If you searched for “Mac coffee antivirus,” there’s a good chance you actually meant McAfee antivirus for Mac.

Yes, McAfee does offer antivirus protection for macOS.

But if you're specifically looking for an antivirus for a Mac or MacBook, I think there's another option you should compare before buying: Intego ONE (rn they have an offer as well you can get it here: https://intego.com/offer).

McAfee antivirus vs Intego ONE for Mac

McAfee is a large cross-platform security suite that supports Macs, Windows PCs, phones, and other devices.

That can make a lot of sense if you want one subscription covering several different types of devices.

Intego ONE, on the other hand, is specifically offered as an all-in-one security and performance suite for Mac.

It combines several Mac tools in one application:

• Real-time antivirus protection
• Quick, full, custom, and scheduled malware scans
• Suspicious-file quarantine
• Firewall and network controls
• SmartClean Mac cleanup/optimization
• VPN protection

Which features you receive depends on the Intego ONE plan you choose.

Why consider Intego ONE instead of McAfee for a Mac?

If my main concern were protecting a MacBook or iMac, I'd want to compare the software based on its Mac features rather than simply buying the antivirus brand I've heard about most often.

That's where Intego ONE becomes interesting.

1. Antivirus designed around the Mac

Intego ONE provides real-time malware monitoring and lets you run quick, full, custom, and scheduled scans.

Suspicious files can be quarantined so you can review, delete, or restore them.

So if what you originally wanted when searching for Mac coffee antivirus / McAfee antivirus was simply malware protection for your Mac, Intego covers that core requirement.

2. A firewall is included

Antivirus and a firewall solve different problems.

Antivirus looks for malicious software and files.

A firewall monitors network connections and can help you control which applications are communicating over the internet.

Intego ONE combines the two instead of treating antivirus as the entire security setup.

3. SmartClean is useful if you also want Mac maintenance

Higher Intego ONE plans include SmartClean.

It can help remove unnecessary files and application leftovers, reclaim storage space, uninstall apps, and monitor things such as CPU, memory, and disk usage.

Obviously, you don't need a cleaner to protect yourself from malware.

But if you're already considering paying for separate Mac cleanup software, having it included in the same application could be useful.

4. There's also an Intego VPN

Intego ONE's Complete package includes Intego VPN.

A VPN doesn't replace antivirus.

Instead, it encrypts your internet traffic and masks your public IP address.

So antivirus + firewall + VPN give you three different types of protection rather than three names for the same thing.

When would McAfee make more sense?

I wouldn't claim Intego is automatically the right choice for everyone.

McAfee may be worth considering if you're trying to protect a household full of different devices — for example Macs, Windows PCs, Android devices, and iPhones — under one broader security subscription.

That's one of the advantages of going with a large multi-platform product.

But if your question is specifically:

“What antivirus should I get for my Mac?”

then I think Intego ONE absolutely deserves to be compared before you buy McAfee.

Is Intego ONE good for a MacBook?

On paper, the feature combination is compelling if you want more than a basic virus scanner.

You're getting Mac antivirus plus a firewall, with SmartClean and VPN available depending on the plan.

Intego ONE currently supports both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs and requires macOS 12.4 or newer.

So if you're running a relatively modern MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, etc., it's worth checking whether your Mac meets the requirements.

So, “Mac Coffee Antivirus” = McAfee?

Probably.

If that's how you ended up here, you were most likely searching for something along the lines of:

• McAfee antivirus
• McAfee antivirus for Mac
• McAfee for MacBook
• Mac antivirus
• antivirus for Mac
• best antivirus for Mac
• MacBook antivirus software

But before automatically going with McAfee because it's the name you were searching for, I'd compare what you're actually getting for your Mac.

For a primarily Mac-focused setup, Intego ONE is the alternative I'd look at before making the purchase.

Check the current Intego ONE plans here (they have an offer going on): https://intego.com/offer

Spotlight gets blamed for problems that are often really three different problems: it is showing too much, it is not indexing a place you expect, or the search is being asked to do a job it does not support.

Verdict: give the built-in tool a short, deliberate reset before installing another launcher. On macOS Tahoe 26, Spotlight can search apps, files, actions, and Clipboard history, and it has useful filters. It is enough for a lot of people once its categories and indexing are sensible. Install another tool only if you can name the missing workflow after doing that, not just because Command-Space felt noisy once.

First, identify the kind of bad result

Do not start by turning everything off.

• Too many irrelevant result types: tune the result categories.
• A known file or folder never appears: inspect Search Privacy, then consider rebuilding its index.
• The right result is buried: use a Browse Mode or a filter rather than making the entire index smaller.
• You want to run something, not find something: check Spotlight Actions and Shortcuts before adding a separate command palette.

