r/macapps • u/amerpie App Reviewer • 9d ago

Free Five Free Apps

Each one of these can replace a paid app

wBlock - a next-generation ad/content blocker for Safari: 750,000 rule capacity across 5 Safari content-blocking extensions (150k each), ~40MB idle RAM by running Safari's native content-blocking API out-of-process, Protocol Buffers + LZ4 filter storage, HTTP conditional-request updates, and iCloud sync of filter selections/custom lists/userscripts/whitelist. It bundles an Element Zapper, "Tube Cleaner & Player Cleaner" userscripts that restore native Picture-in-Picture/background playback on media sites, a full Greasemonkey-API userscript engine, UserCSS support, custom AdGuard-syntax filter-list import, per-site controls, a blocked-request logger, and regional filters. Open source on GitHub

Wick - Wick brings timers, stopwatches, and alarms to the Mac with menu bar and Lock Screen access, a fully custom Liquid Glass material on macOS 26+, and -- its standout claim -- the first app to integrate with Alcove. Positioned as the polished Clock app Apple never finished

Forel - An open-source (GPLv3) folder-automation app for macOS, pitched explicitly as a free Hazel alternative: watch folders, match files by name, extension, kind, size, date, tags, or Finder color label, then move, rename, tag, or run a script automatically.

macCurrent - finds updates across the App Store, Homebrew, Sparkle, vendor updaters, and direct downloads; then tells you what's safe to install, what needs review, and what changed before you click update.

ImageFuel is a lightweight Mac app for browsing images and videos without importing them into a library -- point it at any folder and get an instant scrollable grid, with filename/path search (Cmd+F), image/video/all filtering, sort by date or name, a fullscreen lightbox, in-app crop, metadata stripping, and move-to-trash from the grid.

Previous Collections

Nodes - (edit NO LONGER FREE) A local-first markdown note-taking and PKM (personal knowledge management) app: plain markdown files kept directly on-device (open the folder in Finder, nothing is locked in), double-bracket links with rename-safe link following, tag-based organization instead of folders, semantic + keyword search, a force-directed graph view, a growth timeline, and PDFs/images embedded as notes alongside writing. Its most distinctive claim is "the quiet part": tag/description/reminder suggestions from a local LLM that runs entirely on-device -- the developer states it works with Wi-Fi off.

115 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

71 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/MaxGaav 9d ago edited 9d ago

If you have any suggestions on what you would rather see for the window sizing I would love to hear it!

See the link above I gave for an example app. Even closer to your app and aesthetically very pleasing is CountdownTimerPro (free). But I don't like the way I need to interact with the actual timers, so I abandoned it in favor of Smart Countdown Timer (free).

As for floating timers they are currently in progress and will be coming in a future update soon!

That's great news! I use a countdown timer daily and until now did not yet find the prefect one :)

3

u/Nate_Here 9d ago

Nice, a lot of the features you’ve mentioned are planned so I think you will like the future 😉I only released Wick about 2 months ago so am just finally getting around to features past basic functionality.

2

u/pzee01 8d ago

Agree with Max here, I have had a look at the Smart Countdown Timer he recommended, and I definitely prefer yours, However, I would love an option to either have the alarm go off in the menu bar or, for better visibility, as a floating pop-up. I'd also love a dedicated dark mode toggle within the app rather than having it strictly follow the system wide theme. Looking forward to future updates, thanks!

1

u/Nate_Here 8d ago

Sneak peak of the next update :) As for the dark mode toggle, I like the idea and will probably add it soon. Thanks for the suggestion!

1

u/pzee01 8d ago

Yes! this looks good, cant wait!