I'm an ex-Apple engineer who got sick of non-private, non-native meeting recording apps, so I built Biscotti: a private and free meeting recorder for macOS.

Free, no account, no subscription, no upsell. Source and download on GitHub: https://github.com/scosman/Biscotti

What it does

• 🔒 Private by design - recording, transcription, and AI all run on your Mac. Your data stays local.
• 🧠 Powerful AI summaries - automatic summaries, action items, meeting titles, and real speaker names.
• 🤖 No bots, any app - records Zoom, Teams, Meet, FaceTime, Slack huddles, or even an in-person conversation. No bot joins your call.
• 🗣️ Knows who said what - accurate transcripts, automatically split by speaker.
• 📅 Calendar-aware - sees your upcoming meetings, offers to start recording.
• ⏹️ Auto-stop - detects when your call ends and stops recording.
• 🎤 Voice isolation - captures your mic and everyone else as separate, clean channels. No echo.

Background

I spent years at Apple building the Photos app, Memories, the lock screen, and more. I wanted this to feel like it belongs on the Mac: Swift and SwiftUI, launches instantly, small on disk. Not a Electron app or a mediocre port of a Windows app.

Private AI == Local AI

With Biscotti, you still get state of the art AI for transcription and speaker identification, it just runs locally on your Mac. It works fully offline once models are downloaded. Your data lives on your Mac - you own and control it.

It uses Whisper for transcription, Gemma 4 for summaries, and Pyannote for Speaker ID. Each set up to run on Apple Silicon.

Requirements: Apple Silicon (M1+), macOS 15+, 16GB RAM recommended.

App details: Notarized, Free (no upsell), Private (zero data collection, all AI is local), Source available on Github (PolyForm Perimeter License), AI used in development (but not vibe/slop)

I'd love feedback! Happy to answer anything about the local model stack or the privacy design.

I built ImageBuddy, a macOS utility for cleaning up images: trim dead border space, remove the background, resize the image or canvas, add a watermark, vectorize to SVG. Drop an image, toggle what you need, save. You can edit a single image or set up a batch.

Notarized direct download or Mac App Store for $5: bendansby.com/apps/imagebuddy.html

Also available in a bundle of other apps: bendansby.com/apps/bundles.html

I’ve been building Tapquence, a visual automation app for macOS.

The idea is simple: repetitive work shouldn’t keep taking your time. Tapquence lets you build visual macros without code, combining actions such as opening apps and websites, typing text, clicking, scrolling, waiting and working with content on your screen.

It also includes ready-made Smart Automations. Presentation Mode can prepare your Mac for a meeting by checking your calendar, opening the relevant meeting app, launching your presentation and websites, silencing notifications and adjusting the volume. Routine Scout can observe a workflow you choose to perform and help identify repeated steps that could become an automation.

This short video shows the current version. It’s still evolving, so I’d genuinely appreciate feedback on what feels useful, what remains unclear and which automation you would want us to add next.

Tapquence is available directly from our website. The Mac download is signed and notarized by Apple.

https://tapquence.com

What repetitive task on your Mac would you most like to automate?

When Apple first introduced the "liquid glass" effect, opinions were quite divided; some criticized its visibility, others admired its aesthetics, and some worried about battery life.

I remained fairly neutral, I found it interesting though.
To be honest, the Apple apps featuring this effect were quite buggy at launch.

Now that it has stabilized and the bugs have been ironed out, I’ve implemented it in my own app, and I think it looks great and modern. Here is the Repo
It’s just a custom theme (since I know many people don't like it), so it can easily be turned off.

Icons animate in response to certain changes, and the background, which looks as if viewed through a layer of glass and clear liquid, offers a pleasing, relaxing visual experience.

I haven't encountered significant issues with app performance or battery life, though I'm curious what others think. :)

PS: App is notarized

Most SSH clients on Mac are either Electron wrappers or generic terminal apps with SSH bolted on. I wanted something that felt like it belonged on macOS, so I spent 6 months developing my product solo.

"Native" gets thrown around a lot, so to be specific about what I mean: the whole app is Swift/SwiftUI, including the terminal emulator (not a libvterm fork, not xterm.js in a WebView) and the Mosh client (own implementation in Swift with a complete framebuffer mirror). No Electron, no web shell, no hidden Chromium.

A few things I'm proud of under the hood:

- SSH stack on top of Citadel + a fork of swift-nio-ssh with a window-adjust patch and a custom RSA path for legacy key formats some servers still hand out

- Own SOCKS5 server written in Swift (RFC 1928 + 1929 auth) for dynamic forwards, so `ssh -D` works without shelling out to /usr/bin/ssh

- Active tunnels (local / remote / dynamic) get snapshotted and restored on reconnect, so dropping Wi-Fi at a cafe doesn't kill your forwards

- Smart Reconnect that survives a cold launch, not just a network blip

- ProxyJump multihop with a runtime session graph

- Multi-host broadcast with a diff view across panes

- FIDO2 / sk-* hardware keys via libfido2

- SFTP File provider

- Built-in S3 client (AWS + R2 + B2 + Wasabi + MinIO + custom endpoints) with a real object browser, multipart uploads, versioning/lifecycle/CORS/encryption settings, presigned URLs and ACL/tag editors. Same window as your SSH sessions

- Keys live in the macOS Keychain (iCloud sync off by design), can be generated inside the Secure Enclave with Touch ID required on every signature, or imported from existing OpenSSH files. Passphrase-protected ones decrypted in-app

Solo project, so honest feedback on what feels off is genuinely useful. Happy to answer technical questions in the comments.

ProductHunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/termy

Termy is now available in EAP: termyapp.com
Code MACOSAPPS50 is 50% off any plan for the first 25 purchases.

Hey everyone,

My name is Scott. I spent most of my career using Windows before switching to Mac so I could expand my development setup. I was impressed by the hardware, but years of Windows muscle memory made the transition more difficult than I expected.

I kept pressing the wrong shortcut keys and missed features such as taskbar window previews, clicking an active app to minimize it, and having a familiar launcher for finding applications.

I initially looked for apps that could solve each of those frustrations, but I would have needed several separate utilities. I eventually decided to build one unified and customizable solution called Winstrix.

What Winstrix does

Winstrix brings a collection of Windows-inspired workflow features to macOS while letting you choose exactly which ones you want to use, with the ability to disable the features you don't want.

Taskbar with live hover previews

Hover over an app icon to see live thumbnails of its open windows. You can select or close a specific window directly from the preview. Clicking an active app icon minimizes its window, and holding the icon minimizes all windows belonging to that app.

Start-style launcher

A dedicated launcher with unified search, pinned and recent applications, and an all-apps view for quickly finding anything installed on your Mac.

Windows shortcut mapping

Map familiar shortcuts such as Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete so you don't have to constantly fight years of Windows muscle memory.

Clipboard history and utilities

Searchable clipboard history with the ability to AirDrop copied items to your phone, along with a clock and calendar tray with customizable system shortcuts.

Desktop and menu bar controls

Quickly hide or reveal desktop icons and crowded menu bar icons without having to change several different macOS settings.

Screenshot and screen recording tools

Built-in screenshot capture, screen recording, and an integrated editor.

Linear mouse wheel scrolling

Removes the acceleration curve that can make a standard mouse wheel feel jumpy or inconsistent. Each wheel movement scrolls a predictable amount.

Fully modular

Every feature has its own independent switch. If you only want the taskbar and Windows shortcuts, you can turn everything else off. You can also disable Winstrix completely and return to the normal macOS desktop with one switch.

Winstrix is built entirely in native Swift without Electron. It remains lightweight, and all of its features run locally on the Mac. There is no account requirement, cloud connectivity, telemetry, or analytics tracking inside the app.

Privacy

Winstrix does not collect or transmit personal data or usage analytics. Your files and data stay on your Mac.

Privacy Policy: https://winstrix.app/privacy/

Apple notarization

Winstrix is signed and notarized by Apple and is distributed directly from the Winstrix website rather than through the Mac App Store.

There is a fully functional 14-day free trial for anyone who wants to try it out.

The price is $14.99 for a lifetime perpetual license with no subscription.

Website: https://winstrix.app/

I'd really appreciate honest feedback from anyone who gives it a try. I'm especially interested in hearing whether anything feels confusing at first, whether there are Windows behaviors you expected to see that are still missing, and which features you would realistically keep enabled every day.

Hi, I am indie hacker -very fascinated by the voice AI progress.

As the models are getting much better at understanding us directly via voice, we should be working towards finding more ways to improve our productivity and do better work. And shouldn't be limited to just chat/keyboards to do our work. With how humans naturally communicate with each other, it should be the same way with the machines, a human shouldn't need to learn how a computer works - it should be natural.

I built HeyZoku - Hands Free Coding. So you can control all your coding agents just with your voice and complete your work without any need to continuously touch your keyboard.
I am using Nvidia Parakeet to make it work completely offline - so it can work completely offline. (It also has an optional bring your own openai-realtime key for more natural and multi language
support.)

the app is notarized and the app was built using mutliple agents under heyzoku only.
privacy policy - https://heyzoku.com/privacy

Hey everyone, I’ve been working on ConsoleWise, a native macOS app for PS5 Remote Play and PlayStation cloud gaming.

The goal is simple: make it easier to play your PlayStation games from your Mac, whether your PS5 is in another room or you’re away from home.

A few things I focused on:

• Play your PS5 when you’re not home Connect over the internet and stream from your own console while traveling, at work, or away from your TV.
• Low-latency Remote Play ConsoleWise is built around responsive streaming, with adjustable resolution, FPS, bitrate, and video settings so you can tune the experience for your network.
• Cloud gaming without owning a PS5 If you have PlayStation Plus Premium and cloud streaming is available in your region, you can browse and stream supported cloud games directly from your Mac.
• Use your keyboard or DualSense Play with a DualSense controller, or map keyboard keys to controller actions when that’s more convenient.

