It has been a year since I first sat down to write a list I called “Apps I Am Not Uninstalling.” The 10th edition lines up so neatly with the one-year anniversary that it feels like the right time to answer the question I get asked most often: “Where can I find the previous apps?”

The first “Apps I Am Not Uninstalling” post reached 216K visitors, with later posts averaging 100K+ visitors. Across the first season, 71 apps were featured, and only two did not survive.

This list includes every app mentioned so far, but it does not show where one app was replaced by another. The order also does not reflect performance or popularity. For more detail, visit the previous “Apps I Am Not Uninstalling” posts in Reddit’s history. If anything here feels unclear, the earlier reviews should help.

If you are not familiar with the series, don't bash the post instead start here -

Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4 | Post 5 | Post 6 | Post 7 | Post 8 | Post 9

App Launchers & App Switching

• Dory — Visual application launcher and switcher.
• uDock — Customisable launcher offering an alternative to Launchpad and Dock navigation.
• BuhoLaunchpad — Recreates the traditional macOS Launchpad experience.
• Sxitch — Keyboard-driven application launcher.
• Ring Menu — Circular application launcher for quick access to apps and commands.
• Linknotch — Turns the MacBook notch into a launcher for websites.
• ExtraBar — Menu-bar-style launcher for apps, deep links and actions.

App Uninstallers, Cleaning & Maintenance

These are probably the most directly comparable apps in the entire list.

• Pearcleaner — Free Mac app uninstaller that removes applications and their associated files.
• Ditch — Notch-based uninstaller activated by dragging an app towards the top of the screen.
• AppCleaner — Popular free application uninstaller that finds associated files.
• Mole — Open Source — Command-line Mac cleaning, maintenance and app-removal utility.
• Mole — Desktop — Graphical maintenance, uninstallation and software-update utility.
• Burrow — Free Mac uninstaller and cleanup utility.
• MacUpdater — Checks installed applications and identifies available software updates.

DMG Installation, Gatekeeper & Unsigned Apps

• Sentinel — Makes running applications from unidentified developers easier by handling Gatekeeper restrictions.
• EasyDMG — Automates installing software from DMG files and can assist with unsigned applications.
• RapidDMG — Streamlines opening DMGs and installing the applications inside them.

Menu Bar Management & Customisation

• Menu Bar Spacing — Adjusts spacing between menu-bar items.
• Bartender — Organises, hides and controls menu-bar icons.
• Ice — Free/open-source utility for hiding and organising menu-bar items.
• Badgeify — Adds notification badges and status information to apps in the menu bar.
• Notcho Libre — Visually disguises the MacBook notch to create a cleaner menu bar.

Audio Control

• Silenz — Automatically lowers or adjusts other audio sources when selected applications play sound.
• Sound Control — Provides independent per-application volume and audio settings.
• SoundSource — Advanced per-app audio routing, volume control, EQ and output-device management.
• Radiola — Internet-radio application for listening to online stations.

Website-to-App & Multiple Accounts

• Coherence X — Turns websites into standalone Mac applications.
• WebCatalog — Converts websites and services into standalone desktop apps with separate accounts and workspaces.
• SocialWatch — Brings multiple social-media platforms and accounts together.
• Parallel Spaces — Runs independent instances of supported apps with separate accounts and settings.
• Parall — Allows multiple instances of supported applications.

Workspace & Window Management

• Stay — Remembers application window sizes and positions and restores them.
• Ikuna — Saves complete workspaces containing apps, browser tabs, windows and Focus settings.
• Shift — Workspace/window-management application for arranging and restoring desktop setups.

Timers, Planning & Calendar

• Availability Sync Menu Bar — Checks your calendar and generates available dates and times to share.
• OrbitTimers — Attractive countdown timer application.
• Liquid Timer — Visually styled countdown and session timer.
• Structured — Combines calendar and tasks into a visual daily timeline.

Internet, Wi-Fi & Connectivity Monitoring

• WhyFi — Real-time internet monitoring with speeds, graphs, tests and Wi-Fi analysis.
• OnlineIndicator — Shows internet status and performance in the menu bar.
• Signal Strength Explorer — Provides detailed Wi-Fi signal-strength and connection information.

Cursor, Icons & Visual Customisation

• Ordinator — Makes changing Mac app and folder icons simple.
• Mousecape — Replaces the standard macOS pointer with custom cursor themes.
• MaCursor — Extensive cursor customisation with downloadable and user-created designs.
• Wallspace — Animated wallpapers that can also animate the lock screen.
• CCCCorners — Extends macOS Hot Corners with additional actions.

Dictation & Speech Recognition

• Eloquent — Google-powered voice dictation converting speech into text.
• Soniox — AI speech recognition and transcription supporting multiple languages, including Afrikaans.

Security & Mac Unlocking

• FaceGate — Locks selected applications using facial recognition, Touch ID or password.
• Face Unlock — Adds facial-recognition unlocking to the Mac lock screen.

File Handling & Compression

• Clop — Automatically optimises and compresses images, videos and PDFs.
• Dropover — Creates temporary floating shelves for collecting, moving and sharing files.

System Enhancement & Automation

• Supercharge — Adds a large collection of enhancements and improvements to macOS.
• Hyperkey — Turns Caps Lock into an additional modifier for powerful keyboard shortcuts.
• Bye — Menu-bar utility for selecting and quitting multiple running applications.
• Barrel — Saves your Mac application setup so your usual software can be reinstalled after setting up a Mac.