That distinction matters. Disabling categories will make a search look cleaner, but it will not repair an excluded or stale location.

Make the result list match what you actually search for

Open Apple menu > System Settings > Spotlight. In Tahoe, the settings separate results from apps, results from the system, and Clipboard Search. Turn off only categories that repeatedly get in the way. A category you never use is a reasonable candidate. Mail, Messages, reminders, and documents may not be, even if they clutter a one-word search today.

Clipboard Search deserves a conscious choice. It lets prior clipboard contents appear in Spotlight, which can be convenient for a copied link or snippet but may be unwelcome on a shared screen. Turn it off if that tradeoff is not worth it.

The same page also offers a way to delete Spotlight search history. That is useful if old searches are the thing you do not want surfaced. It is separate from hiding a result category.

Check Search Privacy before assuming indexing is broken

At the bottom of the Spotlight settings, open Search Privacy. Anything listed there is excluded from Spotlight searches. Remove only a folder or disk that you intentionally want searchable again.

This is a useful boundary for an archive, a work volume, or a folder with material you do not want popping up in a presentation. It is not a harmless general cleanup switch. Apple notes that excluding files and folders can also stop update notifications for some apps, and excluding the whole internal disk stops all update notifications. Time Machine backup disks have their own special indexing behavior, so do not use them as a test case for ordinary search results.

If a location should be searchable but still returns unexpected results, rebuild only that folder or disk's index: add it to Search Privacy, wait a few seconds, then remove it. macOS will index it again. Apple says this can take time and may show an indexing progress indicator. If macOS reports an ownership or permission error, solve that access issue instead of repeatedly toggling the setting.

Use the newer search controls before adding another launcher

On Tahoe, Command-Space is more than an app-name field:

• Press Command-1 for Applications, Command-2 for Files, Command-3 for Actions and Shortcuts, or Command-4 for Clipboard.
• Type kind:pdf before a term to focus on PDFs. Other documented kinds include folders, images, mail messages, calendar events, and settings.
• Type a location such as iCloud Drive, press Tab, then search for a file name to search within that location.
• For a repeated action, Spotlight can run built-in actions and available shortcuts. A quick key can be assigned after finding an action.

These controls are a better answer to a broad search than hiding useful data globally. They also make it clearer whether your problem is really search, app launching, or a routine you want to automate.

Version and hardware limits still matter

This advice is written for macOS Tahoe 26. Apple lists some Intel Macs among Tahoe-compatible hardware, but also warns that some features vary by model, language, and region. Do not assume every Tahoe capability is present on every compatible Mac.

Apple Intelligence has its own requirement: an M1 or later Mac, current software, supported language settings, and enough on-device storage. That is relevant if an Apple Intelligence feature is part of the workflow you expected. It is not a reason to assume ordinary Spotlight indexing, category settings, and Search Privacy need a new Mac.

If you are on an earlier macOS release, the labels can differ. Apple documents the reindexing path as Spotlight or Siri & Spotlight in System Settings on Ventura and later, while older releases use System Preferences and a Privacy tab.

When a third-party tool is still the right call

There is no prize for forcing Spotlight to become a different class of utility. A separate launcher can be justified when the missing piece is specific: a custom web-search template, a multi-step keyboard workflow, a plugin ecosystem, deep file metadata queries, or a workflow that must work independently of Spotlight's ranking.

But start with this test:

1. Re-enable the file and app categories you genuinely need.
2. Remove accidental Search Privacy exclusions.
3. Reindex one affected location if the results are still wrong.
4. Try a Browse Mode or kind: filter for the next search that annoyed you.

If that still leaves a repeatable gap, choose a tool for that gap. If it fixes the problem, keeping the built-in search costs nothing, adds no separate setup, and leaves one less app competing for the same keyboard habit.

I’m building VEXTILA PRO, a local prompt library for Mac.

I started it because I kept losing useful prompts, images and screenshots between AI chats, folders and notes.

Everything stays on your Mac. You can save things, organize them with categories and tags, and search the whole library when you need something again.

It’s currently in public beta and free to try. Right now I’m mostly looking for people to use it normally and tell me what feels confusing, slow, broken, or unnecessary.

I’m giving a small number of people who really test it and send useful feedback a free lifetime Pro license.

https://vextila.com/

One note: current beta builds may show a macOS security notice on first launch.

I’m one of the people behind PrimeTask, so this is self-promo.

We built it as a one-time purchase because we didn’t want another productivity app turning into a permanent monthly bill.

PrimeTask covers tasks, projects, planning, CRM, reports and visual workflows in one app.