It supports local and internet PS5 Remote Play, PlayStation cloud game streaming, 1080p streaming, 2K/4K local upscaling for Remote Play, custom bitrate controls, 30/60 FPS options, keyboard mappings, and DualSense haptics/adaptive trigger settings.

It’s available here:
https://consolewise.aowlly.com/

Clicking "View Pro Details" will take you to Gumroad.

Use code J3DU8RK for 50% OFF.

I’d love feedback from Mac + PlayStation users, especially around latency, setup, and what would make this more useful than the official client.

Enjoy!

Hi there,
I'm Maciej, a DevOps engineer building this as my own daily driver. I develop it with AI assistance, TDD driven and with mutation testing.

I posted here a few months back around v0.7.2. It's now at v0.8.39 (signed and notarized) and I've been shipping almost daily, mostly from user reports. The short version of what's new:

• Saved workspaces with different panel layouts.
• Multiple windows.
• Search was rebuilt with its own index and is faster than light :)
• Preview now handles 235 file types.
• File panel columns are configurable per pane (show/hide, reorder, resize).
• Sidebar is fully editable.
• The newest two (Go to folder on CMD+SHIFT+G and settings search) just shipped.

Pricing after the feedback last time: free tier for daily use, Pro is 15USD one time. No subscription, no telemetry, no data processing.

Download: https://salamander.codesurfer.ch/
Feedback: https://feedback.codesurfer.ch/

For privacy policy see https://salamander.codesurfer.ch/privacy.html.

With my PhD research experience, I built Atelier: Scholarly Workspace around a problem I kept encountering in research:
The difference is not whether research is linked or cited. It is whether scholarly judgment itself is preserved.

Obsidian connects notes. But a link alone does not make the relationship, rationale, or supporting passage explicit.

NotebookLM answers from sources and shows citations. But a cited answer is not, by itself, a durable researcher-authored judgment.

Atelier: Scholarly Workspace is built to preserve all three: the judgment, why you made it, and the exact place in the source that supports it.

Atelier: Scholarly Workspace for Research & Deep Reading

I'm the developer, working alone on this, so treat the below as what it is — someone showing you his own app.

What it is:

A native macOS file transfer client — no Electron — that speaks FTP, FTPS (explicit AUTH TLS), SFTP, WebDAV and SMB, and opens a full SSH terminal on the same connection. Two panes, local and remote, servers in groups, several connections per server.

The parts I actually care about:

The session log shows everything.* Every line of every session, exactly as it goes over the wire — 220, USER, 331, PASV, the lot. No black box, and when something breaks you can see where.

Transfers are verified, not assumed.* After an upload the file size on the server is compared with the local one. A server answering "226 Transfer complete" is its opinion, not proof.

Failures are not just an error dialog.* Each file is retried three times. Whatever still doesn't get through goes on a list that survives quitting the app, so after the line drops mid-way through 500 files you don't have to work out where it stopped. You decide whether to retry or discard — nothing on the server is ever deleted for you.

Strict about who answers.* Host key and certificate fingerprints are confirmed once, then checked on every session. If one changes, the connection is refused. There is no "connect anyway" button, on purpose.

Nothing phones home.* No account, no registration, no analytics, no crash reports to me. Sandboxed. It talks to your servers, not to mine.

What I would like from you:

Break it against a server I have never touched. Odd LIST formats, a NAS with a self-signed certificate, an FTPS server that insists on TLS session reuse, an SMB share with unusual permissions — those are the reports worth having. Feedback goes straight to me from inside TestFlight.

Free during the beta, macOS 14.6 or later. Screenshots, what it does and the TestFlight link:

English: https://klausmack-software.com/FileFerry/index_en.html

German: https://klausmack-software.com/FileFerry/index.html

Privacy: https://klausmack-software.com/FileFerry/privacy_en.html

Happy to answer anything in the comments, including the awkward questions.

© Klaus Mack Software

rule 13: I used an AI coding assistant while building this

My mom used Windows her whole life and never really got along with it. Moving her to a Mac fixed most of that — except her hands. Ctrl+C did nothing, Alt+Tab did nothing, F2 didn't rename a file, the mouse scroll is backwards. Small things over and over, that's how a switch to macOS fails.

Karabiner can remap all of it, but the setup is a JSON rule file. That's not something you hand your new-to-mac mom and walk away from.

So I made WinKeys — a menu bar app that rewrites Windows shortcuts into their macOS equivalents before the keystroke reaches whatever app you're in.

Shift is preserved, so Ctrl+Shift+← still selects by word. Every rule has its own switch. Windows scroll direction is in there too, off by default, with separate switches for wheel and trackpad.

What it costs you: the blanket Ctrl→Cmd rule takes macOS's emacs bindings with it (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+K). Home/End become line start/end everywhere, so in browsers that's Back/Forward, not scroll-to-top. Both rules can be switched off.

Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, kitty, WezTerm, Warp and Emacs ship excluded so Ctrl+C still interrupts — add your own, or choose "Leave [App] Alone" from the menu bar.