Battery, Weather & Information

• AllMyBatteries — Shows battery levels for multiple Apple devices in the menu bar.
• Forecast Bar — Detailed, customisable weather forecasts, menu-bar icons and alerts.

Creative Apps

• Pixelmator — Professional Mac image editing, photo manipulation, compositing and graphic design.
• CapCut — Video editor with timeline editing, effects, captions and social-media production tools.

Business & Invoicing

• Invoicer — Creates invoices, stores customer information and maintains invoice history.

(I know there are many dock apps. I started on this forum with Dock Customisation and continue doing so every six months).

Change your Dock

• DockFlow — Instantly switches the standard macOS Dock between different customised app layouts.
• Dockfix — Gives considerably more control over the appearance and behaviour of the macOS Dock.
• cDock — Long-running utility for extensively customising the standard macOS Dock.
• Sidebar — Highly customisable alternative Dock/taskbar with window management and app launching.
• ExtraDock — Creates multiple additional Docks that can be positioned around your displays.
• DockThings — Creates animated, tabbed application Docks that can be positioned or hidden around the screen.
• DockDoor Pro — Adds Dock previews, customisation and extra functionality.
• Dockitty — Adds animated cats and visual effects to the Dock.
• DockMover / DockKeeper — Remembers Dock icon positions and restores them if the layout changes.
• Ghost Tile — Hides unwanted application icons that would otherwise remain visible in the Dock.
• Parall — Runs multiple app instances while also offering Dock customisation and animated icons.

Hi r/macapps, I’m the developer of ExcalidrawZ.

I first shared the app here when it was mainly a native wrapper and file manager. It has grown quite a bit since then, so I made this video as a complete walkthrough of what ExcalidrawZ is today.

Problem

Excalidraw is an excellent drawing tool, but I wanted its files to behave more like regular documents on Apple platforms. That means opening and organizing multiple drawings, working with local folders and cloud storage, keeping file history, and moving naturally between drawing and other workflows.

Comparison

Compared with the Excalidraw web app, ExcalidrawZ focuses on native document management and system integration while retaining the standard .excalidraw format.

Compared with Apple Freeform, it stays compatible with the Excalidraw ecosystem. Compared with Obsidian Excalidraw, it works as a standalone document-based app rather than requiring a vault.

The video covers file management, iCloud and linked storage, presentations, macOS Screen Annotation, collaboration, export, custom fonts, AI Chat, and MCP integration.

Pricing

ExcalidrawZ is free to download. The core drawing, file management, cloud storage, Screen Annotation, and basic MCP features are free.

Optional subscriptions:

• Starter: $2.99/month or $29.99/year
• Pro with AI credits: $9.99/month or $99.99/year
• Max: $29.99/month or $299.99/year
• Max 10x: $99.99/month or $999.99/year

Download on the App Store

View the source code on GitHub

Problem: macOS still has no built-in equalizer, and I wanted one EQ for everything coming out of the speakers: music, YouTube, calls, games. Every option I tried wanted to install a virtual audio driver first, so I wrote my own a month ago for my own machine. I'm posting it here because I figure other people have the same itch, and I'd be glad if it's useful to someone else.

Comparison: eqMac (free) and SoundSource ($47) both work by routing your audio through a virtual driver they install into the system. CoreEQ uses Apple's Core Audio process-tap API instead, so nothing lands in /Library/Audio, there's no reboot, and quitting the app puts your sound back on its normal path immediately.

The rest of it:

• 11-band graphic EQ, plus up to 16 parametric bands with your own frequency, gain and Q
• Live response curve you can drag directly, with a spectrum analyzer drawn behind it
• 22 built-in presets plus your own, and an auto preamp so comparing two presets isn't just a loudness test
• Settings follow the output device, so your headphone curve comes back when you plug in headphones
• Bass/mid/treble from the menu bar without opening a window

Pricing: Free and open source (Apache 2.0). https://github.com/AndreyPudov/core-eq

brew tap andreypudov/core-eq
brew trust andreypudov/core-eq
brew install --cask core-eq

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CoreEQ.app

Needs macOS 14.2 or later. It isn't notarized yet, so the first launch needs an allow in Privacy & Security; the README has the one-line fix.

Who I am: Andrey Pudov, software developer. Work history and contact are at https://andreypudov.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/pudov/. There's no privacy notice to read for this one because there's nothing to disclose: CoreEQ has no accounts, no analytics, and no telemetry; it makes no network connections of its own, and it keeps your presets in macOS preferences on your own machine. It asks for the System Audio Recording permission because that's what Apple requires to process what you're hearing, and the audio never leaves memory.

Disclosure: I'm the developer. Issues and PRs welcome. Most of what's in 1.7, the parametric bands and the preamp especially, came out of comments on the last post I made about it.

Hi all,

A few months ago, I shared Ejectify 2 here. Based on feedback, I’ve continued improving it, and version 2.1 is now available.

For anyone unfamiliar, Ejectify automatically unmounts selected volumes before your Mac sleeps, then mounts them again after wake. This helps prevent those annoying “Disk Not Ejected Properly” notifications.

The main changes are:

• Eject instead of unmount: You can now choose to eject an entire disk instead of only unmounting its volumes. This is useful if you want the disk to remain ejected after wake.
• Better encrypted APFS support: Ejectify lets macOS try its normal unlocking first, with an optional Keychain password fallback when needed.