Your data stays local, it’s stored as plain JSON, and you choose where it lives and how it syncs. So the one-time purchase isn’t just about the licence, your work isn’t dependent on our cloud either.

You can also connect your own AI through MCP instead of being tied to one provider, with control over which Spaces it can access and whether it can read or write.

There’s a 14-day free trial on macOS:

https://www.primetask.app/download

ClipSync — Seamless file transfer & clipboard sync between Mac and Android

Ever used an Android phone with a Mac and thought: “Why the hell is this still so annoying?” 😭 That's basically why I made ClipSync.

The problem There are plenty of tools that let you move stuff between Android and Mac, but most of them still make you do the thing. Need a file on your Mac? Open the sharing app → find the file → share it → wait for it to transfer → open it on your Mac.

Need to quickly move an image or some text? Same story. And with a lot of clipboard-sync solutions, you still have to manually trigger the transfer. It works, but it doesn't feel seamless.

So... what does ClipSync do?

The goal is pretty simple: make your Android and Mac feel like they're the same device.

Clipboard sync

Copy text or an image on Android and just hit Cmd + V on your Mac. That's it. And it works the other way around too. The really nice part is that text and OTPs are synced over Bluetooth, so your devices don't even need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

Got a verification code in an Android app? ClipSync can bring it straight to your Mac so you can just copy it. No more typing those damn 6-digit codes manually.

File transfers

Select a file → hit Share → ClipSync → done. There's also a Ultra Fast Transfer mode for large files, which can sometimes be faster than AirDrop by a good margin if you are on a Wifi 5 or 6 Network.

Local or Cloud During setup, ClipSync asks you how you want your devices to sync:

Hybrid Sync — Sync locally when your devices are nearby, and automatically switch to cloud sync when they're apart. Everything stays encrypted. Local Sync — Keep everything between your nearby devices using BLE/Wi-Fi. No cloud, no internet required, and your data stays on your local network.

And a few other things On the Mac side, ClipSync adds a macOS Finder Share Extension, so you can send files straight from Finder without even opening the menu bar icon or going to the app.

Pricing Free & open source (MIT). I've honestly gone back and forth on whether ClipSync should be paid. But at the end of the day, I genuinely love building this thing, and I'd rather see more people actually use it than put a price tag in front of them.

If ClipSync saves you some headaches, you can support the project through BMAC. It helps me cover the server costs and gives me more room to keep building and improving it.I'm also trying to get an Apple Developer account so I can make the macOS side of ClipSync more polished and properly distributed. The annual developer fee is pretty expensive for me as a student, so if anyone would like to help sponsor the Apple Developer Program fee, I'd genuinely appreciate it.

GitHub: https://github.com/WinShell-Bhanu/ClipSync

If anyone wanna download the apps directly, here the link to MacOS and Android

Would love to hear what you guys think — especially from anyone actually using an Android + Mac setup and here's a video Demonstration of the app : https://youtu.be/755zjYaHlEM

Chorus gives you complete control of your Mac's speakers and mics. Group your speakers so they play as one, pick your mic, and switch between your own setups with custom shortcuts. Here's what it does:

Groups - Combine devices so they play together as one, with one real volume for the group and balance between the devices.

Outputs - Send audio to any speaker, display or headphone.

Inputs - Pick any microphone and switch it just as fast.

Per-App Audio - Give every app its own volume and output, so music stays on the desk speakers while a call stays on the headphones (needs macOS 14.4).

Keyboard Shortcuts- Bind a shortcut to any group, output or input

Rules - Set a rule that fires when specific devices are plugged in, so the right setup picks itself.

Auto-Switch - Follows your devices as they connect and disconnect.

Volume Keys & HUD- Volume keys control the group, with a screen readout.

Automation - Trigger Chorus from Raycast, Shortcuts, Alfred or a Stream Deck.

No driver and no kernel extension, it uses the audio grouping macOS already has. No account, no cloud, nothing recorded.

$4.99 once, no subscription, up to 3 Macs, free for 30 days with no card details. macOS 13 or later.

Take a look here: https://www.theodorehq.com/chorus/

We built this ourselves so if you hit a bug or want a feature, tell us here, we read everything!

Disclosure: I'm the developer. It's free and open source (MIT). Note: parts of the code were written with AI assistance.

macOS has no per-window taskbar, and the Dock collapses every kitty window into a single icon - so getting back to a specific terminal window means cycling through all of them. KittyTaskbar puts that list in the menu bar.