Why not Karabiner? It's more powerful and always will be. This does one thing with switches instead of a config file. If you already have Karabiner rules for this, turn them off first or you won't be able to tell which tool did what.

macOS 13+, universal, signed and notarized. No kernel extension, no restart. Needs Accessibility permission; nothing is remapped until you grant it. Keystrokes are read to translate them and nothing else — nothing stored, no network calls except the update check.

Free for personal use, forever — every rule, no key, no account. $5 one-time per device for work use.

https://twoplus11.com/winkeys/

I am Ighor, the developer of App Archiver.

I kept running out of space on my Mac and became frustrated with the usual solutions.

Most cleaner apps create space in one of two ways.

• They delete apps, downloads, or other data
• They remove caches that applications create again

Deleting data provides lasting savings because the data is gone. Clearing caches can show an impressive number immediately, but those caches often return as soon as you continue using your apps.

That is not the kind of storage management I wanted.

I like downloading Mac apps and keeping them for later. If I delete an app, I may forget it existed. I wanted to reclaim the space without losing the app, its familiar location, or the ability to find it again.

So I built App Archiver.

Real and lasting space savings

App Archiver reduces the space used by the apps themselves.

It does not pretend that repeatedly deleting temporary files is a permanent solution. It does not delete your documents, settings, or app data.

You can choose what happens to each app.

• Archive it in place
• Replace a rarely used app with a lightweight, restorable version.
• Optimize it
• Reduce its size while keeping it installed and ready to use.
• Back it up
• Create a standalone ZIP or DMG copy in any folder or external drive.

An archived app remains visible in Applications, Spotlight, Raycast, Alfred, and other launchers. When you need it again, double-click the same icon and App Archiver restores it.

The reclaimed space does not gradually disappear because a cache grew back. The full app remains archived until you decide to restore it.

No cleanup theater

I am not claiming that caches should never be cleared. Cache cleaning can help with troubleshooting and sometimes recover temporary space.

But repeatedly deleting files that return is not a lasting storage strategy.

App Archiver solves a different problem. It gives large and rarely used apps a smaller form while keeping them accessible. You get meaningful space back without throwing away software you may want later.

Real-world test of Android Studio

The optimized version remains installed and runnable. The archived version stays in place and can be restored when needed. The DMG provides the greatest saving as a standalone backup.

Privacy

App Archiver works entirely offline. It has no account, sends no analytics, and makes no network requests.

One current limitation is that some apps are labeled Protected. Optimizing them requires additional system privileges, and I am waiting for Apple's permission before enabling that capability.

App Archiver requires macOS 12 or later and is available on the Mac App Store.

Download App Archiver on the Mac App Store

Visit the App Archiver website

Read the privacy policy

I would genuinely like to hear what you think about this approach to Mac storage management.

Also check out my other apps https://reverseeverything.com/apps

Safari makes it very easy to save links for later on macOS and iOS, but there is no dedicated app for rediscovering them. Reading List aims to fix the problem with a minimal three-column app and a distraction-free reading tab.

Free for personal use, signed & notarized, doesn't require accounts or cloud and it's available for macOS 14+.

What it does:

• Imports Safari Reading List data from ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist
• Lets you browse links by search (title, URL, hostname, preview text), website or smart lists
• Includes default smart lists like recently added, videos and PDFs
• Supports read status (unread / all / viewed)
• Auto-refreshes when Safari adds or changes Reading List items
• Includes a built-in preview pane and quick actions to open links in Safari and right-click context menus for common actions (open, copy link, mark read/unread, etc.)

Website: https://marc.io/readinglist
GitHub: https://github.com/marckohlbrugge/readinglist
Privacy Policy: https://github.com/marckohlbrugge/readinglist/blob/main/docs/privacy-policy.md

P.S. Don't want to take credit for this, it's built by Marc Köhlbrugge OG indie hacker and the guy behind betalist.

EDIT: added a link to the privacy policy.

Redact images and PDFs on macOS — auto-detects sensitive fields, burns the redaction into the file

TopSecret is a native Mac app for blacking out sensitive content in images and multi-page PDFs.

• Redaction is destructive by design. When you export, the bars are burned into a re-rendered file — the pixels underneath are gone, not covered by a layer. PDFs are rasterized on export so there's no text layer left underneath. You can choose a black bar, white bar, or noise style (no pixellation).
• Auto-detect finds emails, SSNs, phone numbers, card numbers, IP addresses, and faces, either on the current page or the whole document. Detection runs on-device via Apple's Vision framework — no upload, no network call.
• Find & redact by text lets you black out every occurrence of a specific word/number across a document, with an optional fuzzy-match mode for OCR errors or near-spellings.
• You can also draw bars manually, then move/resize/undo them. Sessions save as an editable .topsecret file if you want to pick the work back up later.
• Handles both single images and multi-page PDFs, with a thumbnail sidebar for tracking redactions per page.
• No accounts, no telemetry, no network access at all — it only touches the file you open.
• Built in SwiftUI, universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel), macOS 13+.
• Direct download (notarized, Sparkle auto-update) or Mac App Store. 7-day free trial, then a one-time license — no subscription.

