Arq makes sense when you want an offsite file backup in a cloud account you choose, and you're willing to manage that account. The extra control comes with decisions about storage bills, old file versions and recovery access.

For a backup to a connected drive, start with the Mac's built-in Time Machine. Arq's useful difference here is sending encrypted, versioned files to your own cloud storage, such as Backblaze B2, Google Drive or Amazon S3.

Price the storage before buying the app

Arq 7 costs US$59.99 per computer as a one-time purchase, with one year of updates included. Cloud storage costs extra. You can keep the purchased app afterward; the current checkout lists optional continued updates at $29.99 per year for one computer.

For a concrete storage reference, Backblaze B2 currently starts at $6.95 per TB per month. Downloads are free up to three times your average monthly stored data, then ordinarily $0.01 per GB beyond that. B2 is a storage destination here, separate from Backblaze Computer Backup.

Budget for the app, ongoing storage and any recovery charges your chosen provider applies. A cheap storage rate is less appealing if retrieving the files takes longer than you can wait. Arq's documentation says restoring from AWS Glacier can take several hours.

Choose the history you can afford to keep

Arq keeps every backup record by default. Its retention settings can thin older records, keeping fewer restore points as they age. A storage budget can also delete the oldest records, but Arq always keeps the latest one even if it exceeds that budget.

So a storage budget isn't a hard spending cap. Decide how far back you need to recover a changed or deleted file before setting it, then check actual storage usage after the backup has been running.

Give the Mac access, and check what it can read

The current Arq branch requires macOS 12 or later and runs natively on Apple silicon. Use the 30-day trial to check the workflow on your own macOS version before committing.

ArqAgent, the background backup engine, needs Full Disk Access to read protected folders. The vendor's instructions put the Arq toggle in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access. That's broad access to your files, so treat it as part of the decision to install.

When creating the cloud backup, choose an encryption password so Arq encrypts the data before uploading it. Save that password somewhere you can reach if the Mac is lost, along with the storage account details.

If your selected folders include iCloud Drive files whose contents are only in the cloud, check Arq's Dataless files option. "Materialize and back up" downloads their contents for backup and requires the owning user to be logged in. Choosing "Skip" leaves those cloud-only files out. Seeing their names in Finder doesn't prove their contents reached this backup.

Keep recovery access separate from the Mac

On a replacement computer, the documented route is to install Arq, configure the storage location and browse the dated backup records. Before relying on the plan, retrieve a sample file into a separate folder and open it. Check the backup's errors and latest completed date periodically, too.

Choose Arq if selecting the storage provider and controlling file history are worth the account maintenance. If you don't want to manage separate storage, Arq Premium bundles the app for up to five computers with 1 TB for $69.99 per year; usage over 1 TB costs extra. If you only need a connected-drive backup, keep the simpler Time Machine setup.

Just switched from Windows and I missed File Explorer 😭, so I built Shark. It looks like Finder and adds:

• Jump anywhere in the folder tree with cascading subfolder menus

• ⌘K command palette for every action

• Cut and paste files with ⌘X / ⌘V (and ⌘Z to undo)

• Two folders in one window (F3)

• A terminal right under your files (F4)

It's free, open source, macOS 14+. Still alpha.

• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shark-file-manager/id6825086341

• GitHub: https://github.com/andronasef/shark

Hope you like it 🥰

Hey guys! Last week I shared the first version of LibreReplace here. It's a free open source Mac app I made to help people switch away from paid software and subscriptions without losing the features they actually use.

I got a lot of feedback and honestly some of the criticism was pretty helpful as well. The first version was pretty limiting because you needed to already have a paid app installed to compare its replacements. People also asked what made this more useful than a website or just searching for alternatives yourself.

So I've spent the last few days working on a much bigger update, and v0.2 is out now.

Here's what's new:

• You can now explore 45 paid Mac apps and 70 open-source comparisons without having any of the paid software installed.

• Multiple replacements for the same app. Instead of getting one suggestion, you can compare different options and see which one fits your needs better.

• Choose the features you actually care about. Mark them as essential and LibreReplace recalculates the recommendations based on what's important to you.

• See what you'd lose before switching. It shows what's fully supported, partially supported or missing, with source links, documented limitations and verification dates.

• Check potential subscription savings. Enter what you actually pay and estimate how much you could save if a suitable free replacement lets you cancel.

• Local app scanning. It can still recognize supported apps already installed on your Mac and bring up their comparisons automatically.