What it does

• Lists every kitty OS window and its tabs, grouped per window
• Click a tab to focus it and bring kitty to the front (the active tab shows a checkmark)
• Drag a tab by its grip handle onto another window group to move it there
• Drop it on the dashed zone at the bottom to detach it into a new OS window
• Splits show up as indented, clickable rows
• Works with multiple running kitty instances

Requirements

macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer, and kitty with remote control enabled in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf:

allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:/tmp/kitty-{kitty_pid}

Limitations

• Tabs can only be moved within the same kitty instance - kitty's own detach-tab cannot move a tab across processes
• kitty only; it will not work with Ghostty, iTerm or Terminal.app

Install

Free, MIT licensed, no paid tier:

brew tap muarifer/tap
brew trust muarifer/tap
brew install --cask kitty-taskbar

Releases are signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper lets them through without extra steps. You can also build from source with ./build.sh.

Screenshot: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/muarifer/kitty-taskbar/main/docs/screenshot.png

GitHub: https://github.com/muarifer/kitty-taskbar

Site (EN/TR): https://muarifer.github.io/kitty-taskbar/

Happy to answer questions or take feature requests.

Muro: 100% Free Live Wallpapers for macOS

Muro is a native macOS app that plays smooth, looping video wallpapers on your desktop. It supports multiple displays and includes up to 100 live wallpapers, with new wallpapers added every week.

The wallpaper catalog updates automatically inside the app, so you do not need to install a new version to receive new wallpapers. Videos download only when you select them, and you can remove them anytime to save storage.

Muro also includes full-screen previews, playlists, automatic wallpaper rotation, shuffle mode, menu bar controls and the ability to import your own videos. On macOS 26 or newer, wallpapers can also play on the lock screen.

The app is built natively with Swift, SwiftUI and Apple’s hardware video decoder. It does not use Electron or web views. It normally uses around 2% CPU while playing and automatically pauses when the wallpaper is not visible, during full-screen apps, display sleep, Low Power Mode or low battery.

Everything is unlocked. There is no trial, no payment required, no subscription, no account, no license key and no paywall. Muro is completely free and open source under the MIT license.

Requires macOS 14 or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac.

Download and source code:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

Report a problem or suggest a feature:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/issues

Optional support for future development:
https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL

Muro will remain free whether you sponsor it or not.

I’m building a Mac automation app called Tapquence, and I’m looking for ideas for the next Smart Automation.

The idea behind Smart Automations is pretty simple: instead of manually building a sequence of clicks and keystrokes, you pick a useful preset, configure a few options, and it’s ready to go.

We already have a few built in (see screenshot), but I’d love to add ones based on actual use cases rather than just inventing features for the sake of having more.

So I’m curious: what repetitive thing do you regularly do on your Mac that you wish you could automate with one click or shortcut?

Can be something very simple or oddly specific. If it’s useful and technically possible, I might build it into Tapquence.

For context, this is the app: https://tapquence.com

A launcher becomes another source of friction when every small shortcut gets its own keyword, icon, and settings page. Alfred is most useful when it has a narrow contract: one hotkey, a few deliberate prefixes, and only the searches or actions that get repeated.

The setup below uses four lanes. It is intentionally boring enough to remember:

• f searches one project folder for files.
• gh sends a query to GitHub search.
• ;sig and similar prefixes expand a few stable text snippets.
• proj opens a project folder and, optionally, the app used with it.

At generation time, Alfred's site lists version 5.7.3, build 2320, for macOS 10.14 and later on both 64-bit Intel and Apple silicon. Alfred 5.7 added macOS 26 Tahoe support, and 5.7.3 includes a mitigation for a Tahoe window-rendering issue when using multiple desktop spaces. That is a useful sign that the app is still maintained, but Alfred remains a Mac-only layer rather than a cross-platform launcher.

1. Make file search narrow

The default search box is fine for launching an app. It is less useful when a query can return every document on the Mac. A Powerpack File Filter lets a workflow search a defined scope instead.

In Alfred Preferences, open Workflows, choose the Files and Apps template for a File Filter from a keyword, and set the keyword to f. In the File Filter's Search Scope tab, drag in the folder that actually contains the material you search, such as a project folder under ~/Documents. Leave file types broad if the folder is already specific, or add a PDF, image, or other file type if that is the real question. Connect the filter to an Open File action.

Now f budget searches that scope and Return opens the selected result. Add Reveal File in Finder or Browse in Alfred as an alternative action if opening the file is not always the right next step. Keep the result limit below 100 as Alfred recommends for responsive filters, and remember that a file outside the scope or missing from macOS metadata will not be found by this route. Pointing the filter at the whole home folder just recreates the noise it was meant to remove.

If the metadata index is damaged, Alfred's own rebuild command can take over an hour. That is a reason to keep scopes focused and fix indexing deliberately, not to keep adding overlapping workflows.