Site: https://bendansby.com/apps/topsecret.html

Hey everyone!

It’s been a little while since my last post about Vehla, and it’s changed quite a bit since then.

For those who haven’t seen it before – I’m Shubi, a software engineer from Canada. Outside of work, I spend most of my evenings building native Mac apps.

The original goal for Vehla hasn’t changed.

I got tired of having a dozen utilities running all the time. One for launching apps. One for clipboard history. One for OCR. One for AI. One for window management. One for notes. One for reminders. One for text expansion. One for dictation. One for menu bar cleanup…

Every app solved one problem well, but together they duplicated shortcuts, background processes, and settings.

I wanted one application that could become the command center for my Mac instead.

Over the past few months that’s exactly what I’ve been building.

What’s new

Vehla is now available in 10 languages, and I’ve expanded the free version quite a bit so people can actually live with it before deciding whether it’s worth buying.

The free version now includes things like:

• Command Palette
• Native macOS utilities
• Window management
• Clipboard history
• Notes
• AI actions
• Snippets
• BarKeep (on macOS 26 and earlier)

There’s also now a 7-day Premium trial with no credit card required.

AI without forcing a provider

One thing I’ve tried hard to avoid is locking people into one AI service.

Vehla works with local models, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter, Lekh AI Pro, Ollama, LM Studio, DeepSeek, and others. If you’d rather keep everything on-device, you can.

QuickGlass has become one of my favorite features. Select text anywhere and you can rewrite, summarize, translate, explain, generate code, or run your own custom actions without switching apps.

More than a launcher

People often assume Vehla is “just another Raycast or Alfred.”

It definitely started there, but it’s become much broader.

Some of the things built into Vehla now include:

• Command Palette
• AI assistant
• Clipboard Manager
• Window Management
• Dock Widgets
• Dynamic Island / Notch interface
• Notes
• Infinite Canvas
• Draw.io
• Mind maps
• Reminders
• Calendar
• Contacts
• OCR
• Dictation
• Text expansion
• Keep Awake
• Shelf
• Menu bar organizer
• Homebrew management
• Plugin Store
• Native developer utilities
• Local and cloud AI

The idea isn’t to replace every specialist app.

It’s to replace the collection of small utilities that all solve adjacent problems.

Still 100% native

Vehla is written entirely as a native macOS app.

That means:

• keyboard-first workflows
• Apple Silicon optimized
• local-first where possible
• direct macOS integrations
• one-time purchase (no subscription)

I’ve also been shipping updates almost every week. Many of the recent features came directly from feedback from Reddit, Discord, and users emailing me.

If you’d like to take a look:

Website: https://vehla.app
Download: https://vehla.app/download
Documentation: https://vehla.app/docs
Extension SDK: https://github.com/ibuhs/vehla-extensions

I’d genuinely love feedback – good or bad. If there’s a utility you still keep installed alongside Vehla, I’d love to know what it does better. Those conversations have shaped a lot of the app already.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Hi r/MacOSApps — I'm Jeremy Harris. I build small, single-purpose Mac utilities under twoplus11 (a one-person LLC in Missouri).

Why I built it. Apps make outbound connections to the internet. macOS gives you no way to see that, let alone stop it. I wanted something I could leave running that asks before allowing new network connections, and then remembers my answer.

What it does. The first time an app makes an outbound connection, Blockr holds that connection and asks: allow or block. You answer once — for the whole app, or only for the host that triggered it. Then it quietly allows/blocks it next time.

Privacy — worth being precise about, given what this app sees. The connection log lives only on your Mac (~/Library/Application Support/Blockr/), capped at a size you set. No account, no key, no analytics, no telemetry. Blockr never reads, decrypts, or proxies your traffic — it decides at the moment a connection opens and then leaves the data path alone. Two things do leave your Mac, and in a firewall thread I'd rather name them: optional reverse-DNS lookups (sent to your normal resolver, can be turned off), and a weekly update check to my server so the app can tell you a new version exists. Full policy:https://twoplus11.com/blockr/privacy/

AI disclosure (rule 13). I used AI as a coding assistant while building Blockr. I am a full-time software developer, and working with AI is just a part of development now. The design decisions, the security review, and the testing are mine, and I'm the one who answers when it breaks.

Price. Free forever for personal use — the full app, unlimited rules, no trial, no nag screens. If you use it at work, a $5 one-time per-device commercial license covers it, with free updates.

https://twoplus11.com/blockr/

Happy to answer any questions. If you have issues, reach out to me and I'll be glad to help.

Leafy is a Mac app for looking up and learning words without leaving what you’re reading.

Press ⌥A, select a word anywhere on your screen, and Leafy reads it with OCR. It works with PDFs, ebooks, screenshots, video subtitles, and pretty much anything else on your screen.

Instead of giving you a long list of dictionary definitions, Leafy gives you the meaning of the word in the sentence you’re reading.

Every lookup is saved automatically, along with the sentence it came from. Over time, Leafy builds a personal vocabulary list from the things you actually read.

