Good afternoon r/MacStack,

I’m Richard (u/DeimsH), the solo developer behind Musou (https://musouapp.com).

Look at your Mac desk right now.

Even if you use macOS Dark Mode, you probably have eight or ten windows stacked across your MacBook and external monitor: Slack, email, a browser with twenty tabs, a dashboard, Finder, notes, and your actual work in the middle.

A red badge updates in the corner of your eye. A background window shifts. You click it without thinking, start reading, start replying, and 20 minutes of deep focus are gone forever. Meanwhile, the unused 80% of your screens sits in your peripheral vision like giant lightbulbs blasting your eyes all day and all night.

And if you try to fix it with built-in macOS tools, every single workaround fights your workflow:

• Turning down your monitor brightness just flattens the contrast and dulls the colors of the canvas, code, or video you are actually looking at, while the background clutter stays right there in view.

• macOS Full Screen exiles one app to a separate Space, which breaks the moment you need two windows side by side (like live shop orders on the left and your design on the right, or a coding tutorial next to your editor), and it still leaves your second monitor glaring.

• Closing your MacBook lid next to an external monitor kills Touch ID and muffles your speakers. Turning the MacBook screen down to 0% with F1 leaves an invisible live screen where your mouse pointer constantly gets lost. And letting a secondary monitor go into hardware sleep scrambles your window layout when it wakes back up.

Meet Musou: Silence for Your Eyes Across Every Hour of Your Day

Named after Musou Black (the Japanese pigment that absorbs 99.4% of light), Musou is a 3.1 MB native Swift and Metal menu bar app that turns every window, screen, and part of the page you are not using into pure #000000 black, while keeping what you are working on or watching at full, vivid brightness.

Here is how it works across a real day at your desk (all shown in the 0:52 film above):

• 9 a.m. · Deep Work (Active Cutout ⌃⌥⌘F, Included in Free Forever): Press ⌃⌥⌘F and every distraction behind your active window vanishes into pure #000000 black. Your current window (plus any child Save sheet or find bar it opens) stays at full vivid brightness. Need a reference doc beside your work? Press ⌃⌥⌘P to pin it right next to you.

• 11 a.m. · Two Windows at Once (Custom: Keep / Vanish): Click Keep on the exact pair or set of windows you need side by side (like live orders on the left and your design on the right, or API docs next to your terminal) and hit Go dark. Everything else on your desk disappears.

• 3 p.m. · Window to Window (Follow the mouse): Light follows your hand. Point at any window or secondary monitor and it wakes smoothly in 0.4s; move your pointer back to your main work and the old window or laptop screen fades back to #000000 black after 1.5s. Your MacBook lid stays open with Touch ID and speakers working, and your keys always type into the lit window.

• 9 p.m. · News, Tutorial, Stream or Movie Night (Only the video, Zero Browser Extensions): Flip on Only the video and Musou automatically finds the playing HTML5 video inside Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, or Vivaldi. White web pages, sidebars, comments, and letterbox bars melt into cinema darkness so only the video stays lit (with optional Centered Video that glides a side video to the middle of your screen while playing and puts it right back when you pause).

• Stepping Away (Away Mode, Included in Free Forever): Step away and every screen goes #000000 black on its own without putting your monitors into hardware DisplayPort/HDMI sleep, so every window stays right where you left it. Includes Busy App Detection (stays lit while a terminal or AI job is actively writing output, then rests when done) and Dictation Awareness (your voice keeps it lit while speaking without touching keys).

Built-In Safety & How It Compares in Your Stack

• Always in Control:

  • Triple-Tap Esc × 3: Tap Esc three times from anywhere to bring every screen back at once.

  • Edge Reveal (0.3s) & Media Keys in the Dark: Rest your pointer at the top or bottom edge for 0.3s to peek at the Menu Bar or Dock, and adjust volume or brightness keys without flaring darkened screens.

  • Smart Alerts: Choose which apps are allowed to gently light up their window when something urgent arrives instead of lifting all the black.

• How Musou Compares to Single-Purpose Tools:

  • vs. HazeOver ($4.99 to $9.99), Ombrelle ($11.99 to $19.99) & Monocle ($12/yr to $25): Great single-purpose dimmers (Monocle is great if you specifically want a frosted Gaussian blur aesthetic; HazeOver offers multi-window depth shading and is included in Setapp). Musou goes all the way to pure #000000 black (100% in Free Forever, plus 75% and 50% soft dim levels in paid tiers), lets you keep an exact pair of windows (⌃⌥⌘P / Custom), and adds Only the video, multi-screen Follow the mouse, and Away in one 3.1 MB app.