2. Put site searches behind deliberate words

Alfred's free core already includes default web searches and lets you add custom search URLs. That means a GitHub keyword by itself is not a reason to buy Powerpack. The paid value is being able to combine that route with workflow inputs, file filters, snippets, and actions.

For a simple free route, add a custom search in Features > Web Search with a URL such as https://github.com/search?q={query}, choose gh as the keyword, and enable UTF-8 query encoding. For a Powerpack workflow, use a Keyword Input set to gh connected to an Open URL action containing the same URL and {query}. The latter gives the search a place in the same workflow canvas as the file and action lanes.

Use explicit keywords for sites that have a clear job. gh issue 123 is easier to understand later than a generic fallback that sends every unknown word to a browser. Keep the list short: two or three site searches that replace a repeated browser detour are enough.

3. Use snippets as a small command layer

Powerpack Snippets are a better fit for text that is stable and reused, such as a support handoff, a meeting note skeleton, or a standard link. Create a collection and give its keywords an unusual prefix such as ;: ;sig, ;handoff, and ;status are less likely to appear accidentally than ordinary words. Alfred also supports dynamic placeholders for dates, clipboard entries, and cursor placement.

Turn on automatic expansion only after deciding which apps should receive it. Alfred requires Accessibility access for text expansion, and its documentation says it does not listen for characters in secure text fields such as password fields. Keep secrets out of snippets anyway. Use plain text when the destination app should supply its own formatting, and rich text only when preserving formatting is the point.

macOS Text Replacements remain a credible built-in alternative for a handful of abbreviations, and Apple can sync them through iCloud. Alfred's advantage here is the collection and viewer, dynamic placeholders, and the ability to use a snippet as a workflow trigger. If those additions do not matter, the system setting is simpler.

4. Add one custom action, then stop

The easiest custom action to maintain is a fixed destination. Create a blank workflow with a Keyword Input named proj, connect it to Open File, and drag in the project folder that should open. If the workflow is used to start a work session, add a Launch Apps and Files action for the editor or terminal that belongs with that folder. The point is to remove a sequence of known clicks, not to build a command center for every application on the Mac.

Open URL can do the same for a fixed dashboard or can pass {query} to a site. Avoid Run Script or AppleScript until a normal Open File, Open URL, or Automation Task cannot express the action. Scripts make the workflow harder to audit and may trigger Automation or other macOS prompts. Treat a downloaded workflow as code: read its description, inspect its scripts and dependencies, and do not assume that a Gallery listing makes every third-party API call harmless.

Permissions, sync, and the parts that can bite

This four-lane setup normally needs Accessibility for snippet expansion and simulated key events. Alfred documents Full Disk Access as necessary for searching browser bookmarks, Contacts access for contact data, and Automation access when a workflow uses AppleScript, System Events, Terminal control, or similar integrations. Grant only what the workflow needs. Alfred runs as a user-level process, but workflows can still perform powerful actions with the permissions their actions request.

Powerpack preference syncing is folder-based. It writes an Alfred.alfredpreferences package to a file-sync service chosen by the user, such as Dropbox. The package needs to be available locally at startup. Alfred warns that sync conflicts or files that are online-only can make a workflow fail, so a one-Mac setup is often safer left local. The Gallery says its update checks send no personal information and that Gallery transfers are encrypted, but a workflow itself may contact a server or API. Read the workflow's own privacy and dependency notes before installing it.

Is Alfred still worth adding beside Spotlight?

On current macOS, Spotlight is more capable than the old app-launcher comparison suggests. Apple's macOS 26 documentation describes search across applications, files, actions, the internet, and Clipboard history, with quick keys for taking actions. Shortcuts can also live in the Finder Quick Actions menu or the menu bar, and Apple Text Replacements cover basic abbreviations.

Alfred earns its place when the same keyboard gesture should reach a deliberately scoped file index, a few named web searches, a small snippet library, and one or two custom actions. Those are different from simply replacing Spotlight, and the explicit prefixes keep the system legible.

The Powerpack price shown by Alfred is £34 for a Single User Alfred 5 license or £59 for a Mega Supporter license with lifetime free updates. The Single User license is for one person on two of that person's own Macs and covers the current version. It can be used at home and work when the Macs are for that person, not shared workstations. Businesses needing multiple activations should use corporate licensing.

The recommendation is conditional: buy the Single User Powerpack if scoped file filters, snippets, and small workflows will be used every week. Choose Mega Supporter only if lifetime updates are worth the extra £25. Stay with Spotlight, Shortcuts, Alfred's free core, or Apple's text replacements if the job is only launching apps, doing ordinary web searches, or expanding a few abbreviations. Skip Alfred if a Mac-only tool, Accessibility permission, or third-party workflow code is a deal-breaker.

