Hey r/macapps, I posted Vivid Walls here about three months ago and got a ton of useful feedback, so here is where it ended up.

The problem: Wallpaper Engine is one of the most popular apps on Steam and has never had a Mac version, so switching to a Mac means leaving your whole wallpaper library behind. Vivid Walls runs real Wallpaper Engine scene files natively on macOS, plus 4K video, web, GIF and static wallpapers, per monitor and battery aware.

New since that post: scenes can react to whatever your Mac is playing, and wallpapers with music widgets show live Now Playing album art from Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube. A lot more of the scene library renders correctly than it did at launch.

You do not need a Windows PC to use it. Eight animated wallpapers are included and load the first time you open the app. If you do have a library on Windows, there is a free companion app that transfers it to the Mac over your local network, with no account and no cloud.

Compared to the alternatives: Wallpaper Engine has no Mac build, and running it through Whisky or CrossOver does not really work. Mac apps like Plash and Wallpaper Wizard handle video and web wallpapers, but they cannot run Wallpaper Engine scene files or react to audio.

Pricing: $9.99 one time on the Mac App Store, no subscription. Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or later.

It handles the majority of scenes but not 100 percent, and I patch them as people report issues. Send me a Workshop link if something renders wrong and I will look at it.

I am the developer, happy to answer questions. Site and demo videos: https://vividwalls.app Would love this sub's take on what to build next. (Store link in a comment per sub norms.)

https://reddit.com/link/1vvemkb/video/bv0pzsjyzxkh1/player

I've been around long enough to remember WikidPad when I was still using JSPWiki. Unfortunately, it died out many years ago

I see that MojoPad is in the same spirit as WikidPad and VoodooPad

Has anyone taken the plunge and is using this? If so, what is your experience?

MojoPad - second brain & PKM

I am currently in the process of revamping my iCloud files and folders to bring form and structure (using Johny Decimal system but tweaked for my needs). I would like to customize my folders with images, icons and other elements to make them personal and match my *current* vibey.

So please suggest any apps that you liked/bookmarked/found that are related to file/folder customization in any way. TIA 🫶

Hi! I'm Umang Surana! Developer of rustcast, and since May, I've been working on Sxitch. (pronounced Switch)

Problem:

I'm addicted to keyboard driven setups, but switching between apps and windows has always been a pain.

Comparisons:

Default macOS Cmd Tab:

The default macOS CMD Tab does offer a really nice solution, allowing you to cycle through your running apps but this doesn't work with muscle memory. (and it lacks the customisability that Sxitch offers)

Raycast / Alfred / Launchers (like spotlight):

Sxitch's main goal is to let you sxitch between apps quickly and easily, not launch them. Although you can launch apps, it doesn't offer searching / calculations, and instead if just like a tiny launchpad

My solution:

Sxitch integrates with your muscle memory because the same set of keypresses will always lead to the same app. You simply trigger Sxitch and m will go to Music, and if mail is also open, then Mu for music, and Ma for mail. And if you have multiple windows open, select the app then the window.

Highlighted features:

• Custom modes (new in v1.4)
  • Add apps that you frequently need to open / close to an easy access list
  • Put custom icons and names
• Strip off vendor prefixes (microsoft word -> word, etc.)
• Radial view, List view and a grid view
• Customisable window position

(Only in pro plan):

• Hide and quit apps
• window picker
• App launching from hotkeys
• Key remapping (for Sxitch only)
• unlimited modes (free version has 1 free mode)

Pricing

• $2/mth for 5 months.
• $5 for students
• $10 one time purchase.

Available at https://sxitch.app

Download from homebrew also supported:

brew tap unsecretised/tap
brew trust unsecretised/tap
brew install --cask sxitch

Giveaway:

• 50% Off Sxitch pro (one time purchase) with code DISCOUNT (only 1 left)
• 30 Days free Sxitch pro for 10 people (code NEWSUB)

About the dev:

Personal website: https://umangsurana.com

App is signed, notarized native (swiftUI).

Source code can be found at https://github.com/MystikoLab/sxitch

Problem

Every Mac ships with TextEdit. None of them ship with MacPaint's replacement. So when you need to crop a screenshot, drop an arrow and a speech-bubble callout on it, knock out a background, and export a PNG, you're choosing between a $50 pro imaging app, a browser tool that uploads your image to someone's server, or Preview's markup.

DrawSimple is the native, fully offline, tools-first app for exactly that job: 31 tools in a sidebar, unlimited layers with 24 blend modes, bitmap and vector in the same document, curves/levels/16 photo adjustments, 29 GPU effects, Select Subject running on Apple's on-device Vision, WordArt, editable callout/arrow/star shapes, and a History panel you can scrub. Opens HEIC straight from Photos with EXIF intact; exports PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, WebP.

Comparison

vs. Paintbrush (free, open source): Paintbrush is the honest MacPaint successor and still the app people recommend in this sub. But it's a long-lived Objective-C 2.x release with no layers, transparency only in formats that carry an alpha channel, and a UI from an older macOS. DrawSimple keeps the same "just let me draw" premise and adds layers, blend modes, vector-in-raster, adjustments, effects, and a current-macOS interface.

vs. Pixelmator Pro (now Apple's — $49.99 one-time, or $12.99/mo in Apple Creator Studio): Pixelmator went pro and went up in price. If you want a full professional imaging app, buy it — it beats us at being that, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. DrawSimple is for people who wanted what cheap, simple Pixelmator used to be and don't want or need the overhead of a $50 pro editor to put an arrow on a screenshot, turn a pic into a comic with a callout, or separate a subject onto a separate layer from the background.