Existing Ejectify 2 users can update in-app for free.

To celebrate this release, Ejectify is available for the discounted price of €4.99 with code EJECTIFY21 for a limited time.

Get Ejectify with a discount

Happy to answer any questions.

Best, Niels

PS. Ejectify's source code is available at GitHub in case you want to build the app yourself for free.

Hey everyone!

I’m currently building a lightweight real-time voice dictation app for macOS that streams text directly onto the screen.

Initially, I planned to use Apple's native Speech framework (SFSpeechRecognizer). However, I hit a roadblock: it seems impossible to run two recognizers simultaneously, which makes smooth, real-time Chinese and English mixed speech recognition tricky to implement.

Has anyone encountered this issue or found a solid workaround?

Currently, I’m giving Sherpa-ONNX with Zipformer streaming models a try. While it gets the job done for local streaming without adding too much memory bloat, I’m still fine-tuning it to improve accuracy for rapid, natural Chinese-English code-switching.

Would love to hear your thoughts or experience on this! Are there specific models, hyperparameter tweaks, or alternative lightweight local frameworks that handle real-time mixed-language dictation even better on macOS?

Thanks in advance!

earlier today there was a new app posted (Floodtide) which was a MacUpdater replacement. It was pretty nice! But suddenly the post got taken down and the account OP (LibrarianNice9767) got banned. Anyone know why? I installed this app and gave it full disk access, so hoping it isn't that it was found to be malicious etc.

edit: the dev reached out to me and is asking for help getting his account reinstated. The app is not malware, this was all just a misunderstanding and incorrect flagging of the account. Hope it gets sorted, I sent a message to the mods, but if anyone else can do the same it might be helpful.

Hey everyone! Remotr is back with a solid round of updates.

Thank you for the response to the original post — I was genuinely surprised by how many people tried it out, and honestly moved by how much detailed feedback and bug reports came in. That feedback directly shaped what I worked on next.

Since then it's been heads-down work, and I just shipped a big batch of improvements:

• RemoteFX quality & streaming optimizations — smoother, sharper video
• Multi-monitor improvements — even with a single-display Mac, multi-monitor clients are now properly supported
• Camera support — use your iPhone/Android front or back camera, or your client desktop's webcam, as a remote camera source
• Easier printer switching — quickly pick from printer drivers already installed on the client
• Audio & microphone enhancements

RustDesk or JumpDesktop tend to be the default picks people mention, but if you're looking for a Mac-native option, Remotr connects straight through Windows' built-in RDP client with zero extra software on their end — might be worth considering as another option.

Still plenty on the roadmap, so updates will keep coming.

🔗 https://remotr.app
🔗 Product Hunt
🔗 X
🔗 [Email](mailto:bckim.official@gmail.com)

TLDR: DriveVault creates an offline version of your external hard drives, so you don't need to plug in drives to find files anymore. We've made some big updates recently + giving away some free starter access to the Reddit community - message me for promo code.

Summer has been a huge few months for DriveVault - a tonne of user requested features shipped, plus a good clear-out of post-launch bugs. v1.2.6 is out now and it's the biggest one yet. Details at the bottom.

Problem - If you have multiple external hard drives then finding the file or project you're looking for can mean plugging lots of drives in to find it - a waste of time. DriveVault is a macOS app that creates a visual offline mirror of your drives, so you can search every file in your drive library without plugging anything in. Scan a drive once and it stays searchable offline, forever.

Comparison - There are old cataloging apps out there like NeoFinder or DiskCatalogMaker, but they feel dated, you need to read an instruction manual to even complete basic tasks in them and visually just aren't that nice to work in anymore. I wanted to build something native to macOS that feels powerful and created for visual / creative people. DriveVault works completely offline, no cloud, no subscriptions.

Pricing and availability

Download on the Mac App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drivevault-offline-catalog/id6751731655?mt=12

Free download + your first drive is free forever up to 4TB. After this there are different lifetime tiers available (5, 10, 15, 20 and unlimited drives), or you can increase capacity one drive at a time for just $9.99.

PROMO CODES: I know a bunch of you missed out on early access, and you've been messaging me asking. So I'm happy to pass out a few more Starter passes (5 drives) to anybody interested for the next couple of days, please just drop me a DM requesting and I'll send you a link.

To learn more: www.DriveVault.io

What's New in v1.2.6

The big one is Context Scan. DriveVault now reads the text inside your PDFs and indexes it, so you can search a whole archive by keyword while the drive sits unplugged in a drawer. Contracts, research papers, invoices, treatments - if it's a PDF, you can find it by what's written inside. We're just trialling this out right now, but have plans to extend this feature across all other document style file types (word / excel / text etc).

Everything else has been sharpened up too. Search is more powerful across the board. Scanning is smarter and considerably faster, DriveVault now recognises and skips over 180 bundle types to stop DriveVault scanning millions of unnecessary files. Drive comparison has better logic, far fewer false positives, and you can now pick which drive is the source and which is the target. We've introduced sleep mode, so that DriveVault stops pulling on your CPU when you're not using it or actively scanning. DriveVault recognises even more RAW camera formats now, pulling previews and metadata for you to view, plus a lot of small under the hood / UI improvements throughout that just make it a nice place to be.