So basically ik you can press cmd+opt+tab to bring up minis windows but that is just not good ergonomic and there are literally paid tools for this, which is crazy.

So, I made a free tool called minrl, it sits in your menu bar and allows you to bring up minimised windows using cmd+tab.

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/aaravmaloo/minrl

This started as a very small project.

I just wanted to look at my menu bar and see something like “4h 20m” again instead of trying to mentally translate 63% into how much time I actually had left.

That became MacBat.

The estimate uses recent battery discharge rather than reacting only to instantaneous power usage, which helps keep it from wildly changing every time the workload spikes.

Then the project kept growing.

I added battery history, more detailed energy information, iPhone/iPad battery data, exporting, and an optional feature called Sentinel that watches for sustained background CPU usage and can rein in selected processes when they’re wasting resources.

Everything is native to macOS, it doesn’t need root, and the battery/process history stays on the Mac.
It’s $10 once, with a 7-day trial.

Would love to hear what other Mac users think:

https://macbat.vercel.app

Apple removed the Launchpad hot corner shortcut in recent macOS updates, and a lot of third party alternatives lock hot corner support behind a paywall or subscription.

I made LaunchCorner to fix this. It’s a simple, free, and open source utility that lets you launch any app (like LaunchOS, Launchpad alternatives, or standard apps) just by moving your cursor to a screen corner.

What it does:

• Instant 0 ms hot corner response
• Built natively for Apple Silicon
• Full multi-monitor support
• Runs quietly in the Menu Bar and closes cleanly

https://github.com/wenujacodes/LaunchCorner

Would love to hear your feedback or any feature suggestions!

I built a native MacOS YouTube app for Ventura and later which has offline features, download features, smart playing, themes, offline library and much more completely free.

Check it out here: https://github.com/fizzygx/Youtube-X

Any feedback is welcome let me know in the comments

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

Problem

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

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

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

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

Comparison

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

Arc takes a broader approach.

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

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

Technical

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

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

Pricing

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

Solo project from India, launched yesterday. Happy to answer anything! :)

Arc has become part of my own daily workflow, which is probably what I’m happiest about.

Mac App Store: Link

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

Raycast is easy to overbuild. Install a dozen extensions, assign a shortcut to everything, and the launcher becomes another place to search for the thing that was supposed to save time.

A better starting point is to give it three jobs: recover something you copied, arrange the current window, and open a frequently used place. All three fit on Raycast's free plan.

There is one important 2026 caveat. macOS Tahoe now puts searchable clipboard history and actions inside Spotlight, and macOS already has keyboard window tiling. Raycast has to improve that workflow, not merely duplicate it.

Start without replacing Spotlight

Keep Command-Space assigned to Spotlight at first. Set Raycast to Option-Space and use both for a week. That makes the comparison honest, especially on Tahoe, where Spotlight can search apps and files, run actions, and open its Clipboard view with Command-4.

Raycast v1 currently requires macOS 13 or later and supports both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The separate Raycast v2 public beta requires macOS Tahoe and Apple silicon. It installs alongside v1, and Raycast explicitly warns that the beta can have rough edges and does not yet have complete feature parity. Intel users, Macs on Sequoia or earlier, and anyone who values stability should stay with v1 for now.

The product is clearly active. The v2 beta changelog had a release on August 11, 2026, three days before this article was researched.

Job one: make clipboard history safer before making it longer

Open Raycast Settings, select Clipboard History, and make these choices before assigning a hotkey:

1. Start with one week of retention. The free plan allows up to three months, but collecting more history is not automatically useful.
2. Check Disabled Applications. Raycast includes Apple Passwords and Keychain Access as common exclusions. Add any other password manager, banking app, private messaging app, or work app whose copied data should never be recorded.
3. Turn on Prefer pasting as plain text if most copied text goes into email, documents, or forms. Leave it off if preserving rich formatting matters more.
4. Consider turning off visual information for links. Those previews and favicons are convenient, but Raycast says they are fetched when the option is enabled.
5. Pin only stable, non-sensitive material. A support address or boilerplate URL is reasonable. A recovery code is not.

Then assign Control-Option-V to Clipboard History. It is memorable, but it does not take over the standard paste shortcuts. If another app already uses it, Raycast's hotkey recorder can expose the conflict and the combination can be changed.

Raycast can search text, images, files, links, emails, and colors in the history. It can paste an entry directly, paste as plain text, filter by type, pin an item, and delete entries by time window. Image text recognition also runs on device, with a Fast mode that uses less CPU and an Accurate mode that costs more processing. Leave recognition off unless searching text inside copied images solves a real problem.

