Apps
- Activity Watch - a time tracking app that monitors apps used a websites visited
- Next DNS - one of my security tools
- Gmail - After nearly 20 years of using Gmail, I still feel most comfortable using the web interface over any email app
- Yahoo Mail - I use this account just for newsletters and mailing lists
- Google Drive - I use this for different personal documents like tracking the words written during Writing Month and the list of apps I've reviewed as well as automated documents from IFTTT that I keep an eye on
- Inoreader- I love the web interface of my RSS provider more than any app
- Pocket - since the death of Omnivore this is my read it later service
- Raindrop.io - my bookmarking service
- Social.lol - My home Mastodon instance
- 500.social - Another Mastodon instance I belong to
- Onephoto.club - a travel photography Mastodon instance
- Another private Mastodon instance with a few friends
- BlueSky - mostly for POSSE
- Threads - mostly for POSSE
- Facebook - primarily for family use
- LinkedIn - fascinated with how weird it is
- Fedica - a free service to post to multiple social media sites at once and.or schedule future posts
- Delete unlimited tweets, retweets, and likes from Twitter/X
- Anonymize unlimited Reddit posts and comments
- Delete up to 30 days of content on Discord & Facebook
- All social media services fully unlocked
- Full access to the automated scheduler
- Deep-scan your posts with the File Importer
- Advanced social media management tools
- Edit and Deletion modes
- Priority, 1:1 support
- Custom text editing options
- Manage entire servers or communities with "Moderator mode"
- Discord
- Anilist
- Slack
- Imgur
- Letterboxd
- Deviantart
- Disqus
- Gyazo
- Skype
- Spotify
- Steam
- Github
- Pixiv
- Social media posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
- Liked YouTube videos
- Saved Pocket articles
- RSS feeds from Mastodon and my blogs
- A geofence around my office to record what time I get to work (requires iPhone)
- TV shows watched via Trakt
- Daily weather report
- Starred articles saved to Pocket
- Create new task in Things 3 to read starred articles
- Saved posts copied to Dropbox as text files
- Save URLs of Pockets articles
- Save TV shows watched via Trakt
- Save URLs of Raindrop.io bookmarks
- Record arrivals and departures from office (Requires iPhone)
- Save Raindrop.io bookmarks to Notion
- Save a copy of iOS screenshots to Google Drive
- New note
- Browser notes
- Copy note deep link
- Create Quick link
- Format
- Disable window auto-resizing
- Export (HTML, Markdown, Plain text)
- Recently deleted notes
- Delete
- Open my web browser to my job's time clock web page four times a day to clock in and out for the day and for lunch
- Run an AppleScript right before I get up in the morning to eject my backup drive so that all I have to do is unplug it
- Run an AppleScript every night to move items in Things 3 to a new date and time
- Launch a file synchronization app every night to sync my Obsidian vault to Google Drive
- Open and close an app on my work and home machines at alternating times because I don't want it running on them simultaneously
- Launch a set of documents I use all day every day at work five minutes after I log in.
- Open
- Open with
- Share
- Get info
- Show in Finder
- Copy Path name
- Rename
- Copy
- Copy to...
- Move to...
- Move to trash
- Compress
- Remove image metadata
- Extract text from images
- Optimize image size (if you have Clop installed
- rhyme search (works offline)
- wildcard search (crossword solver mode, works offline)
- dictionary lookup of word meanings (multiple dictionaries, online only)
- thesaurus lookup (online only)
- search SOWPODS or TWL or both (Scrabble dictionaries)
- All sorts of case changes (ALL CAPS, lowercase, CaMeL, snake_case, etc.)
