open the image and just look through the media in the folder with no extra steps, which more fits into my idea of simplicity that I expect from MacOS than the default behavior that doesn't feel mouse friendly either.
Yeah, basically the default windows or Linux pic behavior. When I saw you had to do these additional steps of space bar and selecting images in grid view I was like no... I could have lived with clicking space bar, but having to do the additional step of selecting images or do a folder view adjustment was just too clunky for me haha. It felt like someone trying to explain how downloading a PC game then going through setting options isn't that hard a opposed just downloading and playing a game on a console. My thought why does a simple image preview even need those steps.
Yeah, it seems like it has less development that even the photo viewing behavior in iOS. Like you can just navigate through the files app and open a Pic and just keep swiping right instead of running into this random limitation.
Still seemed odd to me why a preview doesn't have such a basic continuous function, since other native options for other OSS aren't full blown editors either. I think this picture function has been around in other OS for over a decade now?
Especially with more people who use phones or tablets than desktop OS it seems like coming into MacOS and opening a file to look at a larger preview and being able to continuously look with no additional steps would be the behavior they'd expect.
This is the one thing that has confused me more than the default windows snap behavior or the scaling options for external monitors, since it is so basic I never expected to not be a thing in any OS released these days.
Seconds this, Raycast also replaced Rectangle (window manager) and Maccy (clipboard manager) for me.
Thanks will have to check this out!
BetterTouchTool
App Cleaner!
https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
As a Mac user it is a bit of a shame that we need to depend on apps like this... Despite this app is awesome lol.
Sometimes getting rid of certain programs is like getting rid of malware lol.
Does Mac not cleanly uninstall programs? Is this needed for programs installed from the official Mac store too?
I can't speak for all the programs but I think almost all the programs I have ever used let a lot of undesired files everywhere, in theory moving the app to the thrash bin should be enough, but why let all that crap hanging around there?
Yeah, I do like the option of if I uninstall something to get rid of everything so it is back to the state it was before instead all these random misc and now unneeded files. I did some searches and lot of users were wondering why this functionality isn't present already.
But if it was a default functionality from Apple, presumably apps would be packaged, installed, and run in such a way that the OS is aware of what files it's creating and use that context to clean up after themselves properly when uninstalled.
Most Mac apps don’t have an uninstaller (or installer) you’re meant to just toss the app in the trash. The problem is this leaves in place your preferences files, any “application support” files it may have downloaded, maybe a cache, etc
That said, I’ve been migrating the same Library folder from Mac to Mac since around 2003 and have never used an app cleaner. It really isn’t an issue 99% of the time.
I can imagine a very edge use case for an app cleaner, but for most purposes - 99% of users - there's really no reason for it. Macs don't have a Registry. If you remove the application itself, all of its ancillary files in Application Support and elsewhere will just... not do anything. And they won't interfere. They won't interact in any way with anything else on your computer. And in most cases, they're tiny files. There's functionally no reason to care that they're still around.
Sometimes there's random startup files that clutter up the startup menu
UTM. The best free VM software that works on all Macs, M1/M2 included. Can even virtualise MacOS instances relatively easily.
I'll have to play around with this for Linux.
Runs like an absolute dream on an M1 - provided you use an ARM64 image. X86 performance is shit.
How does it run Office and especially MS Teams? I guess you can watch a YouTube video but not really game on that VM?
Depends on your setup. Native architecture based guest OSes (eg: Arm on Apple Silicone, x86 on Intel macs)will run them fine performance wise. Guest OSes on emulated CPU architectures (eg: x86 on Apple Silicone arunvd vice versa) run like dogshit just trying to boot the thing up.
GPU acceleration is actually a thing but it is very much in beta and has known side effects, especially for Linux.
It is worth bearing in mind that UTM can't pass through the Apple laptop webcam and mic like it can with other USB devices. The same is true of all virtualisation software, as MacOS treats these devices very differently to regular USB devices.
These are the Mac-exclusive apps I use regularly on my MacBook Pro 14" CotEditor Amazing open source text editor just for Mac BetterSnapTool for snapping windows (old school I know) Image2icon is useful for making my dock icons consistent TopNotch because the notch is annoying TG Pro because Macs get hot Keka because sometimes you run across a RAR or 7z file
These are just Mac apps, but I also use a bunch of cross-platform apps
CotEditor looks kind of like Notepad++ which I love for when I just want a simple text editor that is a little more functional that the default text editor without launching visual studio code. Thanks for the recommendations.