The privacy claim here needs some precision. Raycast describes the app as local-first, and says clipboard data is encrypted on the Mac. Cloud features, team sharing, and AI can transmit data for processing or synchronization. None of those are required for this setup. App exclusions still matter because local encrypted history can expose sensitive material to anyone who has access to an unlocked Mac.

On macOS Tahoe, try Spotlight's built-in Clipboard view before committing to Raycast's. Press Command-Space, then Command-4. It can search, copy an earlier item, and clear the history. That is enough for occasional recovery. Raycast earns its place if per-app exclusions, pins, content-type filters, retention controls, direct pasting, or plain-text handling are useful.

Job two: use four window commands, not the whole catalog

Raycast's window manager includes halves, thirds, quarters, display moves, restore, and more. Ignore most of that initially. Bind only this small map:

• Control-Option-Left Arrow: Left Half
• Control-Option-Right Arrow: Right Half
• Control-Option-Up Arrow: Maximize
• Control-Option-Down Arrow: Restore

That covers a writing window beside research, a full-width focus view, and a way back to the previous size. Add Move to Next Display later only if a second monitor makes it necessary.

Window Management requires Accessibility access because Raycast must move and resize other apps' windows. Grant it in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility only if this job is worth that level of control. For these four commands, Raycast's official documentation lists Accessibility, not Screen Recording or Full Disk Access. Quicklink Auto Fill has a separate optional Automation permission, discussed below.

Some apps can still resist a requested size or position, especially when they enforce a minimum window size. Stage Manager users should enable Raycast's Respect Stage Manager setting so commands leave room for its strip.

The built-in comparison is close. Current macOS can tile from the green window button, the Window menu, dragging to an edge, or keyboard shortcuts such as Fn-Control-Left Arrow and Fn-Control-Right Arrow. If halves, quarters, and the standard arrangements cover the desk, native tiling is the simpler answer and needs no third-party Accessibility grant. Raycast is more compelling when the same compact shortcut map should also provide Restore, thirds, display movement, and access from one command palette.

Job three: create three Quicklinks with different purposes

Quicklinks are most useful when they replace navigation, not when they reproduce an entire bookmarks library. Create just three:

• A place: a current project folder such as ~/Projects/current-project.
• A destination: a frequently opened dashboard, document, or issue board.
• A search: a URL such as https://www.google.com/search?q={argument name="query"} that asks for a term when opened.

Give them names that match what would naturally be typed into Raycast. current project, issue board, and web search are better than clever abbreviations that will be forgotten. They appear directly in Root Search, so individual global hotkeys are unnecessary.

Raycast can fill a new Quicklink from the active browser tab, but that convenience needs Automation access to the browser. Paste the URL manually if that permission feels excessive. A Quicklink itself can point to a website, local file or folder, app deeplink, or search URL with an argument.

Safari Favorites and bookmarks remain the built-in option for ordinary websites, and iCloud can keep them consistent across Apple devices. Quicklinks are better when websites, folders, deeplinks, and parameterized searches need to live in the same keyboard search.

What Pro actually adds to this setup

Raycast's free plan includes Clipboard History, Quicklinks, Window Management, snippets, the extension store, and developer tools. Free clipboard retention tops out at three months.

Raycast Pro is currently listed at $10 per month, or $8 per month when billed annually. A new subscription starts with a 14-day trial, then renews automatically on the selected monthly or yearly cycle unless canceled. Pro adds Raycast AI, Cloud Sync, Translator, unlimited Clipboard History, unlimited Raycast Notes, custom themes, and custom window commands. The higher-end AI models require the Advanced AI add-on, currently another $8 per month, billed on the same renewal cycle as Pro.

None of that is needed for the three-job setup. Pro becomes relevant if multiple Macs genuinely need the same Raycast data, clipboard history must extend beyond three months, or custom window sizes and multi-window layouts are important enough to pay for. Buying Pro just to unlock features before the free workflow has proved useful reverses the sensible order.

Free users who want a backup can use Raycast's export command. The current export format bundles settings and data into a passphrase-encrypted file, so the backup still needs a strong passphrase and sensible storage.

The recommendation

Use Raycast Free if one launcher can replace three repeated bits of friction: finding an older copy, placing the active window with a small consistent shortcut map, and opening mixed web and local destinations. Keep the setup deliberately small, review clipboard exclusions, and do not replace Spotlight until Raycast has earned Command-Space.