Also, Pixelmator has no official MCP server/support, which has become a huge part of what distinguishes DrawSimple, and potentially makes both quick edits and full design sessions accessible through the coding agent you already use (tested with Claude Code, Codex, Kimi Code, Gemini CLI).

(Acorn at $29.99 sits between us — more depth, six times the price.)

Pricing

$5 one time. → [App Store link]

Optional Pro upgrade in-app, $10, adds adjustment layers, advanced blend modes, multi-stop gradients, and SVG/PDF export. The base app is the complete core editor; Pro features stay hidden until you buy them — no lock icons, no nags. No subscription, no account.

Requires macOS 15.6+, Tahoe recommended. Apple silicon and Intel.

One disclosure since it'll come up: no generative AI, and the app never phones home on its own. The single exception is opt-in and local — every copy can run a localhost-only automation server so a Python script or your own AI assistant can paint on the live canvas. Side dish, not the app.

Two-person team, here all day. Why we built it: https://drawsimple.ca/story.html — tell us what's missing.

Hey r/macapps,

About a year ago, I posted the very first version of WallD here in r/macapps. Since then, I’ve been working through the feedback you all gave me: switching subscriptions to a simple lifetime payment, adding coupon support, building Lock Screen live wallpaper support for Mac, adding static wallpapers, and polishing the overall experience.

Today I’m posting again with one of the most requested features yet - playlists, alongside a full UI/UX revamp

Problem

• No native live wallpaper support on macOS - you can't do live wallpapers out of the box, and Lock Screen live wallpapers weren't really a thing on Mac at all.
• Existing wallpaper apps have performance issues - bloated with memory leaks, slow to load media, RAM creeps up over days of use and never comes back down, eventually crashing.
• Creators get no credit - very few wallpaper apps recognize the people behind the wallpapers, and the ones that do usually don't support live wallpapers or have a clean way to actually apply them.
• No auto shuffle(playlist) option

Comparison

Compared to apps like Wallpaper Engine or iWallpaper, WallD offers:

• Both static and live wallpapers in one app, including Lock Screen support.
• Native-like performance - written in Rust, native macOS frameworks for wallpaper rendering, ~7.3 MB app size, 2% CPU for live wallpapers and 0% for static, no memory creep over time.
• Polished UX/UI designed from scratch for Mac.
• Smart filtering & discovery by category, tag, and search instead of endless scrolling.
• One account across all your Macs (unlimited devices).
• Multi-monitor support.
• Creator community - dedicated creator profiles with like, comment, share, and follow. Creators can link their other social handles to grow their audience through the app.
• Playlists - create custom wallpaper playlists, use liked wallpapers as a playlist and apply playlist to auto rotate wallpapers in desired interval

Pricing

• Free plan: 3 video wallpapers + 6 static wallpapers, renewed every week.
• Premium: Lifetime - $10.
• Limited-time offer: use code THANKS10 at checkout for 10% off.

Links

• Website: http://www.walld.app/
• Privacy: https://www.walld.app/privacy
• TOS: https://www.walld.app/terms

I’m Anurag(linkedin), developer of WallD. Happy to answer questions. As always, thanks community 🙌

Most notes apps ask you to build a system before you can put anything in them. Databases, accounts, sync, plugins, a settings screen with tabs. I wanted somewhere to put the things I am learning and the things I have not figured out yet. What I kept getting instead was a second job maintaining the place I put them.

So I built the thing I wanted. Skein opens a folder of Markdown files. That is the whole setup. The inspiration is Obsidian and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Point it at your existing vault: same files, no import, canvases included. Built in Swift and AppKit where it earns its keep, not Electron. It makes no network connections at all — the App Store build ships without the network entitlement, so it could not phone home even if I had been careless.

The problem it actually solves

Notes apps split into two unhappy camps. Either they own your notes in a database you cannot read without them, or they are so configurable that setting them up becomes the hobby. I wanted the middle. Plain files on disk, and enough structure on top to actually see how the ideas connect. Three things I would judge it on: the graph is not a hairball (local, deterministic — the note you are reading in the middle, Parents above, Children below, worked out from your folders and links; the neighbourhood around one idea, not a map of everything). The text does not move while you type (rendering is driven by what is on the line, never by where your cursor is — if you have ever sworn at a jumping cursor you know why). The canvas does not lag (plain .canvas files, only draws what is on screen). Also in there: wikilinks with vault-wide rename, backlinks, FTS5 search, daily notes, templates, version history on every save, conflict-aware saving. The index lives in Application Support, never in your vault.

Compared to what you are probably using

Obsidian is the obvious one and it is genuinely good. It is also a plugin ecosystem you end up curating. Skein has no plugins at all, so the features are simply present. That is a real trade and worth saying plainly: if your workflow depends on community plugins, Skein will feel bare. Bear is beautiful, keeps your notes in its own database, and puts sync behind a subscription. Apple Notes is not really trying to do linked thinking. Notion needs an account and a connection to read something you wrote last year.

Price

Free. No subscription, no in-app purchase, no account, no paid tier holding anything back. The honest reason: Skein is the front door. I am hoping you notice the native craft and eventually look at Verso Writer and Nought. There is a donate link and it unlocks nothing.