- Word counts (including unique word counts and text statistics)
- Encoding
- Add/remove/convert line breaks
- Fix/convert quotes
- Extract dates, addresses, dates, emails, phone numbers
- JSON tools
- Line removal options
- Strip non-alpha-numeric characters
- Apps to Enhance Apple Shortcuts
- Clop for image processing
- Hazel for file management
- Keyboard Maestro for all kinds of stuff ( I have 800 macros)
- Better Touch Tool for Magic Trackpad and more
- Automatically connect network drives at login
- Automatically print all documents placed in a certain folder
- Automatically copy images when a certain external drive (including thumb drives) is connected
- Open or quit applications on a schedule (I use scheduling to launch a program that syncs my Obsidian vault at 3am, one that ejects my backup drive before I wake up so I can just unplug it and to move screenshots and image files from my daily work to a storage location when I am done for the day)
- Turn off automatic Time Machine backups and run them on a schedule
- Empty the trash on a schedule
- Take screenshots at scheduled intervals
- Display a dialog box (useful for public computers to pass info to users)
- Automate the opening of URLs
- ⌘+Q - Runs an Apple Script that prompts “Are you sure you want to close this app”
- shift+shift - opens/closes notification center
- control+control - reveals desktop
- option+option - reveals all Windows
- esc+esc - activate screen saver/lock screen
- fn+e - Raycast emoji picker
- fn+v - Raycast clipboard manager
- four-finger click on MTP - activate screen saver/lock screen
- one finger click on bottom center of MTP - Google search
- three finger tap on MTP - simulate alt+tab
- Automatically creating clickable links from pasted URLS
- Control over font selection
- Text size adjustment
- Line spacing
- Smart quotes
- Smart Dashes
- Translucent background
- Google Gemini Pro
- ChatGPT Web Interface
- Typing Mind
- OpenAI (15 different choices)
- Groq
- Claude (7 different choices)
- Custom (local)
- Gemini (four different choices)
- Generate ideas
- Summarization
- Write articles (don't do this, it's lazy)
- Answer questions
- Reply to emails
- Ads and Trackers - currently blocking 119,372 addresses
- Block domains known to distribute malware, launch phishing attacks and host command-and-control servers using a blend of the most reputable threat intelligence feeds — all updated in real-time.
- Block malware and phishing domains using Google Safe Browsing — a technology that examines billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites. Unlike the version embedded in some browsers, this does not associate your public IP address to threats and does not allow bypassing the block.
- Prevent the unauthorized use of your devices to mine cryptocurrency.
- Block domains that impersonate other domains by abusing the large character set made available with the arrival of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) — e.g. replacing the Latin letter "e" with the Cyrillic letter "е".
- Block domains registered by malicious actors that target users who incorrectly type a website address into their browser — e.g. gooogle.com instead of google.com.
- Block Parked Domains
- Block any Top Level Domain
- Block Newly Registered Websites
- Block CSAM
- Optional Parental controls for YouTube, Safe Search, Time-based rules, specific apps, websites and games
What Tabs Do You Keep Open All the Time?
It's hard to believe there was once a time when browsers didn't have tabs. Prior to 2002, opening more than one website at the times required opening multiple instances of a browser. Memory management wasn't as robust as it is now and computers had much less power. These days you often hear of people running hundreds of tabs at the time since browsers can hibernate unused ones easily. I am nowhere near that level, mostly because I don't have the headspace to make use of them all. I normally have two or three windows open at a time depending on whether I'm at home or work. Having 30-45 open tabs is the norm for me.
If you are one of those 500 tabs open at the time people, please, please leave me a comment and try to explain why you roll like that. I';d be fascinated.
These are the ones I almost always have open:
Window 1
Window 2
Social Tab Group
Blogging Tab Group
The rest of the tabs I have open normally will include a news site or two, a few blogs and a few open Google docs. I use an app called HistoryHound that consolidates my history from several browsers into one searchable database when I need to reopen something.
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Redact Privacy - An App for Cleaning Up Your Internet Presence
If you've been online for a long time, you very well may have
accounts on dozens of services, including social media platforms.
Despite your best attempts at privacy, there may well be old posts
floating around that you wouldn't want associated with you currently.