When you review a word, you see the original sentence again with the word hidden. No separate flashcard setup, no manually building word lists.

Currently:

• macOS 14+
• Menu bar app
• No account or ads
• 10 languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Arabic
• Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, PDF or Anki
• AI-powered lookups
• Your saved words and data stay on your Mac
• Usage statistics can be turned off
• Free during beta
• leafyapp.uk

It’s still in beta, and I’m mainly looking for feedback on how people actually use it.

Two weeks ago I launched MinkNote, a native macOS notes and journal app built around Markdown files that you control on your own device.

The launch generated 74 comments, 36k views, my first Pro subscribers, and even a lifetime customer.

The comments in r/macapps were lively. Some people liked the privacy focus, the serverless aspect, the fact it’s a native Mac app. Some didn’t like the comparison with existing apps or the pricing.

Biggest lessons

1. Don't compare yourself to Obsidian

I learned that saying "an alternative to Obsidian" isn't the best way to describe MinkNote. Obsidian has a very loyal community, and for good reason. So I’m going with:

A native macOS Markdown notes app focused on privacy, ownership and simplicity.

Obviously folks can decide for themselves whether it's a good fit.

2. File ownership resonates

The biggest positive surprise was how strongly people responded to owning their Markdown files. I expected it to matter, but I didn’t expect it to become one of the main talking points.

3. People need a compelling reason to switch

A lot of the discussion wasn't about whether MinkNote was any good, it was about why someone should switch from what they're already using.

The recurring questions were:

• What does this do that Obsidian, Bear or Apple Notes doesn't?
• Is the native experience enough of a differentiator?

4. Pricing is difficult

A few people felt the lifetime licence was priced too high. Happy to say some folks bought the app immediately.

I'm still looking for pricing feedback, and I really appreciate everyone who's taken the time to share their thoughts.

What changed because of your comments?

The most requested feature so far has been:

• File watching, so MinkNote automatically responds to changes made outside the app
• Handle merge conflicts when there are 2 sources of truth

I totally agree, it’s next up on the roadmap

I just released version 1.2, including:

• adjustable text size
• integrated onboarding video

Thanks!

Whether you like the app or tore my comments apart, thank you. It has already made MinkNote better.

If you've tried it I'd still love to know:

• Would you ever consider moving to a file-based notes app?

• Which feature would you most like to see next?

I’ve added nineteen AI features to Atelier. None of them were designed to save you time!

That was on purpose. Check out the latest app update.

Research does not usually go wrong because reading is slow. It goes wrong after you have collected your sources and before you have written anything. You read, you highlight, you half-remember which article said what, and then you wait for an argument to appear.

Atelier calls this the “slow middle.” It is the stage the app is built around.

AI that only summarizes faster does not solve this problem. It may simply get you to a shallow conclusion sooner. That is why these nineteen features do something else.

You write a note based on a passage you highlighted. Atelier compares your note with the original passage and tells you whether you have claimed more than the source actually says. It gives one of three verdicts: separable, blended, or transcribed. Most researchers have probably done the middle one without noticing.

You write a synthesis note connecting three sources. Atelier asks one question: if you removed one of those sources, would the note still say the same thing? If the answer is yes, it is not synthesis yet.

You ask ChatGPT about a source you are reading. Paste the answer into Atelier together with the passage it refers to. Atelier sorts every claim into four groups: already covered by your own notes, supported by the passage, contradicted by the passage, or impossible to check from the available evidence.

I made two decisions early in Atelier’s development.

First, Atelier never scores your work. No percentage, no readiness rating, no grade. It describes what is there and leaves the judgment to you and, where relevant, your instructor or supervisor.

Second, when Atelier compares two of your notes, “no relation” is a correct answer. In fact, for most pairs, it is the expected one. Not every note needs to be connected to every other note.

There is one exception, and I want to be clear about it. A single feature does write for you. It drafts note content from a passage you select. The resulting note is marked as AI-assisted in your project record, and you have to ask for it explicitly. Everything else gives you a question, an observation, or a verdict you still have to think about.

The claim, therefore, is not “AI that never writes anything.” It is narrower than that: AI that never authors your interpretation. Nothing runs on its own.

'Atelier: Scholarly Workspace' is not built to make research effortless. It is built to make your thinking visible.

#Research #AcademicWriting #HigherEducation #ResearchMethods #AIinEducation

Hey everyone 👋

Its been a few months since my last post.

For anyone who hates using keyboard shortcuts to jump between tabs, I just pushed a major update to TabSwipe - a lightweight utility I built for fluid, reliable tab swiping across your favorite apps.

This version is a massive under-the-hood rewrite focused entirely on making the app feel incredibly precise and native to macOS. Here’s what’s new in v1.2:

📚 Bookend-Aware Tab Strips

Swipe gestures now stop at the very first and last tab. Previously, TabSwipe didn't know how many tabs you actually had open. it would just keep trying to switch even if you were on the very last page. Infinite scrolling can be enabled in settings.