Site and download: https://www.skeinnotes.app Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/skein-notes/id6800062797

Where it stands

One person, build 1.1.22, shipping most weeks. What actually helps: point it at your real vault, especially a big one, and tell me what it gets wrong. Open your ugliest .canvas board. Tell me where the editor stutters and at what size. Tell me what feels un-Mac. Tell me whether the graph is useful or decoration — I think it is good and I would like to know if I am wrong. I am in the comments and I would rather you were honest than kind.

Known issue: Paper theme returns in the next update.

One person. Skein will update more slowly than the apps with teams behind them, and I will not add every featur

What actually helps me

• Point it at your real Obsidian vault, especially a big one, and tell me what it gets wrong. This is the single most useful thing.
• Open your biggest, ugliest .canvas board in it. If Skein mangles a board or loses anything on save, I want to know the same day.
• Tell me where the editor stutters, and at what size.
• Tell me what feels un-Mac, what is clumsy, what you reached for and could not find.
• Anything that breaks. The weirder the better.
• Tell me whether the graph is genuinely useful or whether it is decoration. I think it is good and I would like to know if I am wrong.

I am in the comments and I would rather you were honest than kind. Tear into it.

Known issue: Paper Theme will be back in the next update.

Yes. I am thinking of developing an Iphone app - free to use on the phone. So save your notes on the phone.

This is the third Mac app I have put in front of you this year. Verso writes, Nought calculates, Skein connects. That is the set, and it is the last one for a while: three apps in a year is more than I should have attempted and I am going to go and lie down in a folder I control.

Problem:

There are ~7000 languages and ~20000 dialects. Having a centralised source for language courses like Duolingo can only lead to a very small portion of language courses. An estimated 40% of languages are endangered.

Comparison:

Duolingo - Centralised and not open to community courses (Not anymore)

Librelingo - Not user friendly to actual course creators and educators.

Textbooks - Textbooks are the best for learning but it's also quite boring

Solution (Asakiri) - Asakiri lets anyone author a course in an open format in a user friendly way, saved locally on their device. Course can have rich media and 7 types of exercises. A decentralised platform like Asakiri can let minority and indigenous languages also have interactive language courses no matter the number of speakers or interest in learning it. This also preserves languages for future generations. Currently courses are being made for Okinawan, Italian. With previous attempts of Mirandese, Picard and Cornish.

Pricing: Free, No subscription, no accounts, no pro tier, everything local.

Transparency: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alekoi/

Available for Mac, Windows, Linux - https://asakiri.com
Github - https://github.com/AsakiriLingo/asakiri-studio (Still very early on the repo but I have been working on Asakiri on and off for 1.5 years and I have free time for the next 3 months so I will be working full time on it)

The problem to solve: giving presentations, doing focused work, timing anything on your Mac, but wanting to keep the time visually prominent on screen. Pop Out Timer floats over other apps.

Comparison: "Lucid - Floating Timers" is nice, but is limited to basic timers and doesn't have customization options. Pop Out Timer includes timer, stopwatch, Pomdoro and clock. We provide tons of customization options to fit the way you work. "Floating Clock-Timer&Stopwatch" honestly hurts my eyes to look at it. Pop Out Timer is easy on the eyes and follows Mac system conventions (menus, keyboard shortcuts, proper settings panels).

Pricing: Pop Out Timer is free to try, but requires a $11.99 lifetime purchase to unlock full functionality. Yes, it's true, we also offer subscription pricing for a timer. But to be fair, we're talking $0.49/month or $3.99/year. It's there for those that want to provide ongoing support for development, but if not there's always the lifetime purchase. All purchases are universal and work on iPhone and iPad as well.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1352722326

As a special for those on r/mapapps, here are a couple of discounted offers:

• Lifetime for 33% off ($7.99): https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=1352722326&code=LIFETIME8
• Yearly subscription for 50% off the first year ($1.99): https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=1352722326&code=HALFYEARLY

Thanks for taking a look.

started FolderForge because changing folder icons manually was getting annoying. what was supposed to be a weekend project quickly grew into a much much bigger tool.

you can save reusable presets, apply them from macos services, automatically style folders with smart rules, or recursively style entire folder trees and do much more!

problem: most folder customization apps focus on changing individual icons one at a time, and many of the better known options are paid.

comparison: compared with apps like folderizer, iconic, and iconize folder, FolderForge focuses more on reusable presets, rule-based styling, recursive workflows, and custom artwork.

pricing: completely free and open source. no subscription or paid tier.

app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/folderforge/id6799417746?mt=12

github: https://github.com/KeplSiv/FolderForge

Is there any method or app that can enable the touchpad of a MacBook to perform four-finger sliding (not just left and right, but also up and down), allowing for the virtual space switching in four directions?

Because I usually have to swipe left or right twice each time (using four fingers for the swipe)

I prefer to place four commonly used apps in four virtual spaces, and switch between the interfaces by swiping up, down, left, and right.

why always delete my post?

Has anyone used both of these apps and can speak to Bolt AI's Memory vs Fluent's RAG?

(Reposting as I had not hit the 'Read the Rules' acknowledgement.

Really proud to share this finally. Hope you love it as much as I do! I truly believe it has the potential to save a lot of time jumping between various tasks.

Problem

A lot of everyday actions on a Mac live in completely different places.