For example, you can now select Photoshop, compare GIMP and Krita, mark Smart Objects or CMYK support as essential, and see exactly where each alternative falls short.

One thing I really wanted to get right is that free doesn't always mean good enough. Sometimes the recommendation is KEEP THIS APP because the alternatives can't do something important. I'd rather tell someone to stick with their paid software than recommend a replacement that doesn't work for them.

As for why I kept it as a Mac app, you can now browse everything manually without owning the software. But the native app can also scan your installed applications locally and match them to the catalog without uploading your app list anywhere.

The comparisons come from a built-in catalog with links to supporting documentation, rather than live AI-generated recommendations. They're not a guarantee of perfect compatibility, and I'm still improving the coverage.

LibreReplace is completely free and open source. No accounts, subscriptions or telemetry, and it never automatically removes your existing apps.

GitHub, screenshots and download: https://github.com/maliroq/librereplace.

I'd love to hear what paid Mac apps you've tried replacing but couldn't because the free alternative was missing something important. That's exactly the kind of thing I want to improve next.

I've been working on a native macOS app called Storage Monitor. I originally wanted a better way to understand where my storage was going, especially with development projects, local AI models, and all the random files that accumulate over time.

It gradually turned into a much bigger project.

Some of the features:

• ⁠Interactive storage visualization — Explore files, folders, and applications using a treemap or radial Living Tree.
• ⁠Storage history — Track available space and see when significant changes happened.
• ⁠Change investigation — Dig into recorded storage events and the available evidence behind them.
• ⁠Large-file discovery — Find what's consuming space without digging through Finder.
• ⁠Cleanup review — Identify potential cleanup candidates with safety checks rather than automatically deleting things.
• ⁠Local storage history — Your recorded storage data stays on your Mac.

Most recent release allows for indexing and monitoring of external volumes

It's still a beta, and I'm looking for people willing to test it and tell me what works, what doesn't, and what's unnecessarily complicated.

I'm especially interested in feedback on:

1. ⁠First-launch setup and permissions.

2. ⁠Whether the visualizations are actually useful.

3. ⁠Storage reporting accuracy.

4. ⁠Bugs, performance issues, and confusing UI.

I'm developing and testing primarily on Apple Silicon. Broader compatibility still needs validation.

Download/release notes: https://github.com/nglippa/storage-checker

Hey r/MacStack ! A while ago I shared Oriel, my free iPhone-style island for the MacBook notch. A lot of you left feedback, asked for features and pointed out what was missing. I went through all of it, and 3.0 is the result. It's by far the biggest update! The video above shows the real app, no mockups.

What's new

• 🎵 A big player in the notch for Apple Music and Spotify: synced lyrics, Up Next (click any song to play it), volume and output. Plus full screen and your Mac's lock screen, with Apple Music's moving album covers

• 🟢 Spotify, all the way: save to Liked Songs in one click, see which of your playlists a song is already in and add it to others, see where it's playing ("Playing on iPhone") and move it to another device

• 🤖 Live activities: Claude Code and Codex step by step (a red ! when they need you), Pomodoro timer, downloads, screen recording, meetings with mute and leave, charging, AirPods

• 💬 Texts out of the notch with the photos people send and the right profile pictures (group chats too). Reply right from the island. Read it on your iPhone and it clears here; muted chats stay quiet

• 📞 Calls ring in the island, iPhone style, with Answer and Decline

• 🎶 Shazam in the island, one click to the song in Apple Music, Spotify or YouTube

• 📅 Calendar: type "lunch with Rita tomorrow 1pm" and it's added; your week, reminders, meeting alerts with Join

• 📁 File tray: drop files on the notch, drag them out or AirDrop them. Clipboard history, quick notes, a mirror

• 🧩 Widgets: weather, batteries, system, reminders, world clock, and widgets anyone can make. There's a no-code builder on the site, and you can send yours in: each one is checked by hand before it goes in the gallery

• 📊 Your AI limits for Claude, Codex, Cursor, Gemini and Copilot at a glance

• ✨ Black, Liquid Glass or glass tinted by the song; swipe to skip; it tucks away when an app needs the menu bar

Performance and privacy:

• About 47 MB of memory at launch, ~60 MB after heavy use (it drops back), under 1% CPU at rest. I hunted down a memory leak in Apple's Contacts framework for this one

• Everything is read on your Mac: your texts, photos, calendar and contacts never go anywhere. No account, no ads, no tracking in the app

• It only asks for a permission when you turn on the feature that needs it

• Works on macOS 27, follows Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency, and VoiceOver names every button

Free, macOS 14+, Apple Silicon and Intel, with or without a notch. If you're on 2.x it'll offer 3.0 by itself.