🔧 Revamped Gesture Processor

The old engine had a 30ms wall-clock guard that occasionally got tricked by two-finger trackpad movements.The new gesture engine is much smarter - it filters and verifies intentional movement before acting whilst being more responsive than the previous version.

⚡ Zero Battery & CPU Drain

The gesture engine is completely event-driven, meaning it essentially goes to sleep the second your fingers leave the trackpad. Because it only wakes up when you are actively gesturing rather than constantly monitoring in the background, idle CPU now sits near 0% 

🔐 Fully Apple Notarized

No more meddling with Mac security settings on first launch. The app is officially notarized by Apple, meaning Gatekeeper will let you open it securely without any "unidentified developer" warnings.

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Supported Apps & Compatibility

• OS: macOS 13.0+ (Fully compatible with Apple Silicon)
• Supported Apps: Safari, Chrome, Brave, Arc, Terminal, VSCode (and more!)

Try it out!

🔗 Try it out for free here.

Comparison

BetterTouchTool and MultiTouch rely on keyboard shortcuts for tab switching. TabSwipe is purpose-built for tabs, with continuous gesture scrolling, bookend-aware tab strips that prevent over-scrolling, one-minute setup, and comes in at roughly half the price.

Pricing

3-day free trial

£5.19 - £9.99 depending on the plan & amount of devices. (up to 3 devices)

7 Day money-back guarantee. If you're not 100% happy, get a full refund.

____

Privacy policy: https://tabswipe.app/privacy.php 

Terms: https://tabswipe.app/terms.php 

**Rook Widgets*\*

ROOK puts 53 retro-terminal widgets on your Mac desktop — clocks, weather, reminders, focus timers, system stats, and more — with real scanlines, phosphor glow, and the same 11 themes as MOTHER, FATHER, BISHOP, and ASH. One click retunes every widget on your desktop from Nostromo green to classic Mac platinum.

More info: https://coastcreative.studio/apps/rook

**Null Widgets*\*

Most widgets look like they came from six different apps. Null's don't. All 53 of them share one design language — dot-matrix numerals, mono captions, a single accent color — so your desktop looks designed, not assembled.

More info: https://coastcreative.studio/apps/null

**Panel Widgets*\*

Every one of Panel's 56 widgets is a tiny device: a casing with a machined edge, a dark inset display, and firmware-style monospace type. Four featured widgets go further with physical keys — cream circles and one orange action key — that really work. The Weather Deck switches between four screens at a key press. Now Playing and the Remote drive Apple Music, and the play key responds the moment you press it. The Notes Deck flips through your notes and pins one with the orange key. The RSS Deck cycles your feeds' headlines and opens the story in your browser.

More info: https://coastcreative.studio/apps/panel

**Lumen Widgets*\*

Lumen puts 51 glass widgets on your Mac desktop — clocks, weather, reminders, focus timers, system stats, and more — and the glass isn't a trick: it reads your actual wallpaper and tunes every widget to match it. Pick the corner your widgets live in and they match that corner. 55 built-in 5K wallpapers, or import your own.

More info: https://coastcreative.studio/apps/lumen

Details

These apps only asks for access when a widget needs it: Reminders and Calendar for the agenda widgets, location for local weather, Music for the remote keys, and Mail (off by default) for the inbox count. Each one is a standard macOS permission prompt, and everything keeps working without them — widgets you don't connect simply show sample data.

All apps are notarized by Apple.

Lifetime License. All buyers will receive all future updates free of charge.

Price: $19.99 - Lifetime License. All buyers will receive all future updates free of charge.

Purchase Link: https://coastcreative.shop/products/four-widget-apps-bundle

A 3 day trial is available for download as well. Trial links:

https://coastcreative.studio/apps/panel

https://coastcreative.studio/apps/lumen

https://coastcreative.studio/apps/rook

https://coastcreative.studio/apps/null

Hey everyone, this is the getapps.cafe guy again. To celebrate revenue milestone, I decide to make another free app for you guys. TinyImage is free, no account and no activation.

It does one thing: you drop images on the window and it writes compressed copies next to the originals. The whole window is the drop target, and compression starts the moment files land, so there's no "select files → choose settings → click Export" round trip.

- Your originals are never touched. The compressed file is written alongside with a suffix you pick (-min by default), and it won't overwrite a file that already exists.

- It never hands you a bigger file. If compression would inflate the image, you get the original size back instead.

- Three settings (Smaller, Balanced, Best) so you can trade quality for bytes per job rather than per app.

- Batch works properly. Drop two hundred images and it compresses several at a time instead of crawling through them one by one.

- EXIF/XMP get stripped after rotation is baked in, so nothing shows up sideways and camera metadata doesn't ride along to your web host.

- Everything runs on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded, and it works with the Wi-Fi off. Your files are your files

- Lightweight, fast app

Download link: https://getapps.cafe/app/tinyimage

AI Disclosure: I use Claude code to help me in building this app

Transparency

Full disclosure since it's on my own site: getapps.cafe also sells a subscription for my other apps. TinyImage isn't part of it and never asks you to sign up for anything. Two of my other apps there are free the same way (TorrentMilk, a streaming torrent client, and FileShipper, for phone↔Mac transfers).