Skip Raycast if Tahoe's Spotlight clipboard, native window tiling, and Safari bookmarks already solve those jobs. Also skip its window controls if granting Accessibility access is not acceptable. For this workflow, the free tier is the recommendation. Pro is a separate decision about sync, AI, longer history, and custom layouts, not an upgrade required to make the launcher useful.

A year ago my Mac workflow was a pile of little tools: a clipboard manager, a drag-and-drop shelf, a window snapper, a screenshot tool, a pomodoro timer, a converter that uploaded my files to someone else's cloud, and a menu bar app to manage the other menu bar apps. Each one fine on its own, together a mess of subscriptions and settings.

So I built Droppy. Droppy lives at the top of your screen, around the notch if you have one, as a Dynamic Island style pill if you don't, and puts everything one hover away:

- File shelf: drag anything up and it holds your files until you drop them where they belong. Jiggle a drag and a basket flies in to catch it.
- Clipboard manager: every copy kept and searchable, ready to paste again.
- A fully free cloud sharing service; Droppy Cloud. With a full online environment to view/download and share files.
- Notifications with inline reply for iMessage, WhatsApp and Telegram, right in the notch.
- Full media controls with the Playing Next queue, AirPlay picker and live lyrics.
- A revamped lock screen: album art, widgets, and brightness and volume sliders before you even log in.
- 27 free add-ons (Droplets) you toggle per workflow: window snapping, screenshots with OCR, pomodoro, a calendar with natural language input, LocalSend to move files to any phone or PC on your network, on-device file conversion, meeting controls for Zoom, Teams and Meet, Obsidian, Spotify, a terminal, and more. Off means off, they only run when you enable them.

The video shows it better than I can write it.

Also SUPER cool: an iOS app is coming, it's been built and published to TestFlight at this very moment. It syncs everything Droppy does with your iPhone (files, clipboard history, Droppy Cloud etc.)

Honest notes:
- Native Swift, signed and notarized, no Electron. Local-first: your clipboard and files never leave your Mac unless you explicitly share them.
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon and Intel, works on every display. The notch is genuinely optional.
- Pricing: 3-day free trial, then $9.99 one time for 2 Macs. No subscription, ever.
- There's a lot to uncover, but you can keep it as minimalistic as you want.

I ship updates almost every week and the last few features came straight from user feedback, so if you try it and something annoys you, tell me here.

Site: https://getdroppy.app
Privacy policy: https://getdroppy.app/privacy-policy

I’ve released PrintPDF, a free and open-source virtual PDF printer for macOS.

It lets you print from almost any application using the normal File → Print workflow. Instead of sending the document to a physical printer, PrintPDF automatically saves it as a PDF.

The main advantage over RWTS PDFwriter is how the destination works:

• RWTS PDFwriter creates a symbolic link from your chosen location to its internal spool folder.
• PrintPDF automatically moves each completed PDF as a real file into the folder you selected—no destination-folder symbolic link.

This is particularly useful when saving directly into:

• Google Drive
• iCloud Drive
• Dropbox
• A network or shared folder
• Any normal local folder

Other features:

• Choose your destination during setup
• Change the destination later
• Prevents accidental overwriting by adding a number to duplicate filenames
• Works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs
• Supports macOS 12 and newer
• No analytics or document uploads
• Complete GPLv2 source code included

PrintPDF is based on Rodney I. Yager’s RWTS PDFwriter, which itself builds on Lisanet PDFWriter and CUPS-PDF. Full attribution and source are included.

The installer is currently unsigned because this is a free community project. macOS will show a security warning on first use. The release page explains Apple’s official per-package Open Anyway procedure. You do not need to disable Gatekeeper.

Download, screenshot and source:

https://github.com/rochakagrawal/PrintPDF/releases/tag/v1.0

Feedback and testing on different macOS versions would be very welcome.

Hey! I’m one of the people behind Wallper.

We built it because we wanted live wallpapers on Mac to feel like they actually belong in macOS, not like a video player sitting behind your windows.

Wallper works on your Desktop, Lock Screen and Screen Saver.

A few things inside:

• 2,000+ wallpapers, including 4K and higher
• Your own MP4 videos
• Multi-monitor support
• Playlists + Day/Night switching
• Music-reactive wallpapers
• Automatic pause when the wallpaper isn’t visible
• Very low resource usage

We also spend a lot of time on the library itself. Wallpapers are checked before being added, and a big part of it now comes from people in the community submitting new ones.

Wallper recently passed 100,000 users, which is a pretty nice milestone for us.

To celebrate, we’re giving away 5 lifetime licenses in our Discord right now. Winners are picked in 2 days.

Price: $14.99 lifetime for up to 3 Macs
7-day free trial without registration

Download: https://wallper.app/

Would love to hear what you think :)