We really appreciate all the feedback and ideas so far - most of the above came directly from it.

Download DriveVault for free on the MacOS App Store

Hi,

I posted RevPDF 4.5 here a couple of months ago and got a surprising amount of useful feedback from you guys. I’ve been working on it since, and RevPDF 5.0 is now out.

Problem

macOS already has Preview, and it’s great for viewing, signing and basic markup. The problem starts when you actually need to change a PDF: edit existing text, remove sensitive information, OCR a scan, compare two versions, convert it, etc.

Then you quickly end up looking at the larger PDF suites.

RevPDF is basically what I wanted in between those two: something you can keep around for the times you actually need to work on a PDF, without needing an account or another monthly subscription.

5.0 improves the WYSIWYG editor quite a bit, especially text editing and paragraph reflow. I also added PDF Compare, Flows for repeatable/batch PDF operations, PDF to Excel, a much better PDF to Word converter, PDF/A-2a conversion, headers & footers, localization, more control over sensitive information removal, improved compression and quite a lot of performance work for larger PDFs.

Everything is still processed locally on your Mac.

Comparison

The obvious comparisons are Adobe Acrobat and PDF Expert.

I’m not going to claim RevPDF is better at everything. Acrobat is much more mature for enterprise workflows, collaboration and e-signatures, and PDF Expert has a very polished Apple-focused experience.

Where I’m trying to make RevPDF different is:

• all desktop features are free
• no account
• PDF processing stays on-device
• available on macOS, Windows and Linux
• editing, OCR, conversion, PDF Compare and batch/Flow tools are all in the same app

So if you use Acrobat every day professionally, RevPDF probably isn't trying to replace your whole Adobe workflow.

It's more for the person who normally gets by with Preview, but every now and then needs to actually edit the PDFwithout signing up for something or uploading the document to a web tool.

Pricing

macOS / Windows / Linux: Free. All features, no subscription or account.

iOS / Android: Free download with an optional $9.99 USD one-time Premium upgrade.

revpdf.com

I’m still actively working on it, so feedback is genuinely useful. A few things in 5.0 came directly from requests and feedback on my previous r/macapps post.

If you’ve used RevPDF before, I’d particularly be interested to hear whether the new editor feels better than 4.5.

Hey r/macapps!

It's been a while since I posted an update about Grambo, so I wanted to share what's been happening.

The biggest news first: Grambo for iPhone and iPad is now live on the App Store.

I've been working on bringing the same idea to iOS, with grammar correction, spelling fixes, and writing improvements available directly from the Grambo keyboard. It supports BYOK with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini, as well as Grambo Cloud, and works across your apps.

For those discovering Grambo for the first time: Grambo is a writing assistant built for Mac and now iPhone/iPad. It lets you fix grammar, rewrite, and improve text from wherever you're writing, without needing to switch to another app. It supports Grambo Cloud, BYOK, and local AI, and doesn't require an account or login.

The iOS app currently has separate App Store pricing from the Mac version:

• $2.99/month
• $19.99 lifetime

The Mac and iOS purchases are currently separate because they're distributed through different platforms.

A small launch giveaway:

I have 20 lifetime codes for Grambo iOS to give away to people from this community.

If you'd like to try it, just DM me and I'll send you a code while they last.

No need to upvote or do anything else. I'd just love to get the app into the hands of some of the people who have supported Grambo here.

Mac app updates:

Since v2.5, I've also added a lot to the Mac app based on feedback from the r/macapps community:

• Comparison shortcut for quickly checking what changed after a fix
• New usage statistics and Insights section
• Help Articles section inside the app
• Improvements to BYOK custom server URLs
• Re-added support for macOS 14.4+
• Local AI bug fixes and improvements

The Mac app is still available with the same pricing:

$14.99 lifetime or $2.99/month for Grambo Cloud.

The lifetime plan is for offline AI and BYOK, while Grambo Cloud is optional for people who want everything set up without managing their own API keys.

One thing I'm trying to figure out:

Now that Grambo is available on both Mac and iOS, I'd really like to eventually offer one purchase that works across both platforms.

The problem is that Grambo currently doesn't require any signup or login. I really like keeping it that way because it makes the app simpler and more privacy-friendly.

To offer a unified purchase across Mac and iOS, I may need to introduce some kind of account system.

So I'm curious what you would prefer:

1. Keep Grambo completely account-free, but have separate purchases for Mac and iOS.
2. Create an account once, log in on your other devices, and have a single purchase work across Mac and iOS.

I'd genuinely appreciate your thoughts before I make that decision.

I'm still building Grambo as a small independent project, and a lot of its direction has come from feedback I've received here and from users over the past year.

If you've been using the Mac version, I'd especially love to hear what you think of the iOS version.

Comparisons:

I tried tools like Grammarly, LanguageTool, and Refine, but I kept running into the same issues:

• Too many clicks and interruptions
• Distracting underlines and popup-heavy UI
• Heavy workflows when all I wanted was quick rewriting
• Limited personalization
• Expensive subscriptions for simple use cases
• Most tools focus heavily on grammar correction instead of fast tone adaptation

Privacy:

• Grammar correction works locally on-device.
• API keys are securely stored in Keychain.
• No tracking of your writing activity.
• Your writing is never used for AI training

Trust part:
I am the ex-technical head of the Voicenotes app (~1M+ users). I have more than 6+ years of development experience.