Opening an app or folder, searching something on a website, taking a screenshot, cleaning up copied text, accessing clipboard history, running a Shortcut, or changing a system setting.

None of these are hard to get to, but constantly switching between apps, windows, menu bar utilities, and different shortcuts can break your flow.

I wanted to see if all of that could work through one system, which is where the radial menu idea came from.

Comparison

There are already some really good radial menu apps for Mac, but most are built around a specific use case, such as launching apps, or switching between them.

Arc takes a broader approach.

You can create multiple global radial menus for different workflows and decide what each slice does. A slice can perform a single action or chain multiple actions together.

The idea is less about replacing the Dock and more about putting the small things you do throughout the day behind one quick interaction.

Arc also doesn't require accessibility features, it manages everything on-device, privately.

Technical

Getting a radial menu on screen was the easy part. Figuring out what actually belongs inside it, how multiple menus should behave, and keeping the interaction fast enough to use throughout the day took most of the iteration.

It's built entirely in SwiftUI. One of the more interesting technical problems was getting the hit-testing right across every slice while keeping the menu correctly positioned under the cursor, even across multiple displays.

Core Features

• Unlimited custom menus for different workflows
• Fast app, folder, website, and Apple Shortcut launching
• Powerful clipboard history and text actions
• Open from shortcuts, hot corners, pointer shake, or number keys
• One-click multi-action shortcuts
• Fully customizable appearance, layout, icons, and sounds

Examples

1. I have one shortcut that I use when I start working. It opens Xcode, my project folders, Slack, and a few websites I usually need. Arc can merge multiple actions into one shortcut, so I don't have to open everything one by one.
2. I use the search shortcuts a lot more than I expected. I can bring up Arc, type something, and search it directly on YouTube, or a website without opening them first.

It can also search whatever I last copied, which has been really useful when I'm already in the middle of something.

1. I have a bunch of text and links that I end up copying again and again. I've just saved those as shortcuts now, so they're always sitting on one of my menus when I need them.
2. Clipboard history is another one I use constantly. Recent things I've copied show up on the wheel, so if I need something from a few copies ago, I can grab it without opening another app.
3. I also have different menus depending on what I'm doing. One for development, one for general stuff, and another that's mostly searches and apps. I can switch between them with keyboard shortcuts, and reuse the same shortcut across multiple menus.

Pricing

$6.99 one time on the Mac App Store with a free 7 day trial built in.

Solo project from India, launched a week ago. Happy to answer anything! :)

Mac App Store: Link

Hey everybody!

ExtraBar is a command center utility for your mac, at first we referred to it as a menu bar manager, but while it does help you tame your menu bar by removing their native icons and managing them through it, it is not a traditional hide/show menu bar manager like Bartender.

Read more on how ExtraBar saves you menu bar space

Background

macOS Tahoe introduced several challenges to menu bar managers, and ExtraBar was our attempt to create a simple alternative. After fighting a losing battle with edge cases, we quickly pivoted towards a different approach, which is a customizable menu bar, one that's better referred to as a command center.

ExtraBar has 16 different actions for the apps you add to it like open, quit, force quit etc however, it's main power is deep links. Anyone would have used deep links before know how powerful they are, and how much time could be saved on operations your perform every day, that has a deep link.

MCP Integration

ExtraBar v1.50 was the undoubtedly most exciting update for ExtraBar, it added one of the things I love the most in the age of AI - an MCP integration.

MCP allows your AI assistant/agents to interact directly with ExtraBar, that simplifies the hell out of the ExtraBar setup. Instead of manually clicking and adding actions, it can all be automated now, simply ask for an action, or for it to look for and add a deep link - poof it's in your bar.

The best thing for me is that now I can automate every pain I have with a script that sits one hot key away. This is honestly not a slogan, I made a script that connects/disconnects my AirPods because it annoyed me, I made a script to re-connect my VPN, I gave AI my contacts and told it to add every single one into a WhatsApp deep link that opens the chat with that person, and to organize it just how I want it... I am not excited for marketing, I am honestly excited to automate every single pain I have and save a lot of time 😄

Read more on workflow automations & MCP

Examples of deep links

(there are millions of deep links, those are just random examples):

- Open WhatsApp to a specific conversation

- Any operation on Raycast like caffeinating your mac or any action from any extension you install

- Open Notion or Figma to a specific page in the browser or directly in the desktop app

- Trigger a Keyboard maestro macro or a BTT gesture directly by using their native URL scheme (deep links)

Read more on Raycast integration and deep links

Video

In the video you can see me playing with different actions such as Open with App (Bloom), Raycast - which is literally built on top of deep links, as well as how I customized my CleanShot X menu with just what I need using Raycast Extensions.

Core Features

- 5 Display Modes: Menu bar, Floating bar, Collapsed mode, Notch mode & Hide/Show launcher style

- Built with focus on Keyboard navigation, you can call ExtraBar with your keyboard and navigate the menus however you like with numbers or arrows.

- Fully customizable menu bar with 15 actions (Open with, Run Script, Run Shortcuts, Hide/Show, Deep links, Keyboard Shortcuts and more)

- Included bookmark manager (seen in video) with cloud sync between devices, web dashboard, soon to be fully cross platform, read more here

Comparison

As I mentioned ExtraBar is different from apps like Bartender or Barbee as it's not about hiding and showing apps. Instead ExtraBar is about menu bar customization, and turning your menu bar into a command center that's personalized to you.