People change over time, and comments that seemed clever when you were a
teenager may seem pretty cringe today. There are services out there that
offer to clean all that up for you, but they are expensive and require
that you turn your credentials over to a third party. Luckily, there is
a universal Mac app that can do total or selective removal of your
content from 30+ different apps, websites and services. It's called Redact Privacy. It removes posts, DMs,
photos, videos, likes, and other unique content on various social
networks. You can delete by keyword, sentiment, content type, and more.
It has a free tier that will :
To access the other services requires a subscription, but paying for a single month for $7.99 should give you adequate time to clean up your posts. Subscribing lets you take advantage of scheduled deletions if for some reason you need that. The app is available on the Mac App Store.
The paid version offers:
Included services include:
AMA - Morning Person or Evening Person?
Today's Ask me anything is - Are you a morning person or an evening person?
I love to sleep as much as anyone I know. My ability to lapse into unconsciousness is my superpower and one for which I enjoy a certain bit of notoriety among my friends and family. But, when I am done with a nap or a night's sleep, I'm not one to lie there and try to drift back off. When I am done, I am done. I'm ready to get up and do something else. I love to get up most mornings. The thought of that first cup of coffee and the chance to catch up on eight hours of missed news is too tempting to pass up.
I am nearly robotic upon waking, which is normally around 4:30 AM. We have one of those wonderful Nespresso one-cup coffee makers that brew great coffee quickly. I stand by it, bleary-eyed but patient as I wait for it to dispense its life-giving elixir. I make my way to my laptop, disconnect my backup drive, and begin the morning IT routine. First, I start my daily journal in Obsidian, one I will transfer to Day One at the end of the day. Then I add my daily app review, written the day before, to Reddit at r/MacApps. I don't even link back to my blog anymore. The moderators there added AppAddict to the sidebar, and that drives plenty of traffic my way. Then I check Mastodon and Micro.blog to see if I got any messages overnight. My friends in Europe are typically active already, so I see what they're up to.
Wonder Woman gets up at the same time I do. We spend the first 30 minutes or so together before she leaves for her morning run. Sometimes she's only gone for 30 minutes or so, but it is not unheard of for her to run a half-marathon before work, particularly if she's working from home and has a bit more time. Prior to having my knees replaced, I used to go for a walk in the mornings, a habit I need to rekindle. I loved being out on the dark streets listening to music or a podcast.
One of the other things I enjoy looking at in the morning is retrospectives from the day's history. I can do this in the Photos app, in Day One, and on Facebook, where my account is now 16 years old. It's fun to be reminded of past getaways, and to see pictures of my grandkids when they were younger. What's not so fun is to see what outrage Donald Trump has committed on this date in history. As an example, today I see posts relating to his quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine when he withheld military aid in an attempt to get them to investigate the Bidens. That got him impeached the first time.
By the time Wonder Woman has returned from her run, I am usually into the part of my morning that many people find funny. It's my pre-work nap. Despite just having slept for eight hours and having consumed coffee, I normally try to doze off for another few minutes before showering and getting dressed for work. For most of my working life, I had to leave a great deal earlier than I do now. I used to have to be on the job at 7:30 AM. My office was 30 miles away. These days, I don't have to be at work until 8:00 AM to an office that is less than 10 miles from home.
As much as I enjoy my job, a low-pressure tech support role at the same university where Wonder Woman is a big wheel, I don't always relish the start of the day. I routinely remark with something grouchy and profane when she summons me to get in the car for my chauffeured ride across town to our lovely campus. By the time we get moving though, I cheer up. My wife is my favorite person. I enjoy the brief interlude to chat about the day ahead, to crack jokes, and make plans for the evening. Everyone should be so lucky
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Text Count - An App for Those Who Write
As a person who writes a lot for my job and for fun, I have a need
to make sure I'm not being to verbose and to make sure that what I'm
composing is appropriate for the audience it's aimed at. I found a
simple tool by indy developer Arthur Smith, Text Count,
that makes it easy to get character, word and sentence counts and to get
a readability score on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. It analyzes sentence
length and word length, plus syllable count to assign a score from 1-100
to the text. The higher the score is, the better. Most business
communication should fall in the range from 60-70. A low score indicates
that you need to simplify what you've written.