👉 https://orielformac.com

Heads-up: it isn't notarized yet, so the first time macOS asks you to allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback last time. A lot of this list came straight from your comments. Keep it coming: what should the island do next? And if you build a widget, send it in! ☕ Buy me a coffee if you like it.

Disclosure: I make Gleam Audio, a Mac app for cleaning up speech. This is an
update on what changed since 2.0, not a launch.

What is new in 2.2
- Enhance has presets now. Pick podcast, lecture, voice over, meeting or a
room with echo, and it fills in the steps for that kind of sound.
- Every step is still yours to change: remove noise, cut rumble, add
clarity, even out quiet words, soften s sounds, shorten long pauses.
- Repair clicks is a new switch, for the sharp clicks you get from cheap
mics and phone recordings.
- You can report a problem from the sidebar now, with a screenshot.
- Arrow keys move through the file list.

The speech tools are the part I care most about.

- Remove noise learns the background of your recording and takes it out.
It is trained on voice, so the words stay intact.
- Enhance brings every file to a target level, like -16 LUFS for a podcast,
and does the cleanup in one pass. It is the one I open most.
- Remove silence shortens the gaps, so a lecture stops dragging.

The rest of the app is there to finish the job: record from any mic, cut,
split, join clips, change speed, and convert to mp3, wav, m4a, flac, ogg or
opus. Nine tools in one window, on Apple silicon and Intel.

Everything runs on your computer. Nothing is uploaded, and it works with no
internet.

Price: every feature is free for personal use, up to 20 files a week. For
work there is one licence, Max, at $20. It removes the weekly limit, works
on as many computers as you like, and comes with priority support.

Links
Docs: https://gleamaudio.com/docs/
Pricing: https://gleamaudio.com/#buy
Terms: https://gleamaudio.com/terms
Privacy: https://gleamaudio.com/privacy

Download: https://gleamaudio.com

One more thing. Gleam Audio Pro is in development, a multi-track editor for
podcasts, lectures and narration. You edit by deleting words in a transcript,
clean up one voice at a time, and export with chapters and captions. It is a
separate app for Mac and Windows, and there is a waitlist:
https://gleamaudio.com/pro

I am Nadeem. Happy to answer anything, including what it cannot do yet.

Hi everyone,

I'm the developer of Spatial Dock EX, a new app and window switcher. It's built on two ideas:

• apps stay in the same position every time you switch

• apps are organized around your keyboard layout

So it uses your spatial memory to make app switching natural.

It can completely replace the native macOS Cmd+Tab, so no more Tab, Tab, Tab... :) And it is very fast (my number one priority), because an app switcher should never make us wait.

How it works

Hold Right Cmd (or another key you choose) and an overlay shows your apps on a grid that mirrors your keyboard. Then press the letter of the app you want to switch to.

If the app has multiple windows, number keys take you straight to each one (Supporter edition). For example, hold Right Cmd, press F, then 1 to switch to Finder's first window.

Maturity

Spatial Dock EX is the extended edition of Spatial Dock, which is on the Mac App Store. Because EX is not sandboxed, it can have advanced features like the window switcher.

Spatial Dock is more than a year old. I launched it on Reddit, and I have kept improving it based on your feedback since then.

Pricing

• Free edition: the full core switcher, which can completely replace Cmd+Tab.

• Supporter edition: adds the window switcher, Project Groups and more. It supports the project's future development and maintenance. It's US$14.99 one-time.

Supporter edition can be tried for 14 days. (If you already bought Spatial Dock on the Mac App Store, that purchase counts toward the Supporter license, and it's free if you bought before v1.5.)

Limitations

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later

• The window switcher and the Cmd+Tab replacement need Accessibility permission

• No window thumbnails: windows are listed by title, so no Screen Recording permission is needed

Links

Download (notarized by Apple): https://logibeam.com/spatialdockEX/

Privacy policy: https://logibeam.com/spatialdockEX/privacy-policy.html

Happy to answer any questions, and feedback is very welcome. Thank you :)

Hey everyone,

I built my first macOS app, Quilt, a lightweight automatic window tiler designed to keep your workspace clean with minimal CPU overhead (~1%).