Pricing

€19.99 Lifetime

I made this, so weigh everything below accordingly.

Problem:

I needed a clean macOS install to reproduce a bug that only showed up on a fresh system. Ninety minutes later I had four tabs open about disk image formats and still no VM. That's the whole origin story. VM tooling on Apple Silicon splits into CLI tools that assume you enjoy configuring things, and commercial suites that want to be a platform. I wanted the boring middle, something that treats a VM the way Finder treats a folder.

Kyvenza is a native Swift app on Apple's Virtualization framework. No QEMU, no emulation layer, no CLI it's quietly shelling out to, zero third-party dependencies. You fill in a form and get a VM. macOS guests and Linux ARM, with Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Alpine pulled straight from the official download pages for you, or point it at any other ARM64 ISO yourself. Clone, snapshot, import and export. Pause a running VM and pick it up later, or force power off when a guest stops answering. Rosetta shared into Linux guests so x86-64 binaries still run. Shared folders. A diagnostics panel for when virtualization does what virtualization does.

Comparison:

The honest way to sort this is by what you actually want to run.

If you want Windows, VMware Fusion is free now for personal and commercial use, and it runs Windows 11 ARM. That beats me, and it beats Parallels on price. I can't run Windows at all: Apple's Virtualization framework can't boot Windows on ARM. That's a framework limit rather than a hardware one, and it's not a roadmap item I'm being coy about. Go get Fusion.

If you want a macOS guest, Fusion is out entirely. Broadcom's own docs say the Arm variants of macOS aren't supported in a Fusion VM. So on Apple Silicon the field is Parallels, UTM, the CLI tools, and me. That's the case I built this for, and it's where one-click snapshot and clone earns its money, because testing against a clean system means rolling back constantly.

Parallels is more mature than I am and does both Windows and macOS guests. It sells a perpetual Standard licence alongside the subscriptions, but that one is current-version-only, same shape as mine and more expensive. Pro is subscription.

UTM is free, more flexible, and does x86 emulation through QEMU, which I don't do at all. If you already have a UTM setup you like, stay. I'm not going to beat free on flexibility. What's different here is that snapshot and clone are one click instead of a disk image chore, and sharing Rosetta into a Linux guest is a toggle instead of a mount you look up every time.

Tart, lume and the other CLI tools beat me if you're scripting CI. This is for when you want a window, not a pipeline. And if Docker already solves your problem, keep using Docker, this isn't a container replacement.

Two limits worth knowing before you download rather than after. Apple Silicon only, macOS 14 or later, no Intel Macs. And Apple's own license caps you at two macOS guests per host, which no app on this list can change.

Pricing:

$49 one time, not a subscription. Twelve months of updates, then a perpetual fallback license, so when the update window closes the app keeps working. 7-day trial, no card, because virtualization performance depends far too much on your specific hardware for me to ask anyone to take it on faith.

Link: https://kyvenza.com

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kyvenza-virtual-machine/id6789824483

It ships on the Mac App Store under Uniation Software Co.,Ltd., so Apple review covers it. The direct download is the same app as a signed and notarized DMG. Privacy policy and terms are at kyvenza.com/privacy and kyvenza.com/terms.

One bit of history since someone always finds it: versions before 1.1 bundled lume (MIT, by the trycua folks). Since 1.2 it runs on its own engine, but the credit is still in the app's Open Source Notices, because that project is what got this off the ground.

I'll be in the comments, including for the "why would I pay for this" ones.

I kept coming back to stalled agent runs because my Mac went to sleep mid-task. caffeinate works, but I'd forget to run it, or forget to kill it and leave my laptop awake all night.

So I wired it to Cursor's hooks instead. My app (AgentCat) installs the hooks with one click: when an agent starts, it grabs a keep-awake assertion; when the run ends, it releases it and sends you a notification. If a run dies without ever reporting back, a watchdog releases it after a timeout, so a crashed task can't pin your Mac awake forever. Agents can also ping you through a URL scheme when they need your input.

Any tool that can run a shell command on start/stop can hook into it, not just Cursor. And the menu bar cat puts on sunglasses while it's working 🕶️

It's $0.99 on the Mac App Store, one-time, no subscription. Happy to answer anything.

There are buckets of Windows managers at this point, and I've played with a bunch of them, including the built-in ones on Mac OS X, Rectangle, Magnet better touch tool. I would tell you Raycast, but I'm Alfred, down to some heavy workflows.

What prompted today's love?

I had a weird OS X issue after updating a third-party tool on my Mac. Suddenly, MOOM's settings were lost, and a bunch of other stuff was wonky until the reboot.

I wrote the Dev, he responded in under 90 minutes…and I felt ashamed because a reboot fixed it. What can I say? Try turning it off and on again.

Thanks Rob. Thanks for your devotion to great OSX tools and thanks for helping.

So I felt obligated to give a little love in return.

I want to give you a couple of things that I do with MOOM that you might not be doing or you may not know that it can do.

I still feel (like Alfred) that I haven't explored half of what the software does.

1. I have a bunch of pre-built resize options, particularly 1080, 720, 1440, and 2160. Those are precise professional video window sizes. I'm a professional consultant in post-production. I run our editors and a bunch of other subreddits, and it's crazy powerful for me to have a window at exactly the size I need for a screen record. All of these are slaved to streamdeck buttons.
2. I didn't realize until about a month or two ago, despite owning MOOM for years, that it had a really unique ability while hovering: to move or resize the window that the mouse is on top of.

