Best Apps

I'm not really bothered by having more than 500 apps installed on my Mac. According to Lingon X, I have 102 apps either as login items or running in the background as helper apps. I write app reviews on my other blog, AppAddict every day, always something I have downloaded, installed and used on my personal Mac. I love my Setapp subscription because it gives me an ever-growing library of high-quality apps to try out for the same monthly price. But if all this goodness evaporated suddenly and i was forced to run vanilla macOS plus twenty apps to get my work done, which out of all the ones that own would I choose? Answering this requires some tough choices. Many of these apps I have been using for more than a decade, although a few have been adopted in the past year.

Since I am retired, I no longer need any networking, development or analysis apps. I use my Mac primarily for research and for writing. The graphics work I do is simple and straightforward. Even though I have Pixelmator and Acorn, I end up using simpler tools most of the time.

  1. Obsidian - an extensible note-taking app that is also well suited for writers. I've composed more than 500K words in it during the past year.
  2. Clean Shot X - the best screenshot utility
  3. Raycast - an app launcher that handles much more
  4. Keyboard Maestro - the ultimate Mac automation tool
  5. Vivaldi Browser- my choice for web browsing for reasons
  6. PopClip - a text selection utility
  7. TextExpander - a snippets app
  8. Drafts - a text automation app
  9. Day One - the preeminent journaling app for macOS
  10. Default Folder X - an enhancement for open and save dialog boxes
  11. Hazel - a Mac automation tool for file management
  12. DropZone 4- a file shelf utility
  13. Toyviewer - a Preview replacement for images with editing capabilities
  14. Qspace | AppAddict - a substitute for Finder
  15. Scratchpad - a menu bar utility for floating notes
  16. BarTender - I didn't buy into the hysteria, I just set up some Little Snitch rules
  17. Better Touch Tool - multi-purpose automation app
  18. Find Any File - a search utility
  19. Things 3- a task manager
  20. Kiwi for Gmail - Not a well-known email app, but one I've used off and on for years

    Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