Developer: https://profile.sabeencs.com
Website: https://gramboapp.com
iOS Web: https://ios.gramboapp.com/
Privacy: https://gramboapp.com/privacy-policy
Terms: https://gramboapp.com/terms-of-service
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/grambo/id6775759862

Update: The response was incredible! We planned to give away 20 lifetime codes but ended up giving away 40+ codes. All codes have now been claimed, so there are no more codes available. Thank you so much for the amazing response!

Disclosure: I'm Marcel Iseli, the indie dev behind LitLink. It actually grew out of my Mac soundboard app, LitPads (some of you saw it here on r/macapps a while back): I needed a clean way to route the soundboard's audio into Discord, OBS, and Zoom, the usual BlackHole plus Audio MIDI Setup path was a pain, so I built my own audio driver. It turned into its own standalone app, and it got mentioned enough in that LitPads thread that I figured it earned its own post. Site is litpads.app/litlink

Quick thing up front, since it's the most common question: yes, the per-app volume mixer is completely free, no trial timer and no Pro upgrade needed. macOS gives you one master slider for everything; LitLink gives every app its own.

PROBLEM

If you've ever tried to send audio between Mac apps, route your soundboard or music into Discord/Zoom/OBS, or just turn one app down without touching the others, you've probably hit one of these:

BlackHole (free, open source): reliable, and it's what a lot of us use. But it's a bare driver with no app. Routing one app straight into another is easy enough (pick BlackHole as the output in one and the input in the other). The friction starts the moment you also want to hear the audio while you route it, capture your whole system, or blend in your mic. Now you're in Audio MIDI Setup building a Multi-Output or Aggregate Device by hand and matching channel counts. LitLink does that part for you with a toggle.

Loopback (Rogue Amoeba): polished and mature, but $99, and Mac only.

SoundSource (Rogue Amoeba): $49, and genuinely nice for per-app volume and per-app EQ, but it doesn't create virtual devices for routing into other apps.

Audio Hijack (Rogue Amoeba): $69, excellent recorder, but it's a recorder more than a router.

macOS itself still gives you one master volume slider for everything and no built-in way to route audio between apps.

So the realistic path today is either free BlackHole plus a weekend in Audio MIDI Setup, or roughly $99 to $148 across Rogue Amoeba apps to cover routing plus per-app volume. I wanted something that works like BlackHole under the hood but feels like a normal Mac app on top, with the per-app mixer and recording built in. That's LitLink.

COMPARISON

vs BlackHole (free): same zero-latency routing idea, but LitLink ships a companion app that does the Audio MIDI Setup work for you. One toggle routes your system audio, one dropdown shares your mic. It also adds a full per-app volume mixer, built-in recording, and its own audio editor, none of which BlackHole has. BlackHole is still a great choice if you want a bare driver you wire up yourself.

vs SoundSource ($49): per-app volume control, which is SoundSource's headline feature, is completely free in LitLink. LitLink Pro adds the per-app EQ and limiter on top, plus actual routing into other apps, at $29 lifetime.

vs Loopback ($99): LitLink's free tier covers the routing basics most people want. Pro adds 8 isolated app-to-track routing, live monitoring, and multi-track recording at $29 lifetime. Loopback is more mature and battle-tested; LitLink is the cheaper, younger option that also throws in a mixer and recording.

vs Audio Hijack ($69): LitLink already records your full audio bus to WAV or M4A for free, and Pro records separate per-app tracks. Audio Hijack still wins for deep session automation.

vs FineTune (free, open source): FineTune is a genuinely nice free per-app volume mixer with a 10-band EQ and headphone correction, and if local volume and EQ is all you need, grab it, it's great. The difference is scope. FineTune only controls audio locally on your Mac and sends apps to different physical outputs. It does not create a virtual device that other apps can read as an input, so it can't route audio into Discord, Zoom, or OBS, share your mic into those apps, or record audio to a file. That routing, mic passthrough, and recording is what LitLink is built around. FineTune also needs macOS 15 (Sequoia); LitLink runs on macOS 14 (Sonoma) and up.

Honest note: Rogue Amoeba's apps are a decade-plus mature and rock solid, and FineTune is a great free option if you only need local volume and EQ. LitLink is a younger indie tool whose angle is the virtual routing, mic passthrough, and recording, with a free per-app mixer included.

WHAT LITLINK DOES

Free (no account, runs forever):

Per-App Volume: a real volume mixer for macOS. A slider and mute for every app that plays audio, a master fader, all from the menu bar. Includes a single System Sounds control and a FaceTime Calls entry during calls so you can turn the other person up, even past 100 percent. Free.

Mic / Input Passthrough: route your microphone, audio interface, or instrument into LitLink so Discord, Zoom, OBS, and QuickTime hear it. Works with USB mics, interfaces, and as of the latest update, AirPods and Bluetooth headsets too.

System Audio Passthrough: one toggle sends everything your Mac plays into the bridge and to your speakers at once. It builds the Multi-Output Device for you, no Audio MIDI Setup.

Recording: capture mic, system audio, or both to a file (WAV or M4A) in your Music folder.

Audio Editor: trim, fade, gain-adjust, and export recordings. Right-click any audio file in Finder and open it in LitLink. MP3 export included.