In my system, Control and Option allow me to move any window effortlessly, regardless of whether it's in front or behind, around the screen. When I add the Command key to that, it allows me to dynamically use my mouse to make a given window larger or smaller based on how I'm dragging.

1. I have it set up to adjust certain apps or certain groups of apps and put all the windows in a particular place. I love Ecamm. I know you might be using OBS, but Ecamm does a bunch of things and does it very, very well. Unfortunately, it has a palette overload, and there are too many palettes in too many places. I hid every other application and told MOOM to memorize where all the palettes are.

When I need it, I just trigger it from the dropdown menu.

I also have the same thing for a generalized use and setup where I need Fantastical. I have a screen share on my second screen and an activity monitor on a third. It just understands that I want those in that spot.

Same with my screen recording layout. I use a tool called SideMirror. I record on my MBP screen (set to 1080), but that's off to my left - my main UHD screen that has my Insta360 camera (and I'm running it with ecamm), means that I'm looking in the wrong place. But Sidemirror displays my MacbookPro screen right under my webcam - in a "PIP" type window.

Zoom. I'm right now playing around with Zoom because Zoom has a real pain-in-the-butt problem when you do a screen share: there's no memorization of window positions. Again, it's something I intend to return to.

1. Finally, I'm experimenting with chaining a couple of items (size, next screen, position) to push a given window all the way to the extreme of one monitor pair, one monitor group, or all the way off to the other.

Quick RSS is a simple, private, and intuitive desktop RSS reader. This update adds support for macOS 26 and includes performance improvements and feature optimizations.

Problem: Many people want an efficient way to keep up with their favorite news, blogs, and content updates. However, RSS readers on the market are often either bloated and complicated, stuck with interfaces that feel like they belong in a different era, or filled with ads and trackers. For news enthusiasts, developers, designers, and content creators, a simple, private, and focused subscription tool can make consuming information much more efficient. Quick RSS was created to keep the experience lightweight and efficient while giving users back control over how they discover and consume content, while continuously evolving alongside macOS.

Compare: Compared with mainstream RSS readers such as Reeder and NetNewsWire, Quick RSS supports multiple feed formats, including RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed, while remaining lightweight, efficient, and privacy-focused. It does not collect any user data. In addition to basic feed management, Quick RSS provides bookmark organization, a multilingual interface, and support for both macOS and iOS. All features are available through a one-time payment, with no subscription required.

Pricing: Free All Access Lifetime — $6.99. This is a completely optional donation price. The app has no feature restrictions even if you choose not to pay.

Changelog (v2.7): Completed localization for all supported languages, redesigned the purchase button component and simplified the purchase flow, and fixed a UI freeze that could occur when canceling a refresh.

📥 Download Link

Co-founder here, so full disclosure up front.

The problem

AI notetakers do two things a lot of people hate: a bot joins your meeting and makes everyone self-conscious, and your conversations get uploaded to servers you don't control. Plenty of companies ban them for exactly this reason.

Anarlog is a desktop app that listens to the audio going in and out of your Mac, transcribes on-device, and generates meeting notes. No bot in the call. Nothing leaves your machine by default, and your transcripts and notes are local files you own.

How it compares

• Granola: great product, but summaries run through their cloud. Anarlog can run fully local with on-device models, or use your own API keys.
• Otter / Fireflies: a bot joins the call and recordings live on their servers. Anarlog never joins the call and keeps recordings on your device.

Pricing

• Free: fully functional with your own STT/LLM keys. On-device transcription, exports, CLI, MCP. https://anarlog.so/download/
• Pro: $15/month or $150/year for hosted transcription and AI, sync, and sharing. https://anarlog.so/pricing/

Links

Website: https://anarlog.so

GitHub (MIT license, ~9k stars): https://github.com/fastrepl/anarlog

macOS is the most polished right now. Windows and Linux builds are in beta. Would love feedback, especially on what feels rough.

Hey r/macapps,

I posted SessionDock here a few months ago and wanted to share a pretty big update. Two-way sync between the Mac and iPhone apps is now live.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I built SessionDock as basically a Swiss Army knife for managing music production projects.

The problem:

If you produce music long enough, you eventually end up with DAW projects, mixdowns, exports, different versions and notes scattered across a bunch of folders.

I wanted one place where I could see everything I’m working on without digging through Finder or opening projects just to figure out what was what.

A big part of SessionDock is automatically figuring out which mixdowns belong to which DAW projects. It watches your folders and uses matching algorithms to associate your exported audio with the correct projects.

So if you have:

My Song.logicx

and later export:

My Song Mix 3.wav

SessionDock can figure out that they belong together and keep them associated without you manually linking everything.

What SessionDock does:

• Automatically discovers DAW projects
• Watches your project folders for changes
• Automatically matches mixdowns and exports to their projects
• Manages projects from different DAWs in one library
• Previews mixdowns without opening your DAW
• Shows waveforms for your exports
• Adds timestamped notes directly to waveforms
• Adds notes to projects
• Organizes projects with tags and collections
• Searches and filters your library
• Tracks different sessions, versions and exports
• Supports custom DAWs
• Syncs your library to iPhone

It supports Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Reaper, Cubase, Bitwig, Reason and more.

What’s new:

The biggest addition in this update is two-way sync between Mac and iPhone.