Another useful element of Text Count is an estimated reading and speaking time. The app does not require you to paste the text anywhere. It analyzes what you copy to the clipboard. For people like me, who do their writing in a text editor instead of something like Microsoft Word, it's a handy tool.
Some high-end writing apps like iA Writer have some of these tools built in. Obsidian offers a word and character count out of the box, and you can download a plugin for a readability score.
Text Count is $2.99 at Gumroad.
Search Selected Text with Snapsrch
Snapsrch is a utility that lets you conduct searches on selected text in a convenient popup. Out of the box, it is preconfigured to search Google, Bing, Wiktionary, Google Translate and Wikipedia. Adding other search options is a breeze. I included AllMusic, YouTube, Amazon, Max, DuckDuckGo and Reddit in just a few minutes. I have not included any AI searches in my setup, but they are just as easy to set up.
Using it is as easy as selecting the text and opening Snapsrch with a hotkey. If you don't have any text selected, and you invoke the hotkey, you can type a query into the popup. You can choose the window size you want for the popup, by selecting user elements for iPhone, iPad, Mac or custom. You can also choose to invoke Snapsrch with a mouse or trackpad gesture. If you are a Popclip user, there is an extension available to add Snapsrch. This allows you to consolidate any search terms you are using into one icon, decluttering the Popclip interface.
Other Snapsrch options allow you to hide custom elements of any search page you create and to have them load to a specific location on the page. Snapsrch has OCR capabilities in several languages, so you can even search for text in images and videos. There is a built-in history of your searches you can toggle on or off. It is helpful when you need to refer back to a previous search.
Snapsrch is available on the Mac App Store for $5.99. You can use the trial version as much as you want. You just get a popup asking you to purchase it every 50 uses.
This is Where I Find All That Great Software
Rarely does a day go by without me downloading, installing and testing a new app or two. I'm currently dealing with an installed app count of 559. Part of the reason I have so many is because I'm always on the lookout for new apps to review over at AppAddict, my software blog with over 225 reviews already published an a new one being added every day. I have several sources for finding software and today I'm sharing them.
r/MacApps
This is one of the friendlier communities on Reddit. It's a place where software fans and devs both post. It's well moderated and spam free.
Tool Finder
Get over 450+ reviews, insights, videos, tutorials, and ratings for productivity apps for work & life.
Open Source Software
This website currently lists 642 free and open-source titles from a variety of categories. It's updated daily and makes it easy for devs to submit their titles for inclusion in the collection.
MacUpdate
This huge repository lets you narrow your search by several criteria. The link above is just for free software and it returned 5650 titles! The titles are in order by date last upated/released.
thriftmac
Thriftmac is a collection currently numbering 413 totally free Mac apps.Each app is assigned a category and accompanied by a short description.
MacMenuBar
I linked to the recently added page but it's easy to get to the entire collection and to filter for just free apps or just open-source.
Mr. Free Tools
Mr. Free Tools is a directory site with an advanced search engine that helps you find the best free software, apps, and tools from around the web. Those free solutions can help you with work, projects, studies, or hobbies.
Awesome Mac
Awesome Mac is a GitHub page with links to a huge variety of Mac software. The free and open-source titles are clearly marked.
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Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT
As a Mac automation fan, I make use of apps most people are
familiar with, like Keyboard
Maestro, Hazel
and Better
Touch Tool. Since 2010, however, I have also used a web service to
connect a wide variety of websites (including Reddit) and Mac apps in a
number of ways. That service is IFTTT (If
This Then That) and it offers over 2000 integrations with apps and
web services many of then Mac compatible.
Here are some of the ways I use IFTTT with Mac Apps
Create Day One Journal Entries
Inoreader
Obsidian
Google Sheets
Raindrop.io
Apple Photos
IFTTT is a subscription service. Billed annually, it is $3.33 a month. Billed monthly, the rate is $3.99.
A Day With Vivaldi Browser
I decided to be open-minded and spend some time with a new browser
for a few days after using
Microsoft Edge for the last two years for reasons related to my job.