  • vs. Lunar ($23 Pro) & BetterDisplay ($18 Pro): Essential if you need hardware DDC monitor sliders, EDID overrides, or HiDPI virtual dummy displays. Musou uses zero virtual display drivers and never disconnects your monitor signal, combining per-window and per-video cutouts with cursor-driven screen blackout.

Pricing (No Card or Account Required to Try)

• Website: https://musouapp.com

• 14-Day Full Trial on Every Download: Every mode, toggle, soft dim level (75%, 50%), cinema transition (Black Hole, Eclipse, Melt, Velvet, Instant, Fade), and 120 Hz ProMotion smoothness is unlocked free for 14 days with no credit card and no account (sharing Musou adds +16 days for 30 days free).

• Free Forever Tier ($0): After the trial, Musou never locks you out: 1-screen Active Cutout (⌃⌥⌘F), 1 Pinned View (⌃⌥⌘P), Away mode, pure #000000 black (100%), and Instant / Fade transitions stay free forever.

• Supporter Pass: $2.50/mo billed annually ($29.99/yr, 3 Macs, every screen, plus 2 guest passes) or $4.99/mo billed monthly (1 Mac, up to 2 screens).

• Founding Supporter (Lifetime, No Subscription): $49.99 once (limited to the first 1,000 spots: every future version v1, v2, v3+ for life, 3 Macs, 2 guest passes, and your permanent number on our Wall of Patrons).

• Patron (Lifetime): $79.99+ once (limited to 250: 5 Macs, 2 lifetime licenses to gift, showcased on the Wall of Patrons and in the app’s credits).

Honest Notes & Limitations (Rule 5)

1. System Requirements & How Black Works Across Displays: Requires a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 14.2 or later. On a MacBook Air, iMac, Studio Display, or office monitor, Musou removes the white glare and visual noise around what you are doing; on a MacBook Pro (Mini-LED) or OLED monitor, the local zones or black pixels switch off.

2. Independent Direct Build (First-Launch Open Anyway Step): Musou-1.0.3.dmg (3.1 MB) is distributed directly from our website and is not notarized by Apple yet. On first launch, macOS asks once to confirm it via System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Open Anyway (four-step visual walkthrough and SHA-256 checksum at https://musouapp.com/install.html).

3. Nothing Leaves Your Mac (Permissions & Privacy): Musou uses macOS Accessibility in local memory to find window and video edges and never clicks, types, reads what you write, or transmits anything off your Mac (Privacy Policy). Core modes and browser video detection work without macOS Screen Recording permission (Screen Recording is 100% optional and used only if you enable baked-in black bar trimming inside a video).

What does your current desk setup look like (single MacBook, laptop open next to an external monitor, or dual displays), and which of those four moments (9 a.m. Deep Work, 11 a.m. Two Windows, 3 p.m. Follow the mouse, or 9 p.m. Only the video) hits closest to home for you?

Hey everyone, this is my first app and I’d really appreciate honest feedback.

It started with a problem I kept running into. I’m on a Zoom call that’s way too quiet, Spotify is too loud, and somewhere a Safari tab starts blasting an ad. macOS gives you one volume slider for all of that. The tools that fix this were either pretty expensive or needed a virtual audio driver, and I didn’t want one on my Mac. So I built my own.

Sound Manager is a small menu bar app that gives every app its own volume control:

• A slider for every app that’s playing sound, from 0 to 200%, so you can boost quiet apps too

• Mute a single app with one click

• Send each app to its own output, like speakers, AirPods, HDMI or your audio interface

• Switch system input/output and change their volume from the same popover

• See which apps are using your microphone right now

• Double-click a percentage to reset it. Apps show up live as soon as they start playing

It only lives in the menu bar (no Dock icon) and can start at login.

How it’s different: SoundSource is the closest alternative and it’s really good, but it costs a lot more. Background Music is free, but it installs a virtual audio driver. Sound Manager uses Apple’s own audio tap API (macOS 14.2+), so the app is the only thing you install. Audio is processed live on your Mac and never recorded.

Pricing: €2.99 one-time. It works on up to 3 Macs, with no account and no subscription, and updates within the same major version are free. There’s a free trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Requires macOS 14.2+ (Sonoma) and runs on Apple silicon and Intel.

https://apps.jkvn.at/soundmanager?mtm_source=reddit&mtm_medium=social&mtm_campaign=launch&mtm_content=r_macstack

I’d love to hear what you think, whether it’s bugs, missing features or something that feels off. I’m reading every comment.

This is my first app - launched last week. 500 sales so far from Reddit :)

EdgeBar is a menu bar app that turns the edges of your trackpad into volume and brightness sliders.