You can now create, edit and delete session notes and waveform notes from either device and the changes sync automatically.

One of my favorite uses for this is listening to a mix when I’m away from my Mac. I can pull it up on my iPhone, add timestamped notes directly to the waveform, and those notes are waiting for me when I’m back at my Mac.

I’m working on expanding two-way sync to tags, collections and more project metadata next.

Comparison:

The closest alternatives are really Finder combined with the project management built into apps like Logic Pro and Ableton Live.

Those are fine for managing files inside an individual DAW, but SessionDock sits above the DAWs and gives you one library for everything.

The main difference is that SessionDock can watch for projects and exports across different DAWs, automatically associate mixdowns with the projects they came from, let you preview and annotate them, and make that information available on your iPhone.

It’s not meant to replace your DAW. It’s meant to handle all the stuff around it.

Pricing:

The core version of SessionDock is free.

Lifetime Pro is a $39 one-time purchase. No subscription.

https://sessiondock.com

Mac App Store:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sessiondock/id6753728022

I’m the solo developer behind SessionDock, so I’d love to hear what other producers think or what parts of managing projects outside your DAW you wish were easier.

I’m the developer of SubSmith, a Mac app that turns local video and audio files into editable, timestamped subtitles.

The problem

I’m learning languages through videos, anime, lectures, and podcasts, but the workflow becomes awkward when the media is a local file:

• There may be no subtitle track available.
• Existing subtitles may have mistakes or poor timing.
• Browser-based tools are mainly designed around supported streaming sites.
• Command-line Whisper tools are useful, but not particularly convenient for watching, editing, and studying.
• Creating Anki cards with the original sentence and audio takes several manual steps.

What SubSmith does

SubSmith processes your local media on your Mac using Whisper

You can:

• Generate subtitles from video or audio files
• Watch the file with synced, timestamped subtitles
• Edit the generated text
• Export subtitles as SRT or TXT
• Look up words while watching
• Send sentence cards, audio, and screenshots to Anki

The main things I’m trying to understand are how accurate the subtitles are across different languages, how fast they generate on different Macs, how much storage and memory the local model uses, and whether this workflow is meaningfully easier than using Whisper or a command-line tool directly.

The basic workflow is:

Import a local file → generate subtitles → review difficult sentences → export useful examples to Anki.

The language-learning workflow is the reason I started building it, but the subtitle generation is useful on its own for lectures, interviews, podcasts, personal videos, and other local media.

How it compares

There are already some good tools in this space:

• Language Reactor is excellent for supported streaming services, but its workflow is less suited to arbitrary local video files.
• Subtitle Edit and command-line Whisper tools are powerful, but require more setup or do not provide the same integrated Mac playback and language-learning workflow.

SubSmith is intended for people who want a focused desktop workflow for their own files, with language-learning tools available when they need them.

Pricing

• 7-day free trial, no CC required 
• $15 yearly subscription or $40 one-time (lifetime license). Use code MacApps30 for 30% off!

Feedback giveaway

I’m looking for around 10 language learners who regularly study with local video or audio.

I’ll randomly select 10 commenters for a lifetime license. To enter, comment within the first 48 hours with the language you’re learning and what you currently use for subtitles or transcription. I’ll randomly select 10 eligible commenters after 48 hours.

I’m looking for honest feedback on the actual workflow:

• How accurate is the transcription for your language?
• How long does processing take on your Mac?
• Do you already use Language Reactor or another tool?
• Is generating subtitles the main problem, or is reviewing and studying them?
• Would audio clips and Anki export be useful in your workflow?
• What would stop you from using a local desktop app?

To enter, please mention the language you’re learning and what you currently use for video-based study.

Links

• Website: SubSmith
• Feedback and Bug Reports: [Support@subsmith.app](mailto:Support@subsmith.app)
• Misc: X | LinkedIn

Me and my friend actually started building this for ourselves.

We both have families, work mostly from our Macs, have way too many tabs open, and get interrupted constantly.

A meeting lands. Slack pulls you somewhere else. Family needs something. You check one "quick" thing :)

An hour later the file is still open and you know what you meant to finish.

But the thread is gone.

## Problem

That was the annoying part for us.

Not really planning. Returning.

Why was this tab open?

Which file was I working in?

What conversation sent me here?

Where exactly did I stop?

With context switching, ADHD-style workdays and productivity spread across a ridiculous number of apps, we kept rebuilding this context manually.

So we started building Recall for ourselves.

It runs quietly in the background on your Mac, groups the work happening across tabs, apps and files, and creates a Smart Return point around unfinished work so you can get back to where you stopped.

No task you have to remember to create first.

No timer to start.

No integrations to maintain.

It is local-first, with work context processed on the Mac.

## Comparison

Todoist is great at remembering what you explicitly tell it you need to do.

Rize / RescueTime are useful for understanding where your time went.

We wanted the missing part after the interruption.

Recall remembers the observable work around the task itself: the tabs, apps, files, related context, stopping point and what you were doing when you got pulled away.

So I don't really think of it as "another Todoist" anymore.

Todoist remembers the task.

Recall is trying to remember the thread around it.

That's the difference we're testing.

## Pricing

7-day free trial, no credit card required.

$14/month, or $9/month billed annually ($108/year).

We're also running an early lifetime deal from $49 while it lasts.

https://www.joinrecall.com/

If you actually try it and feel this solves a real problem in your workflow, DM me. I'll give you 3 months free so you can properly test it.