The browser I decided to test is Vivaldi and after a day of using it
just like I use my normal daily driver here are a few of the things I
like.
Security
I've been concerned that the implementation of Manifest 3 browser extensions in Chromium browsers, preventing them from using the full version of uBlock Origin, would be an issue. After turning on Vivaldi's built in tracker, ad and third party cookie blocking, I added uBlock Origin Lite and tested security at Ad-Block Tester and Toolz Adblock, scoring a 99% effectiveness rate on both of them. Vivaldi has built-in tools to block cookie popups across the board.
Power Consumption
Vivaldi allows you to set custom hibernation times on individual tabs or on stacks, its name for tab groups. You can also set Vivaldi to open up with lazy loading, where tabs stay in a hibernating state until you need them. I typically operate with two or three windows and 30–45 tabs at all time, so this presents a good opportunity to really reduce battery strain.
Appearance
To avoid distraction, I wanted to use the identical colors I'd used in Edge. Modifying the default theme only took a couple of minutes using a color picker and hex codes.
Tab Management
When you open Vivaldi for the first time, you are asked to choose if you want vertical or horizontal tabs. You can move them later if you decide to. You can also take advantage of split screen tabs, allowing you to view two web pages side by side. My favorite feature out of all the tools is saved sessions. You can save all your open tabs and reopen them later from a button on the left side toolbar. This is a separate feature from the workspaces that Vivaldi lets you create and reopen as needed. You can even go a step further and use a separate profile with a different email address to keep your work and personal browsing from mixing. This lets you use different extensions, passwords and settings at every level.
Built in Mail, Calendar, Notes and Feed Reader
It was easy to set up my primary Gmail account and the Yahoo account I use just for newsletters. Adding a selection of Google Calendars and Apple Calendars was also a breeze. While I prefer to use my subscription to Inoreader for my full-blown RSS needs, it is convenient to stick a few of my favorite sites in the Vivaldi built-in feed reader for quick access.
Side Panel
Vivaldi has an option to any site you want in a panel on the side of the browser, helpful when doing research with Wikipedia or looking up bookmarks on Raindrop.io. You can also view your browser based bookmarks there along with notes, downloads, history, your reading list, a translation service, a list of tabs from across all current Vivaldi sessions on multiple computers, saved sessions, calendars and tasks
Why Don't You Try a New Browser Today?
The browsers people use to access the Internet have varied widely over the past 30 years. The scumbag billionaire. Marc Andreessen, was once a brilliant software engineer who led the way in introducing Netscape (previously known as Mosaic) to the world. The market share it garnered was north of 95%/ The next major shift was to Internet Explorer, the browser installed on all Windows machines from Windows 95 through Windows 8. It swallowed the Internet and eventually had as large a market share as Netscape ever did. Then, here came Google. It's Chrome browser is nearly ubiquitous today, despite it's many faults, primarily privacy concerns and battery drain on mobile. Many Mac users stay with the default browser on their computers, Safari, which is also native in the iPhone.
Chances are, you are probably a Chrome or Safari user unless you're a techie, in which case chances are you may be a Firefox user since it has better privacy than it's main competitions. If you have been using the same browser for a long time, I'm suggesting that you try an alternative for a few days, just in case you're missing something.
Every major browser has import options that let you bring in your bookmarks, passwords and history if you are currently using one of the major players.
Here are a few choices:
Microsoft Edge - this has been my workhorse on Windows, Mac and iOS over the past two years. It is a stable browser with a huge variety of features, most of which are easy to turn off are hid if you don't want to see them. It's based on Chrome, so the extensions available are plentiful. You can read more about why I like it here,
Firefox - this descendant of Netscape is the one of the most private of browsers and it still allows you to use the most powerful ad-blocking extensions (see uBlock Origin) which are being phased out in Chrome based browsers. For an open source alternative using the Firefox engine, try the Zen Browser
Brave - this is another browser for the security minded with built-in blocking of ads, trackers and third party cookies, which also makes it pretty fast. It has a built in version of Tor for browsing that is untraceable for all practical purposes. Based on Chrome, it has a wide variety of available extensions.