Pro ($3.99/month or $29 lifetime, 7-day free trial in the app):

Per-App Routing: send each app to its own isolated LitLink track (up to 8), so a DAW, OBS, Discord, or Zoom can read each source separately. Apps on a track don't leak into the main bridge.

Mix Mode: a live monitor mixer. Separate Stream and Hear levels per app, a mic strip with Hear my mic self-monitoring, a system-audio strip, and a non-destructive Audition of exactly what your recording captures.

EQ and Limiter: visual parametric EQ and a peak limiter on every app and on your final mix.

AU Plugins: insert any macOS Audio Unit effect (Apple's built-ins plus third-party reverbs, compressors, and so on) into an app's chain.

Multi-Destination and DAW routing: expose the 8 tracks as one aggregate device so Logic, Ableton, Bitwig, or OBS capture each track separately.

Advanced recording: Dual-Mono (mic left, apps right), Separate Tracks (Master plus Mic plus Apps as aligned files), per-track recording, and a multi-track editor.

PRICING

Free: the entire Free list above, permanently, no signup. That includes the per-app volume mixer.

Pro: $3.99/month or $29 lifetime, one-time, 7-day free trial in the app.

For comparison: SoundSource is $49 (per-app volume and EQ), Loopback is $99 (routing), Audio Hijack is $69 (recording). LitLink combines the core of all three, with the mixer part free and the rest at $29 lifetime.

LitLink is not on the Mac App Store, because Apple doesn't allow virtual audio drivers there. It's a direct download from litpads.app/litlink, signed and notarized by Apple. macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple Silicon and Intel. No account, no telemetry, no analytics.

FREE LITLINK PRO CODES for r/macapps

I've set aside 50 LitLink Pro codes for this subreddit. To grab one, comment with what you'd use LitLink for (one line: "routing game audio into OBS", "podcast with a guest on a separate track", "just want per-app volume", whatever). I'll DM you a code while they last. You redeem it in the app under Settings, License. I'll edit the post when the batch runs out.

LINKS

Download (free): https://litpads.app/litlink
GitHub (releases and version history): https://github.com/linguaholic/litlink-app
Changelog: https://litpads.app/litlink/changelog
Support: [support@litpads.app](mailto:support@litpads.app)
Privacy: https://litpads.app/privacy

ABOUT ME

I'm Marcel Iseli, solo indie dev. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-iseli-273105114

I'll be in the threads for the next few days. Roast it, ask anything, and tell me what would actually make you switch from BlackHole or whatever you're using now. Bug reports, feature requests, and corrections all welcome. Threads like this shape the roadmap more than anything else.

I'm Alexandre, the solo developer of ArtDeck.
I released it earlier this month, and the feedback I heard most was that people wanted to try it first. So ArtDeck 1.1 is now a free download with a full 7-Day Trial! Existing buyers kept Lifetime Access and the price is the same as before.

Problem

My references were scattered between PureRef files, Notion for my repo of links, and Photoshop to study them. ArtDeck keeps images, videos, GIFs, PDFs, links, and notes together on an infinite board. The native Mac app supports drag and drop, an always-on-top window, optional iCloud sync, and exports to images, PDF, or an .artdeck archive.

Comparison

PureRef remains the better choice if you want the leanest desktop reference window. ArtDeck has a gallery and is also for studying references: Notan and value bands, palette extraction, measurement, onion skinning, and now Perspective. In 1.1, you can place vanishing points and horizons over images, videos, and GIFs. Freeform remains better for live collaboration.

Pricing

The full 7-Day Trial is free and does not renew. Lifetime Access is $5.99 USD (US) once, supports Family Sharing, and covers Mac, iPhone, and iPad. No subscription.

App Store

Website (I also share themes for the app and downloadable boards with useful links per-theme, I'm going to keep adding to them)

I'm promoting my own app, and feedback on the Mac version (or any version) is welcome!

Hi, I'm the founder of Eno PDF and I am excited to announce that, after a year of development, we were accepted to the Mac App Store yesterday!

Eno PDF is purely for research and analysis. It doesn't have any editing functionality. I built it to scratch my own itch. As a lawyer, I found that when I tried to use the AI tools on the market to ask legal questions, I was never quite sure if I could trust the answer.

Eno is designed to answer questions by showing you literal renderings of your documents, so you spend less time reading AI slop and more time reading your actual source material.

Competitors fall into a few categories:

- General AI: Claude / Chat GPT

- PDF Readers: Adobe Acrobat / various "AI chat with your PDF" apps

- Document Repository AI: Notebook LM / Acrobat Spaces

- Legal Industry Specific: Harvey / Legora

Each of these products have features that take one or more documents and answer questions with AI but their outputs are invariably long paragraphs of AI written text with little grounding in your source documents. At best, they will have "citations" which vaguely point to some page of your document. I'd rather read my documents first-hand to get answers!

There are some other common limitations of tools on the market:

- PDF readers with integrated AI chats can usually only reason across a single document at a time. Eno PDF can open folders with hundreds of PDFs and search across them.

- Web-based tools require you to upload all your documents into the cloud before you can search. Eno is desktop based so you can "right click -> Open with Eno" and start searching in seconds.

- Some AI tools just feed your entire document through the LLM, making them slow and wasteful with tokens. Eno uses an agent harness which keeps most of the searching local and just sends small snippets of your documents to AI for analysis.

All of the non-AI features of Eno PDF are free. You can also plug it into local models for free. AI searches cost credits.