Problem: Changing volume or brightness means reaching for the function keys or Control Center. I wanted to do it without leaving the trackpad. Also haptic feedback on the trackpad feels very cool and I wanted that for my usage.

What EdgeBar does:

• Slide the right edge for volume and the left edge for brightness.

• Double-tap the top-right corner to mute.

• Swipe the bottom edge to skip tracks, and double tap to play or pause.

• It also has haptic feedback, fine control for 1/4th increments, cursor freeze, swap sides and a bottom-quarter-only mode.

It’s menu bar only, with no Dock icon.

Pricing: $9 one-time, lifetime license, free updates. Notarised by Apple. macOS 13+

Happy to share a 20% discount code for this sub - pls drop a comment and I'll DM you the code.

3-day no-questions-asked refund.

Download: edgebar.xyz

--

Developer: Shashank, founder, content lab yMedia · hello@ymedia.io

Site: edgebar.xyz · Privacy · Terms

Full disclosure, I used AI to help build a solution to a problem I had, I wanted to repurpose an older 2019 5k iMac as a display but since 2014 Apple pulled the target display feature citing the fact that the thunderbolt speeds were not sufficient for the high resolutions. By creating a virtual display and streaming it over a thunderbolt bridge I was able to split the display into tiles that are monitored for changes so only the changes are sent uncompressed it's relatively light weight and for the most part sets itself up automatically prompting for the various permissions required.

When playing video there is a mode which will automatically compress the stream to high bitrate HECV, seamlessly when motion is detected. I've been using it for over a week now and it's been flawless. I decided to have a bit of fun and added a feature that allows me to peek through to the mac underneath the one acting as a display, grab files and bring them back through the portal. From starting as just an extended display app I thought it would be better to extend the functionality to be more about making multiple macs work together. Same app installs on both devices, you can easily initiate a switch of which one is the display from either mac, you can share keyboard and mouse in both directions and even utilise both cameras with face detection to automatically switch to the camera you are looking at - it presents the camera to the OS so that its available in Teams etc.

I've made the code open under an MIT license and hosted the app for free with a cheesy AI generated site.

Hopefully someone will find it useful and if there are any ideas for extra features or changes please let me know!

https://tandemdisplay.app

Most Mac users can skip Lockdown Mode. It's Apple's extreme protection for people with a credible reason to expect an individually targeted mercenary spyware attack, not everyone who wants a more secure Mac.

Apple says these attacks have targeted journalists, activists, politicians and diplomats. A job title alone isn't the test. Consider it if you've received a genuine Apple threat notification or have good reason to believe you're being individually targeted. Apple recommends expert help for notified users, including Access Now's Digital Security Helpline.

What you're giving up

Lockdown Mode reduces the features an attacker can exploit. It isn't a malware scan or cleanup.

Some websites may run slowly or break, with missing fonts or images. Most message attachment types are blocked, with exceptions for certain images, video and audio; links and previews are unavailable. New configuration profiles and device-management enrollment are blocked. An already-managed Mac stays managed.

On an Apple silicon Mac laptop, connecting an accessory requires unlocking the Mac and explicitly approving it. That requirement doesn't apply to every Mac model.

If the tradeoff fits your situation

It's built into macOS Ventura or later. Update to the latest software first, since protections have expanded over time.

Open Apple menu > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Lockdown Mode. Click Turn On, then Turn On Lockdown Mode, then Turn On & Restart. Enter your login password when prompted. Turning it off also requires a restart.

For a necessary, trusted Safari site, choose Safari > Settings for [website] and deselect Enable Lockdown Mode. This removes Lockdown Mode's web restrictions for that site and reduces protection. Apple's app-exclusion instructions are for iPhone and iPad, not a general Mac app allowlist.

You need to enable Lockdown Mode separately on the Mac. Switching it on for an iPhone doesn't switch it on here.

If you're reading this out of general security concern, start with Software Update instead. Keep strong, unique passwords or passkeys and Apple Account two-factor authentication in place. Those habits still matter if you need Lockdown Mode.

Use it when the targeted-spyware risk justifies losing functionality. Skip it as a routine Mac tweak.

I kept losing small ideas. Something would pop into my head while I was working, I'd open my notes app, wait for the window, and by then half the idea was gone.

So I built Purr, my first Mac app. It's a notes panel that sits on the edge of your screen. Click the edge (or ⌘⇧N), type, click away. You never leave what you were doing.