Orion - a browser developed by the private search engine, Kagi, is also privacy focused, promising zero telemetry and the ability to use either Chrome or Firefox extensions. It claims to block more ads by default than any other browser. It is 100% funded by Kagi users.
Vivaldi - this browser's claim to fame is extensive customization. You can place your browser tabs just about anywhere you want, turn on ad blocking with downloading an extension, and enjoy end-to-end encryption of your synced data. I am currently giving it a try.
I am not going to link to Arc, the favorite of many people over the past couple of years because its parent company recently announced they don't intend to update it any further and weren't all that clear on where they are headed going forward. IMHO, it's a gamble to use Arc with it's steep learning curve and radical differences to the browser paradigm right now.
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Raycast New Notes Feature Available Now
One of the most popular features in Raycast, the extensible keyboard
launcher, has been its floating notes feature. Using a quick keyboard
shortcut, users have been able to summon a window into which they could
type or paste information. Hiding the note and bringing it back was
easy, but there wasn't a lot more to it than that. With the recent
release of Raycast notes in version 1.8.5, floating notes have been
replaced with a new feature.
Raycast notes now support markdown. If you know the syntax, great. If not, the notes window has a toolbar where you can select bold, italic, bullets and so on. It also has "inline code and code blocks, lists that you can indent and reorder, checklists, links and more."
Raycast users without the pro plan can have up to five notes, while pro members get an unlimited number. There are built-in commands for New Notes and Search Notes. If you use the commands frequently, then, like any other command in Raycast, you can assign a hot key to them.
The action pane (⌘+K)l for the Raycast notes command has several choices:
Quick links allow you to open a note with a single keystroke. The notes window may be moved anywhere on the screen. It will stay on top until dismissed.
Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility
If you are into Mac automation, you have probably invested in
tools like Keyboard
Maestro or Shortery
which let you launch apps, run scripts, display messages and open
documents using certain triggers. If you are new to the platform or
don't want to make the investment in a paid program right now, there is
a simple and easy to use app for you. Scheduler for Mac can do all the
tasks outlined above. It can run AppleScript, shell scripts and python
scripts. Scripts can be run as root. Here are a few real world examples
of how I use scheduling:
The interface for Scheduler is straightforward and easy to use. You'll have no problem configuring any of the events. You can even group events together to run at the same time. Any event can be run on a schedule or set to the same time on specified days. You can toggle events on and off, for example, if you don't want them to run when you are on vacation. One of the conditions for setting up a script allows it to be run after a specific period of inactivity. You could use this to quit your open apps and log you off in case you forget to. The option to display messages can be used as an alarm clock.
Another powerful feature of Scheduler is the ability to assign hotkeys to events. Using this you can launch apps, open websites and documents and run scripts right from the keyboard. You can even launch them from the Mac menu bar, which is a convenient way to do things like refresh Finder or restart your dock after making changes. You could even update your Homebrew apps that way.
The preferences and option for Scheduler allow you to sync or back up your settings to iCloud. You can also sync events to any iCloud calendar you grant Scheduler access to. Scheduler was released in 1998. The most recent release was last year. It is currently on version 7. It's freeware but requires you to register it after 30 days of use.
Dockside - A New Shelf Utility
There is a new player in the category of apps that includes Yoink, Dropover
and Dropshelf.
Dockside, from Hachipoo
Apps is a shelf utility that uses the space on either side of your dock
(if you position it on the bottom of your monitor). For those of use who
position our docks on the left or right sides of the screen, Dockside
places a couple of landing places at the bottom of the display, hidden
until you need them.
Dockside creates a shelf for your Downloads folder and the default location you have designated for screenshots. In addition, you specify a file location of your choosing for files you drag into Dockside. Once files are placed on a Dockside shelf, there are a variety of Finder actions you can take:
Additionally, depending on the type of object on the shelf, you can:
Other features include the ability to create a quick note with your default text editor on the shelf and the ability to paste content onto a shelf. Any item placed on a shelf that has Quicklook capability is viewable via that mechanism. Dockside also maintains a recent files history in its interface.