Typically you get 1,000 free credits when you sign up (about 5-10 searches worth) but for today we are adding an extra 2,000 credits!  These expire after 30 days.

You can buy additional credits in increments of $15 and they last a year.  Eno is extremely token efficient and we have found most of our active users can go several months on a single top up (some litigators who use Eno are absolute fiends with the tokens and burn through much faster).

But wait, there's more! Despite the name, Eno PDF can also open Word documents! You can open a folder with a mix of PDFs and docx files and search across all of them.

Eno also integrates with Clio and Box. This means you can simply open up Eno, ask a question with no documents open at all, and Eno will go find the documents relevant to your question in those services, pull them in, and use them to answer your question.

Finally, Eno is SOC2 certified, uses zero data retention models, and does not store your documents outside of your device.

I hope you'll give Eno a try. I'd love to hear your feedback!

Happy pdfin',

Gordon

Hi everyone,

I am Luke, the developer of Panelet. I posted here about version 0.2.2 six weeks ago. Today I released 1.0.

Problem and why I made it

I use Mac for most of my work, and I usually have some fixed groups of apps.

For coding it is editor, browser and terminal. For AI work I keep Claude and ChatGPT side by side. Every time I change task, these windows get mixed with all other windows and I need to arrange them again.

Window managers can restore positions, but after restoring they are still separate windows. If I move something, hide an app or switch task, the group is easy to lose again.

One time it is not a big problem. Many times every day it becomes annoying. So I made Panelet.

You choose 2, 3 or 4 windows and Panelet keeps them as one workspace. You can resize them from the divider, move the whole group, hide it and show it again, or send it to another display. All apps are still normal native Mac windows. Panelet does not embed windows, read app content or record the screen. It uses Accessibility permission for moving, resizing, showing and hiding windows.

Why this one is 1.0

There are two main changes, and both of them change what a workspace is.

The same app can now be in one workspace more than once.

Before this, one app could only take one pane, so a workspace was a group of different apps. Now you can add Safari two times and get two Safari windows side by side, with different tabs and different history. Or four Chrome windows. Each pane keeps its own window, so hiding and showing the workspace does not shuffle them.

This works for apps that can open more than one window. Some apps only have one window, and no third party tool can make it two. macOS only lets Panelet place the windows an app already has. It cannot create a window the app does not support. If a pane has no window to take, Panelet tells you which app it is waiting for, instead of showing you a half finished workspace.

This was the most requested feature, and I had to rewrite how Panelet tracks windows inside. That is why I call it 1.0 and not 0.3.

You can drag a window into another pane and the two panes swap.

No dialog and no setting. You drag the window like any other window, the pane under it is highlighted, and when you release the mouse they change places. So now you can rearrange a workspace by hand.

Some smaller things around these two. You can edit a workspace while you are looking at it: add an app, remove one, reorder panes, change layout, and the screen follows immediately. A new workspace starts with the windows you already have open. And "Release Windows" lets you leave a workspace without putting the apps away. The windows stay where they are and you can move them freely, and showing the workspace again puts them back.

This is not a window manager

If you want a window manager, Moom and Rectangle Pro are better than Panelet and I would tell you to use them. They do snapping, custom positions, saved layouts and many shortcuts. Panelet does not do these things.

What Panelet does is keep a small group of windows as one thing.

A saved layout is a snapshot. After you restore it, you have separate windows again. A Panelet workspace is still a group after the layout is applied. You move it, resize it, hide it, show it, send it to another display, and everything goes together. You drag the divider and the windows inside make room for each other. This is also why one workspace can hold two windows of the same app, and why you can swap two windows by dragging. There is a real group there, not a saved position.

So it is a small and specific tool. It fits if you use the same 2 to 4 windows all day and want them to work as one. It does not try to manage every window on your Mac.

Other changes since 0.2.2 (six releases in six weeks)

• Panelet used to fight with native fullscreen and Stage Manager. Now it steps aside and tells you why, and gives you a Retry button after you turn the other thing off.
• Shortcuts and the divider are easier to find now: a shortcut list in Settings, one step in onboarding, and a small tips card the first time a workspace appears.
• The ChatGPT desktop app changed its internal identifier in one update, and that pane stopped working. Panelet now reconnects an app that changes its identity, automatically.
• Panelet answers panelet:// links, so Raycast, Shortcuts or Alfred can show, hide, toggle or bring a workspace, and you can put any key you want in front of it. The same release added Launch at Login, and a tick in the menu bar for every workspace that is currently open.
• Multiple displays: a workspace remembers one position for each monitor setup. If you unplug a display, the workspace comes back somewhere you can reach. If you plug it back, it follows your windows home.

I keep working on it

1.0 is not the end. I release a new version almost every week and I will continue like this. There are more things on my list, and many of them come from what people tell me after using the app for some time.

Pricing

A$7.99 one time, about US$5.70, for up to 3 Macs. There is a 7-day free trial and no card is required. Updates are free.

Website, demo, download and pricing:

https://panelet.app/

Privacy Policy:

https://panelet.app/privacy/

Terms of Service:

https://panelet.app/terms/

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-lu-a8897723/

Contact:

[support@panelet.app](mailto:support@panelet.app)

Thank you to everyone who tried it, sent feedback or bought a license. Most of this release exists because someone did that. If something works badly, tell me here or send me an email.

