Mac Pilot, a customization and utility app from Koingo Software is currently $3.00 on BundleHunt. There are similar apps like Onyx and Tinker Tool out there that are free, but for the price I thought I'd take a look.

Applications

Mac Pilot contains settings for several system apps. Here are just of the few things it can control.

• Calendar - change event duration
• Dock - single app mode, enable window previews
• Finder - enable "Quit Finder"
• Help Viewer - user normal instead of floating windows
• Launch Pad - Reset contents, control \# of rows and columns
• Music - enable half-star ratings
• Quick Time - Remember open movies on quit
• Safari - Backspace goes to previous page
• Screen Capture - change file type
• Spotlight - Reset index
• System - Disable notification center
• Terminal - Window focus follows mouse
• Time Machine - Do not prompt to use connected drives

Disk

Gives info and lets you perform maintenance on individual partitions

• Disks info
• Files Info
• Maintenance

File Browser

Detailed file information and settings

• General - Includes last backup date
• Details - Over 30 Unix characteristics on each file
• Access - Adjust traditional permissions and ACLs
• Advanced - Allows you to lock files
• Legacy

Login

• Change many features of your login screen - including the displayed image, which is totally worth the whole purchase price to me!
• Show or hide any users of the computer on the login screen
• Enable and disable login items and launch agents
• Set defaults for window states on login

Logs

• Built in log viewer
• Complete list of system receipts for installed software titles that issue them

Maintenance

• Automated - Enable or disable system cron jobs
• Update or rebuild launch services database
• ** Force empty trash and clear print queue - Very Helpful!**

Network

• Detailed info for every network interface
• Custom sharing settings including enabling airdrop on legacy machines
• Shortcuts to hidden utilities: Airport Utility, Wireless Diagnostics
• Complete Port List
• Network Optimization for selected broadband connections

Power

• Hidden settings for system, AC and battery
• Sleep settings for disks, display, and system. Plus auto-power off settings
• Hibernation settings
• Scheduling for wake and sleep

Reference

• Error Codes
• Fonts
• Key Combos
• Manuals
• System Profile

In addition there is a section for getting more information and doing some optimization but it requires disabling System Integrity Protection and I did not explore that.

The final potentially helpful tool is one that strips out the files from binaries for either Intel or ARM processors if you are running low in disk space and want to eliminate things you don't need. I'd make damn sure I had a good backup before using that.

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If you are one of those Mac users frustrated by the fact that the default dock is only visible on a single display, or you don't like the way it deals with hidden windows, or maybe you wish you could hide certain apps, you might want to try Switch Glass, an app by well known Apple podcaster, developer and writer, John Siracusa.

Switch Glass lets you configure a (hide-able) floating app switcher for each display in your setup.

• Visibility - Set it to be visible, hidden or auto-hidden/visible depending on mouse position 
• Position - Choose from eight positions on each screen 
• Orientation - Horizontal or vertical positioning 
• Background - Choose from four different backgrounds including dark mode toggling 
• Styling - Three different corner styles 
• Icon Size - App icons can be anywhere from 16 to 256 points in size 
• Icon Spacing - Adjust from 0 to 100% of the icons sizes 
• Margin - Adjustable around the switcher itself 
• App Sort Order - Apps can be sorted by name or launch order

You can customize what clicking or shift clicking on an app does, with options to bring all windows or a single window to the front. Using option+click will hide the current front app while opening the app you click on. The app switcher has a context menu for each app and supports dragging items to the icons to open them.

As would be expected from a developer known for having exacting preferences in his workspace, you can fine tune almost every element in the app. Switch Glass is $7.99 on the Mac App Store.

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Yonks is a well-designed iOS app that works quite well as a standalone app on Apple Silicon Macs. It's a day counter that determines how many days since and event or how many days until an even with lots of extra special touches. For a one time purchase of $1.99 in the App Store vs. subscription apps at 4X that price just for a year of use, it's almost unbeatable.

Ever wanted to know how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years have passed since you were born or since you got married? What about counting down to your next vacation or the end of an important project? Maybe you want to count the days since you started a diet, quit smoking or drinking or started a new fitness routine. Do you want a way to count down the time until a new movie or video game is released. Yonks (British slang for "a long time") can do it for you.

Features

• Choose between counting minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years and select a custom emoji and color for every counter.
• Order your counters manually, alphabetically, increasing or decreasing by date or by color.
• See when a notable milestone occurs (e.g. "When is your 1000 day anniversary?") and add it to your calendar.
• Need to remember more than just a date? No problem, just add a custom note to your counter.
• Yonks has a growing list of popular counters from a variety of categories (holidays, sports, movies, games, …) for you to add with one tap.
• Change the date, time and number formats according to your local or personal preferences.

Yonks does not have iCloud syncing but I had no trouble creating my setup on my phone and exporting a json file via the settings that I easily imported on my MacBook via the same mechanism.

According to the developer, Stefan Grund, a new update is scheduled to drop on 2024-10-14 and version 2 of the app is in the works.

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Marta is a free, dual-pane file manager for macOS written entirely in Swift, making it fast and responsive to both keyboard and mouse commands, although it specializes in the former. Under development since 2016 by software engineer Yan Zhulanow of Jet Brains, Marta may move to paid model in the future but for no it can be downloaded for free at the dev's website.

Some of Marta's key features include:

• Extensive keyboard support
• No user tracking
• Ability to edit files inside archives and nested archives
• Documentation to guide users in customization
• Theme supprt (plus you can add your own)
• Plugin support through a custom Lua API
• Actions panel (instead of layers of menus)
• Quick search
• Uses Mac's Quicklook and plugins
• Toggle hidden files
• Built in terminal
• Disk usage analyzer
• Multiple tabs and windows to create workspaces

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Keysmith is an automation app that works in any other app on your Mac to record actions you can later trigger from a menu or with a keyboard shortcut. I've been a Keyboard Maestro user for many years. I have over 800 macros within that application and a lot of experience using it, but after working with Keysmith for just a short while, I have to admit it makes some actions easier to record and activate. It's not a replacement for Keyboard Maestro, but it will certainly supplement it.

Keysmith detects buttons, lists, and page loads automatically. The first macro I created with it was able to Open Obsidian, copy my daily note, open Day One, create a new entry and paste the content from Obsidian. I assigned it to HyperKey+D and was able to trigger it while I was in my web browser. I tinkered with it a little and was easily able to get it to close Day One after the entry was created.

The process is simple. You start the recording of a macro from a button on the menu bar. Your perform the action you need and Keysmith records your clicks and keystrokes. When you're done, you save the macro, give it a name and assign a hotkey if you want to.

Some of the example macros available for download on the Keysmith web site are:

• Refresh extensions in Chrome
• Share screen in Discord
• Eject external hard drive in Finder
• Assign and submit a pull request on GitHub
• Enable Dark Mode in macOS
• New note with template in Apple Notes
• Switch to a specific Slack channel
• Switch to Zoom gallery view
• Quit all apps with AppleScript
• Close Notification Center in macOS

You can use the total functionality of Keysmith for free to make up to five macros. The full version is $54. It is also available as part of Setapp.

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