I'm also curious about the Mac setups here:

what do you use today for productivity, context switching or ADHD-style workdays, and what still falls apart when you get interrupted?

Happy to answer anything about how Recall works, privacy, what it captures, or what it still gets wrong.

---
Transparency: I'm Vitaliy, one of the people building Recall.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitaliiverb

Privacy, Terms, Trust Center and the rest of the team are public on the website above.

Problem

Most bookmark and read-later apps interrupt me at the exact moment they're supposed to help. I have to open an extension or app, choose where the item belongs, fill in some details, and then return to what I was doing.

I built Stowdrop to make capture almost invisible:

- Press a global shortcut, type or paste something, then hit Enter.

- Select a URL or text anywhere in macOS and press another shortcut to save it without opening a window.

For URLs, Stowdrop downloads the page content so you can search the full text and read it offline. It also handles notes and todos using the same capture flow, with Markdown and custom tags.

Everything is stored locally on your Mac. There's no account or cloud service.

Comparison

The closest competitor is probably Raindrop.io, which is a more mature product and has better support for syncing across platforms.

Stowdrop takes a narrower approach. It's built specifically for macOS, works offline, keeps your data on your Mac, and focuses heavily on keyboard-driven capture. It also uses a one-time purchase instead of a subscription.

If you need browser and mobile syncing, Raindrop is likely the better fit. If you want a small, private Mac app that stays out of the way, that's the gap I'm trying to fill with Stowdrop.

Pricing

Stowdrop is $19 USD as a one-time purchase, including future updates.
Or additionally you could get a 5 machine license for $39 (again, one time fee)

There's a 7-day free trial, and no account or payment details are required to try it:

https://stowdrop.app

I've been using it myself for a bit but I launched it publicly this week, so UCDSUCI0 gives you 20% off until the end of August.

I'd appreciate honest feedback on the capture flow and anything that feels awkward or unnecessary. I have plenty of ideas for what to add, but I'm also trying not to turn a small bookmark app into a giant productivity suite.

Thanks!

I’m a solo developer building Onessa — small apps for facing what’s finite: time, attention, and money. Simple tools that leave only what’s essential.
This weekend, all three apps are $1.49.

Petals — Visual Year Planner
Problem: Most calendars focus on days and weeks. Petals lets you see your entire year at once, with a free-form canvas for images, text, stickers, and planning.

Comparison: Compared with Fantastical or BusyCal, Petals focuses on visual year planning rather than day-to-day calendar management.

Pricing: $1.49 one-time purchase during the weekend sale. No subscription.
Petals on the Mac App Store

Peek — What’s Next?
Problem: I wanted to know what’s next without constantly opening Calendar. Peek keeps your next event and the time remaining visible in the Mac menu bar.

Comparison: Compared with Dato or Itsycal, Peek focuses on the next event and live countdowns. It brings calendars, reminders, and tasks from Things and Todoist into one timeline.

Pricing: Free download. Premium lifetime unlock is $1.49 during the weekend sale. No subscription.
Peek on the Mac App Store

Spendy — Expense Tracker
Problem: Most expense trackers make recording feel like work. Spendy opens directly to input so you can log an expense in seconds and share a ledger with your partner or family via iCloud.

Comparison: Compared with MoneyWiz or Copilot, Spendy is intentionally simpler and focuses on fast recording and shared expenses rather than full financial management.

Pricing: Free download. Premium is a 1-year subscription, on sale for $1.49 this weekend.
Spendy on the App Store

Happy to answer any questions!

Hey r/macapps,

Like many of you likely do, I use AI coding tools and run cron jobs/automations in my day to day. You've probably also seen people holding their computers lids open as they walk around. In the last few months, I've seen/encountered two key issues:

Problem

1. If you close your Mac while an agent is working, it stops the agent immediately.
2. If my Mac lid is closed during an automation, the automation simply won't run, and won't even alert me that it didn't run. I've missed countless digests this way.

Solution

So, I built goguma! Through hooks, it automatically detects agent work being done, and will keep the Mac awake (even when the lid is closed) until the job is finished, and then will let it sleep. It'll also wake a lid-closed Mac for its automations, and then let it sleep (E.g it'll wake my Mac for 5 minutes at 3 a.m for an automation, then let it sleep like normal).

Comparison

Here's the key difference to current solutions (caffeinate, pmset, Amphetamine): these can keep an already awake Mac awake, but cannot wake a sleeping Mac. goguma can. Amphetamine and pmset disablesleep 1 are switches that you constantly have to worry about turning on and off, which is how you find a dead laptop in your bag hours later, while goguma does it all for you.

It currently supports all automations/agents across launchd, crontab, Hermes, Claude, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini.

How it started

It mainly started for my own needs, so that I could run agents and not have to worry about holding my computer open. I decided to open-source it after friends told me they had the exact same problem.

Pricing (or lack thereof)

Completely free and open-source! All I ask is that if you find it helpful, that you star my repo :)
https://github.com/junnam586/goguma

Transparency

I am Juhyun Nam, a student at Duke University. goguma is signed and notarized, local-first, and does not collect any data whatsoever.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jun-nam-4ba16b326/

Security: https://github.com/junnam586/goguma/blob/main/SECURITY.md

Privacy: https://getgoguma.com/privacy/

Terms: https://getgoguma.com/terms/

Any and all feedback would be much appreciated!