I like Spectacle for arranging windows on the desktop.
If you're a command line user, give iTerm2 a look.
If you're a developer or power user, you'll probably want Homebrew for package management.
Check out Warp as well if you love your command line!
I switched to KiTTY. It has all the functionality I need with little configuration. Also, I feel the speed difference a lot when rendering TUIs like telescope in nvim.
I always had my own configuration set up but recently, I switched to NvChad and only change some details.
Witch for sane alt(cmd)+tab behaviour
And Alfred mostly for clipboard history
AppCleaner
Lot of nice recommendations here. Particularly suspicious package.
Maccy - clipboard app Alfred - launcher Iterm2 - terminal Firefox BettertouchTool - touchpad gestures Hidden bar - hide menu bar icons Itsycal - menubar calendar IINA - gui for mpv video player Keka - extract archives Espanso - text replacement
Hidden bar looks awesome to clean up the menu bar.
Check out LinearMouse. Can map buttons and is simple and minimal.
https://github.com/linearmouse/linearmouse
Blockblock and Lulu from https://objective-see.org/
And three finger drag in accessibility options.
Microsoft Remote Desktop
Homebrew
Keka for RAR
I'll keep keka in mind for rar files.
BetterTouchTool (which isn't free but is worth every penny) lets you do everything rectangle does. Also lets you configure your mouse buttons to do whatever you want. Also infinite custom hot keys and shortcuts.
Also Raycast as a replacement for Spotlight.
Raycast has replaced BetterTouchTool for me. I own a license for BTT, have it installed, but it's never running anymore.
Definitely check out the Contexts app.
It replaces some of the core window management features and can be configured to make Mac window management a bit more like what you're used to on Windows/Linux.
My MBP is largely a glorified SSH client. So, my must-haves are:
I'm going to try out Kitty soon to replace iterm2.
App Cleaner (app uninstaller), Wipr (ad blocker), IINA (video player), Subtler (converts mkv to QuickTime readable files), Keka (unarchiver), and LinearMouse (no mouse acceleration and separate scroll directions).
Another +1 for Rectangle.
For me, a semi-recent convert from Windows, a fresh install of macOS includes:
Dropover, it has a limited free version (3 second wait time) or $5 for a one time ‘Pro’ version. It worked way better for me than Dropzone for copying files around and temporarily grabbing web images for Messages and Discord.
Top Notch, its free to use and cleanly hides the notch and just provides a clean black space for the menu bar.
SoundSource, yes its $40 and thats expensive af. However FOSS alternatives like Background Music kept crashing due to my external DAC. It’s a volume mixer, EQ tool, and audio IO selector.
And finally if I need to run Windows tools or applications for some of my hobbies, I have Parallels on an external drive. That way Windows isn’t hogging space and is isolated when I don’t need it.
If you’re looking for window tiling and keyboard shortcuts, Yabai and skhd are absolutely amazing. Add sketchybar to the mix and you can create an awesome and customizable alternative to the native Spaces.
Amethyst is good for tiling as well and doesn't require disabling security features, making it usable on company machines.
Swish
Can be used separate from or in conjunction with other snap-to apps. Instead of dragging your windows to the side to snap it there, you can simply flick it there on the trackpad.
beardie. i'm used to managing my music with alt+shift+{z,x,c} from my linux days, so thanks to beardie i can use the same bindings on macos
I installed an app to work around mouse scroll wheel acceleration, literally right after installing FF. I can't recall the name though.
Linux
When I buy a laptop it always comes with windows. I always play with it a day or two. Install Linux and that's it. Have used osx or macOS a few times, but it's not my thing.
Anyway software I use (that probably also works with macOS).
Meld (tools to compare 2 text files)
Firefox (still the best open source browser)
VLC (video player)
Filezilla (ftp client)
Audacity (audio editor)
Franz (chat client for lots of services)
I was kind surprised how kind of hacky the experience of MacOS has felt having to search out so many different apps just to try to get the OS to behave how I'd like compared to Linux where I'm pretty happy with the out the box experience, and can just stick more to the app store just to find programs like firefox as opposed to trying to find a bunch of different apps to "fix" the desktop behavior for something as simple as display scaling.
Like one I hope there is a solution to is double click being required when Multitasking with a browser where the windows needs to be activated before it accepts user input. Has led to things feeling unresponsive, since not even split screen or floating app multitasking on phones require that. But, I'm sure I'll get used to it, and it'll be fun in the future to try out Linux on the powerful and very great value MacMini when Asahi Linux makes progress.