Dockside is an Apple notarized app that can operate offline since it has no external server connection and collects no data on users. There is a two-week free trial and the app can be purchased for $5.99 on the developer's website.
Three Free Apps for Text and Writing
If you are a writer or just like words, the chances are you find
Apple's built-in Dictionary app a little lacking. There are websites
that offer advanced functionality, but you have to be online to use
them. There are a few free tools that can help you out.
Nisus Thesaurus
From the developers of Nisus writer, this free thesaurus app, integrates with Apple's services menu to allow use in just about any application where you can enter text. Just highlight the word, "and choose Nisus Thesaurus from the Services menu. When you select a word in Nisus Thesaurus, the synonyms for that word will be shown right next to it in the Word Browser. Go from "sky" to "cumulonimbus" in just a few clicks."
Megawords
For crossword puzzle fans, poets and songwriters, Megawords from developer Frank O'Dwyer is a powerful stand alone app available in the Mac App Store. It's features include:
Esse
Esse from Ameba Labs offers 61 different text manipulations across eight different categories, similar to Word Service from Devon Technologies or the paid app, Text Workflow. You can do things like:
There is also an iOS version.
Mail Archiver X - Give It a Pass
I bought Mail Archiver X
by Moth Software at a discount from Bundlehunt a few months back and
didn't have to pay the full $49.95 they charge on their website. My
intention was to keep a regularly updated archive of my 19-year-old
Gmail account containing 155K messages. I also wanted to retrieve a
Yahoo account that I use solely for newsletters.
I knew beforehand that it's extremely easy to use Google Takeout to download an archive of your email in the universally recognized mbox format because I've done it several times. My Gmail archive weighs in at about 8GBs. You don't get a lot of choices when you request the archive, though. You get it all from the beginning of time. I wanted one to import into Eagle Filer so that I could have offline access to all the receipts, registration information and other things I'd received via email since 2005. Google Takeout did the trick.
With Mail Archiver X you can filter the emails you choose to archive, a feature I wanted. Unfortunately, despite supposedly being able to add files to an archive and cumulatively grow it over time, I was never able to get that function to work. Either the program insisted on downloading an entire archive each time it ran, taking hours, or it only downloaded files since the last time I ran it, but in a new file, so that I could not search my entire account at one time. Their tech support answered my emails, but not with helpful information. The company is in the US and the person who answered my email did not appear to a native English speaker. At present, support is no longer free. They have a $70 fee.
The other thing about the app I don't care for is its size. It's over half a GB. That's just the program, not the archives it creates. I would never recommend this program to anyone.
Task Til Dawn - A Free Mac Automation App
One of my favorite parts of using a Mac is making use of all the
automation apps, including the built in ones, Automator and Shortcuts.
My productivity would be severely hampered without:
All of those are paid apps though. If you want a free app (donation ware) to explore the possibilities of automation, try downloading Task Til Dawn by developer Oliver Matuschin. It's an app with a GUI, not a command line. You can trigger actions via events on your computer, or you can schedule them. The program will run from a thumb drive if you need to perform the same task on all the computers in a lab or an office. Tasks are saved as files and can be shared among workstations. Samples include:
There are dozens of other tasks, and they can all be strung together to create a practically endless amount of tasks. As a bonus for cross-platform users. Compatible tasks can be shared between Macs and Windows machines with little alteration. The Windows download is also free.
My Favorite Better Touch Tool Actions
Better Touch Tool, an app from Folivora.ai is one of my favorite automation apps. Here are a few of the shortcuts I use with it.