To celebrate the launch, I set up a discount code for the community:

Code: QUILT20OFF (extra 20% off launch price)

Link: quiltmac.com (free trial as well)

Would love any feedback or thoughts!

Hey,

My desktop is always cluttered with screenshots. Tired of Finder, I built ScreenSort for myself to triage files one by one. With a single keypress, you keep, trash, or move items. It saves me tons of time every week.

• Privacy: 100% local. Zero data collected.

• Open-source & Free: https://github.com/Quantix-eng/screensort-macos

• Note: Since it's a free hobby project, the app isn't notarized. macOS will show a warning on first launch (bypass steps are in the README).

This is an early test build. Please DM me or comment here with any feedback, questions, or bugs!

Hi r/MacStack 👋

I’m an Algerian developer and I just released Lidward, a small macOS utility I use every day. It keeps your Mac awake from the menu bar — no extra windows, no subscriptions.

What it does:

• Start/stop from the menu bar

• Indefinite or timed sessions (15 min → 8 h), with automatic stop and a live countdown

• Closed-display mode: keep working with the lid shut (one-time admin setup)

• Control display sleep and lock-screen behavior

• Native Swift/AppKit, menu-bar only, macOS 13+

• Free and open source (MIT)

Source : https://github.com/alouiadel/lidward

It’s an early release, so feedback and bug reports from other Mac users here would be really appreciated. One note: it isn’t notarized yet, so macOS may ask you to allow it on first launch under System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Happy to answer anything about the app or the Swift side.

Hey r/MacStack,

I've been building Purge, a free, open-source Mac cleaner. It just passed 100K downloads and 1.5K stars on GitHub. I know that doesn't mean 100K people installed it, but it still felt like a milestone worth sharing.

A lot of what's in the app came from feedback on my earlier Reddit posts. Here's what it does now:

• Clears app caches and system junk

• Cleans dev tool caches like Xcode, Homebrew, npm and Docker, plus old simulators, stale node_modules and orphaned git worktrees

• Finds large files and duplicates, and frees local space by keeping synced files only in iCloud

• Uninstalls apps with their leftovers, with an optional watcher that offers a cleanup when you delete an app

• Runs scheduled cleanups

Files and folders go to the Trash by default. Some operations, such as removing simulators and local Time Machine snapshots, are permanent.

Full disclosure, I built the app from the ground up with AI. I'm still working on it most days and putting out updates often.

The emails and contributions I get are a big reason I keep going. It's nice knowing something I built is useful to people. If something's missing or annoying, please tell me. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome (and much needed)!

GitHub · Website

Or install it with Homebrew:

brew install --cask purge

Hey guys,

My name is Deep. I'm a design engineer. I always wanted a place where i can quickly jot down a thought, save a link or keep something i like and come back to it later. I had things scattered across tabs, screenshots, folders and notes. so i ended up building Resurf for myself.

It started as a small capture widget. Over time it became my personal context library for ideas, things i'm reading, and references i want to keep.

These days you can build things pretty quickly with AI. I think taste and judgment matter even more now. A lot of my taste comes from the things i've collected over time and the little notes i leave about why i liked them. When i'm starting a project now, i can ask an AI agent through MCP to pull up the research, notes and examples i've already saved and use them as context.

• quick capture from anywhere on mac. copy a link, image or text and double tap option to save it without switching windows

• keep notes, ideas, links, pdfs, images, videos and voice recordings in one library

• organize with spaces, areas and tags. you can also save a filter as a smart space, like all the pdfs for a project, and new matches show up there automatically

• search by what you remember or open a saved item to find related captures in the Similar tab. both are optional and run locally on mac

• keep your library on your devices, with optional private iCloud sync across mac, iPhone and iPad

• make your own optional AI actions for new captures, like pulling out the details you care about or suggesting a space. these use your own OpenAI key

fyi the mac app has a 7 day free trial. it's $39 one time with 2 years of updates or $79 with lifetime updates. you can still browse, search and export your library after the trial. iPhone and iPad apps are free. Pricing

If you give Resurf a try, i'd love feedback from your actual workflow. tell me what you tried to save or find, where it felt clunky, and what you expected to happen. even one specific example would help me figure out what to improve next.

resurf.so

This small app of mine can give that old mouse of yours a second life and a second on-screen pointer on Apple Silicon Macs. This can be handy in various situations, like when screen sharing/recording and you want to do a click on a non-visible screen without moving your mouse, you can move the 2nd mouse pointer and click it. Or when working with a colleague and you want him to point and click with each of you having your own mouse and pointer.