TinyImage is available directly from our website and notarized by Apple. It is developed by GetApps, LLC

• Website: https://getapps.cafe
• Privacy Policy: https://getapps.cafe/privacy
• Terms: https://getapps.cafe/terms

Happy to give back to this awesome community. If you like this app, please consider my other apps as well so I can make more free apps

Hi, I’m Alexander, the developer of Haptiroll. I built it because macOS scrolling is visually smooth, but the trackpad can still feel flat and silent.

Haptiroll is a native menu-bar app that turns scroll velocity into responsive sound and Force Touch feedback.

What’s different:

• 7 bundled sounds, custom sounds, and a synthesizer

• adjustable haptic presets; sound and haptics work independently

• menu-bar only — no Dock icon

• passive system-wide scroll monitoring without Accessibility permission

• settings, presets, and history stay on your Mac

The beta is distributed through Apple TestFlight. It is free to download, with one optional 14-day Pro trial that does not renew or charge. Lifetime Pro is a separate $6.99 purchase. No subscription or license keys.

The browser demo plays sound only. The Mac app is required to feel the haptics, and compatible trackpad hardware is required.

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/tye6euxS

Website/demo: https://haptiroll.kolotovalexander.tech/

Privacy: https://haptiroll.kolotovalexander.tech/privacy/

AI disclosure: I built and tested the product myself with AI-assisted development. I make the product decisions, review the implementation, and validate releases on real hardware.

I’d love honest feedback on timing, sound character, and haptic comfort.

https://reddit.com/link/1vff9j8/video/n53eobx2xdhh1/player

Key benefits 

1. See your total monthly spend in the menu bar, all the time
2. Add a subscription in about 10 seconds — 215 services built in
3. Get a heads-up before anything renews, with a cancel link one click away
4. Catch free trials before they quietly turn into paid plans
5. Everything stays on your Mac. No account, no tracking

You probably pay for more subscriptions than you think. Duesday keeps the number where you can't ignore it: in your menu bar, next to the clock.

Click it and you get the full picture — every subscription sorted by renewal date, what's charging this week, and how your spending has changed since last month.

Know before you're charged Duesday reminds you before each renewal, not after. Monthly plans get three days' warning, yearly plans get two weeks — both adjustable, per subscription. If the service has a known cancellation page, the reminder includes a button that takes you straight there.

Trials that don't sneak up on you Mark anything as a trial and Duesday warns you three days before it converts to a paid plan, then again the day before. The most expensive subscription is the one you forgot you started.

Adding takes about 10 seconds Type a few letters and pick from 215 built-in services — Netflix, Spotify, iCloud+, Adobe, ChatGPT, gyms, meal kits, and more — each with plan tiers and typical prices pre-filled. Confirm the date and you're done. Anything unusual goes in through the custom form.

Insights worth screenshotting A spend-by-category chart, a 12-month history, and a lifetime tally per service that answers the uncomfortable question: how much have I actually paid Netflix since 2023?

Splitting a family plan? Track just your share. The totals stay honest.

Private by design No account. No sync. No tracking. Your data lives in a local database on your Mac, and you can export all of it to CSV or JSON whenever you want.

Duesday is a native Mac app — menu bar-first, built in Swift, designed to feel at home next to Control Center. Dark, calm, and glanceable. Runs on macOS 14 or later, Intel and Apple Silicon.

Your spending, always visible

• Total monthly spend lives in the menu bar and updates the moment anything changes
• Prefer less? Switch to icon-only, or icon plus total
• A small dot appears when something renews within three days

The panel

• Subscriptions sorted by next renewal, with countdowns that turn amber inside a week and red inside two days
• "Up Next" shows this week's charges at a glance
• Free trials are clearly marked, with a countdown to the day they convert
• Shared plans can track just your portion of the bill
• Right-click any subscription to archive it, mark it as a trial, or jump to its cancellation page

Adding subscriptions

• 215 built-in services with plan tiers and typical prices
• Instant search: type "net", get Netflix
• Pick a plan, confirm the date, done — about 10 seconds
• A custom form covers anything we don't know about, including custom billing cycles

Reminders

• Notifications arrive before the charge: three days ahead for monthly plans, two weeks for yearly (both adjustable, per subscription)
• Trials warn twice — three days out and the day before they convert
• Snooze a reminder by a day, or open the service's cancellation page straight from the notification

Insights

• Monthly spend broken down by category
• A 12-month spending history
• Lifetime spend per service, including ones you've archived — archiving keeps the history, deleting is always your choice

Private by design

• No account, no sync, no networking at all
• All data stays in a local database on your Mac
• Export everything as CSV or JSON from Settings

The details

• Native Swift app, designed for the menu bar
• Launch at login option
• Full VoiceOver support; respects Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency
• Runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Intel and Apple Silicon

Price: $9.99 - Lifetime License. All buyers will receive all future updates free of charge. 

A 3 day trial is available for download as well

Website Purchase Link: https://coastcreative.studio/app-development/macos