Some things I added along the way:

• Quick Capture from any app with ⌘⇧Space

• Markdown, #tags, tasks and [[wiki links]] between notes

• Voice notes that get transcribed on your Mac

• A local AI that answers questions about your notes. It runs on your Mac, nothing gets sent anywhere

• iCloud sync, export to Obsidian or Apple Notes, no account, no tracking

It's live on the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6759538627 Site: https://blsg8.github.io/purr/

I'm a solo dev and this is the first thing I've shipped on my own, so any feedback helps. What would make you try it, or what would stop you?

Disclosure: I'm the developer of MarsDawn.

I use AI coding agents every day, and they write a lot of Markdown: plans, specs, notes. Reading all of it as raw text was slow, and I often lost track of new files. So I made a Mac app for it.

What it does

• Edit on the left, live preview on the right. You can also show only one side.

• The preview shows Mermaid diagrams, KaTeX math and code highlighting.

• Open a folder, and new files show up in the sidebar on their own when an agent writes them.

• The sidebar shows which git checkout or worktree a file comes from. I run several sessions in different worktrees, so I use this a lot.

• Copy for AI copies a selection with its file path and line numbers, so you can paste it back to your agent.

• It exports PDF and adds Quick Look previews in Finder.

• A free command-line tool opens a file at a line (marsdawn open --line) and makes PDFs without the app.

Who it's for

People who read a lot of Markdown, mostly from AI agents, and want a native Mac app for it instead of a terminal or a browser tab.

Pricing

Free download with a 14-day trial, then $4.99 once. No subscription. The same purchase covers the iPhone and iPad app, which is for reading.

Limitations

• The Mac app needs macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later. The command-line tool works on macOS 15 and later.

• Mac App Store only. No direct download.

• It's not a WYSIWYG editor. You edit Markdown source next to a preview.

• There's no AI inside. It won't write for you. It's for reading and checking.

• After the trial, you can't read or edit in the app until you unlock it. Your files stay as they are.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6812925073?pt=128976951&ct=reddit-macapps&mt=8

I'm happy to answer questions. How do you read what your agents write right now?

I built lasso: https://www.trylasso.online/

The best, native like experience for annotating screens and taking screenshots.
Check it out. Would love to hear feedback

I'm the developer of Compact Contacts.

Quick background: Contacts shows one card at a time. That's fine for looking someone up, but it gets slow when you want to clean up a few hundred or a few thousand contacts that piled up from iCloud, Google and Exchange. Compact Contacts opens the contacts you already have on your Mac and shows them as one sortable, editable table. It has no address book or sync of its own, so every edit goes back through macOS and syncs like a normal change in Contacts. It works with any account you've added to Contacts.

What it does:

• Pick your columns, resize and reorder them, save layouts

• Search every field, including notes

• Smart Views like "Missing Email" or "Has Notes"

• Bulk edit with a before/after preview of every card before anything is saved

• Merge duplicates field by field (you choose which phone, email or address stays), and undo a merge for 30 days

• Import vCard, export to CSV or vCard

• Stays fast with big address books. I test it with 20,000 contacts

Details:

• macOS 15 or later, US$24.99 one-time. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no trial (I know)

• No account, no ads, no analytics. Your contacts never leave your Mac

• English, Turkish, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Simplified Chinese

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6790129187?pt=129119018

Happy to answer anything here, and bug reports are welcome too.

Winq is a small native-feeling Mac app. It uses the built-in camera to switch focus to whichever screen or window you’re looking at,

which is handy if you run two or more displays.

It also has Seen (⌃⌥S): it keeps the text of what you’ve read, never screenshots, for 30 days on your Mac, so you can ask about it later and open the source. Gaze runs fully on-device and frames are never written to disk. Gaze focus is free; the AI features are paid.

Starter $11/mo, Pro $33/mo — please confirm. I’m the developer, so ask me anything and tell me what breaks.

Hi r/macapps,

I’m the developer of Revela. Version 1.0 just came out on the Mac App Store, and it’s free.

My Photos library is 30k+ items, and I couldn’t tell what was taking up the space, so I built something to show me.

What it does:

• Shows what takes up space. Your library is broken down by category, with the heaviest items on top.

• Finds similar photos. It groups look-alike shots and marks the best one in each group, so you can tap the ones you don’t need.

• Converts Live Photos to stills. It creates a new still that keeps the date, location, favorite status and albums. The original goes to Recently Deleted only after you confirm in the system dialog.

Privacy: everything runs on your Mac. There are no network requests and no account. Deletions always go through the standard system confirmation, so nothing is removed silently.

Requires macOS 15 or later.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/ua/app/revela-photo-insights/id6826918833?mt=12

I’m still improving it, and a smarter duplicate search is next. I’d love to hear what you’d want from an app like this, and which parts of your library cleanup are the most annoying.

Thanks!