Scratchpad - Floating Notes But Better
For years, I kept a text editor open on my computer at all times
and when I needed a scratchpad, I would switch to it and type or paste
whatever I needed. Then Raycast
came along with it's floating notes feature, which is nice. It can be
summoned with a hot key. Then I found Scrap Paper,
which can also be called with a hotkey, syncs between computers and has
an iOS version. You can hide the icon in the menu bar if you just want
to use the hotkey. Furthermore, you can have the text window stay on top
of all other windows, which is a feature I want. Finally, I saw Scratchpad
on r/MacApps and I
thought I'd give it a try. It has everything Scrap Paper has, but can
also be launched from the dock. It adds
Because it's text, you get access to the writing tools, spelling and grammar, substitutions, speech and the Mac Services menu. One awesome feature is the ability to use Quicklook on a link, which opens a small window with a live view of the web page, similar to the Little Arc feature in the Arc browser.
Scratchpad offers scripting and shortcuts support. You can enter text onto Scratchpad from any app that can open a URL.
There is a fully functional free trial of the macOS app available here. The only limitation is a reminder to buy the app every 12 hours, and no automatic updates. All data and settings carry over if you buy it on the App Store.
Scratchpad is available in the Mac App Store for $5. It's by well-known Indy developer Sindre Sorhus.
An App to Copy an Image and Paste It as a File
A free app by a developer who goes by INCHMAN1900 on Gumroad can
provide an easy way to manage images if it fits your workflow. His small
app, FASA
(Forget About Save As), lets you copy images from any source to your
clipboard and then paste them as files in the Finder. You can use this
procedure to quickly export files from the Photos app, skipping the
dialog boxes you normally get. It even works on screenshots that you
copy to the clipboard. The programs preferences let you choose between
jpg and png for your preferred file type. You can start or stop the app
at any time and you can choose programs to exclude from using the
service if you have that need.
If you own a copy of Clop, it also has this ability. You can also do it using the Finder replacement, Qspace.
(Note - There are other things in this world called FASA. This is not affiliated with them. The dev and I both know this 😉)
Elephas Did What Others Wouldn't
I had a real-world task today that was perfect for AI, except all the tools I tried kept quitting halfway through. I had a list of over 100 URLs that I needed to convert into a Chrome bookmark file for an import I was trying to do. This involves going out on the internet to get the title of each page and formatting an HTML link, complete with the correct header and footer.
I tried:
All three of these would generate between 40–50 lines of code and then quit. The last app I tried was Elephas. I used a very simple prompt, "You are a web developer. You create web pages based on descriptions given to you." The reason Elephas succeeded where others failed was because of the choices it offers in AI models and the limits on them. It allows you to choose between:
I selected gpt-4-turbo and was able to set the context tokens to a max of 100,000. It took a while to generate the file, but it finally did it in a usable format.
Elephas has a variety of pricing plans for both subscriptions, starting at 8.99amonthforlimitedusageupto249 for a lifetime plan with unlimited tokens. I use the version that is available through Setapp with my own API keys for OpenAI and Gemini, for which the charges are negligible.
Another interesting feature of Elephas is its ability to scan folders of documents on your local machine and incorporate that knowledge into its answers. I have an Obsidian vault with 7K notes that it uses, as well as a 1GB directory of PDF files on various topics. It can also do all the standard things we've come to expect from AI apps:
There is also an iOS version of Elephas.
NextDNS for Mac
With the deprecation of the classic uBlock Origin as blocker by
Google Chrome in favor of a less powerful Light version and the
ever-increasing need for security, Mac users have the option of
downloading the NextDNS
configuration app from the Mac App Store and setting up a free
account with the enhanced DNS server. If you aren't into acronyms, DNS
stands for dynamic name service and it is what translates IP addresses
into the URLs we use to name websites. You can use a special DNS service
to block malware, ads, trackers and other unwanted traffic from ever
reaching your computer by using one.
NextDNS is free for up to 300,000 queries a month and you can use the same account on multiple computers, mobile devices and your router. It works on Macs and PCs, iPhones and Android devices - on anything that allows you to enter your own network settings. If you have a large household and need a paid account, it is just $1.99 a month.
Technically speaking, you don't even have to use the app .NextDNS can automatically generate a profile for you to use on your Mac and mobile devices and if you have the right kind of router, you can set it up without having to make ANY modifications to your computer.