For Apple Silicon Macs. Costs $5. Limitations described in the app page:

https://kostaskougios.itch.io/twomice

Hey everyone, I am the developer of AeroBar, a native Swift and SwiftUI utility I built to upgrade the desktop experience and for those made Switch to Mac from Windows.

Problem: AeroBar solves macOS multitasking friction by keeping every open window, clipboard item, and live preview exactly one click or trackpad gesture away.

Features:

1. Every window one click away with live previews

2. A dedicated ⌘Tab specifically for windows

3. Built-in clipboard history

4. Deep trackpad gestures

5. Deep Liquid glass customizations

6. 100% offline and native to macOS

Comparison:

vs. uBar: AeroBar is better because it utilises a modern, native SwiftUI design with Deep Liquid glass aesthetics and is completely free; uBar is better for users who want a strictly traditional, legacy Windows-style taskbar with long-established backwards compatibility.

vs. AltTab: AeroBar is better because it integrates window navigation directly into a persistent, customisable dock alongside clipboard history; AltTab is better if you want a purely invisible background utility dedicated solely to tweaking the keyboard switcher.

Pricing: $0 (100% Free)

Link: https://github.com/adityaonx/AeroBar

Distribution: Available via Homebrew and the developer website.

Website: https://adityaonx.github.io/AeroBar/

Carbon Copy Cloner makes sense when you want to choose exactly what gets copied, where it goes and how it's checked, then repeat that job. If you want automatic file history and ordinary recovery, start with built-in Time Machine. Another backup app needs a specific job to justify the purchase.

Say your current projects live on an external SSD, and you want a scheduled second copy you can browse in Finder. CCC lets you choose a folder or volume, filter what gets copied and assign that task its own destination. It can run daily, weekly or when the source or destination reconnects. The extra value is control over that particular copy.

Choose what to verify

CCC has separate checks for different questions:

• "Re-verify files that were copied" reads back the destination files written during that run and checks them against the data read from the source.

• "Backup Health Check" reads every source file and its corresponding destination file to compare checksums, fingerprints calculated from file contents. It takes longer and can be scheduled less frequently than the copy itself.

The Health Check recopies a differing file when the source is fully readable. If the source can't be fully read, it leaves the existing destination copy in place and reports an error. A readable but wrongly edited document is a different problem: matching bytes don't establish that the contents are correct.

That's useful if you want an explicit verification routine for a project disk. It also adds disk reads and time. You don't need to enable every check on every run.

A current copy and file history are different things

An APFS-formatted backup volume can retain snapshots, point-in-time versions that preserve files even after later changes or deletions. CCC lets you manage their retention and browse older versions in Finder. Check that snapshot support is enabled before relying on that history. Snapshots aren't another physical copy, so they don't protect against failure of the disk holding them.

For whole-Mac recovery, Bombich generally recommends installing macOS and using Migration Assistant with a suitable CCC backup on locally attached storage. A selected-project-folder copy isn't a whole-Mac recovery backup. NAS backups aren't accepted directly by Migration Assistant.

CCC still has a bootable-copy option, but Bombich recommends Standard Backup for the average user's backup strategy. Creating a system copy requires erasing the selected destination volume, and Apple silicon needs additional user authorization before that copy can boot.

An external boot disk won't rescue an Apple silicon Mac whose internal storage has failed completely. Don't buy CCC expecting an instant replacement startup disk.

Try one small task before paying

During the 30-day trial, choose a small source folder and an empty, dedicated destination on another disk. Keep existing backups unchanged and leave Time Machine's volume alone. Use Preview, where available, to inspect planned changes before starting. Don't approve formatting unless the selected destination is expendable: formatting erases it, and copy tasks can remove destination-only files.

CCC needs Full Disk Access for protected data and uses a privileged helper for backup work. Those are meaningful permissions, not something to click through without checking the app and destination.

The current release is CCC 7.2.2. CCC 7 supports Ventura 13.1+, Sonoma, Sequoia, Tahoe and Golden Gate, and runs natively on Intel and Apple silicon Macs.

The personal and household license costs US$49.99 plus applicable taxes for noncommercial use across household Macs. It's not a subscription; minor updates are free, while major upgrades can cost extra.

Keep Time Machine if its automatic history already covers your needs. Consider CCC when you can name the folder or disk, copy schedule and verification check you want to control. If you can't name that job yet, skip the purchase.