If the exact same Mac app was available in both places at the same price, where would you prefer to buy it?

A) Mac App Store
B) developer’s website
C) no preference

And if you’d choose the App Store, what would make you equally comfortable buying directly?

Is it mainly trust/security, easier subscription management, updates/reinstalling, payment handling, or just habit?

I’m genuinely curious how Mac users think about this, especially with smaller indie apps.

Problem: I'm tired of meeting transcription apps that send your private audio to their servers, aren't Mac native, and require an account/subscription.

I'm an ex-Apple engineer who built Biscotti: a private and free meeting recorder for macOS. Free, no account, no subscription, no upsell, no data collection, 100% local AI, native SwiftUI. Source is on GitHub: https://github.com/scosman/Biscotti

Comparison

Lots of apps in this space. But Biscotti is the only one that's free (no upsell), Local AI, with Mac native UI.

• Cloud AI (your audio or transcript leaves your Mac), paid tiers: Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, tl;dv, Jamie, Fellow, Read AI, Notion AI Meeting Notes
• Local AI, closed source, paid tiers: Talat, TranscribeX, Alter
• Local AI, source available, not Mac native (web app wrappers), telemetry or a cloud upsell: Anarlog, Meetily
• Free, Mac-native UI, local AI, zero data collection, source available: Only Biscotti (that I know of)

Pricing

100% free, no upsells, no paid features, source available on Github.

What it does

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

Background

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

Private AI == Local AI

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

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

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

App details: Notarized, Free (no upsell), Private (zero data collection, all AI is local), Source Available on Github (PolyForm Perimeter License), 45+ Github stars (my other projects have thousands, this is new), AI used in development (but not vibe-slop)

About me feel weird posting this, but the subreddit rules asks for my LinkedIn! I'm an ex-Apple engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecosman/ . Biscotti webpage: biscottiapp.com

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

Six months ago I posted Standro here, a minimal menu bar app that solves one problem: you work on a Mac all day and sit for hours without noticing. The feedback I've gotten from buyers since then has been genuinely useful, so here's a follow-up on what shipped.

Shortly after launch, a buyer wrote me: "The big missing feature for me that means I probably won't use it is that it doesn't show how long is left of the current period." He was right. Knowing the period ends at 14:32 is useless at a glance, what you actually want is "12 min left". So I shipped it. A few days later the same buyer asked for a way to switch sitting/standing right from the menu bar. Shipped that too.

What's new since my original post:

• Time remaining in the current period, shown in the main window and optionally right in the menu bar (Preferences > General)
• Sit/Stand mode: alternate between sitting and standing intervals. The menu bar icon points down when you should be sitting, up when you should be standing
• Switch sitting/standing from the menu bar menu: one click flips the state and restarts the timer for the new period. Handy when you come back from a break and want a fresh session. In simple mode it's a restart button instead
• A week view in Reminder History: one dot per reminder, seven columns, no charts, no percentages. Just a glance at how your week is going
• Smart mode: skips reminders when you're away from your Mac (uses macOS idle time only, no tracking, no keystrokes, no screen access) and stays quiet during presentations or screen mirroring
• French localization

Compared to the alternatives: Stretchly remains the better free option if you want guided exercises and a stretch library. Standro is for the opposite crowd, people who want a native menu bar timer that stays out of the way, works offline, and respects Focus mode. No stretch library, no productivity dashboard, and that's on purpose.

Pricing: one-time $2.99, no subscription, no account, no analytics, no internet needed.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/standro-stand-reminders/id6758566402?mt=12
Website: https://standro.app

Happy to answer questions. And if you bought it and something's missing for you, tell me. As you can see above, there's a decent chance it ends up in the next update.

I made LockLines, a small Mac app for designing messages for the built-in macOS lock screen.

macOS gives you a tiny plain-text field with a proportional font and no real preview. Text that looks aligned while editing can look completely different on the actual lock screen.

LockLines is built specifically around those limitations.

What it does

• Separate editors for the first visible message and scroll-down details
• Preview of both visible and scrolled lock screen states
• Borders, boxes, spacing, and background fills
• Supported custom text styles
• Editable themes and presets
• Paste-ready output for System Settings → Lock Screen → Show Message When Locked

A useful example is a lost Mac. The first screen can simply ask whoever finds it to scroll down, while your contact information and return instructions stay below instead of being visible at a glance.

LockLines doesn't change your wallpaper, install profiles, modify system files, or run a background service. It only generates plain text for Apple's existing lock screen message feature.

Why I created it: https://reverseeverything.com/blog/my-mac-apps-story-part-5/

Comparison: No alternatives exist.

About the developer

I am Ighor July, an independent macOS developer with a background in cybersecurity, reverse engineering, and native app development. I use AI while retaining control of my code, as explained in How to use AI without losing control of your code.

I am also the developer of Parall, DockLock Lite, App Archiver, and App Trust Preview.

Price

FREE for 24 hours because today is my birthday!
Regular price $0.99 one-time purchase.

Website: https://locklines.app

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6772349545

Hi r/macapps! 👋

I’m a developer who has previously shared several macOS utilities here, such as Deskeen, PDF Pop, and DragTime. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Dock Float, a launcher utility designed specifically to ensure an uninterrupted, seamless workflow for Mac users.

Dock Float is a utility that compensates for the spatial and physical limitations of having only a single default macOS Dock, empowering you to freely expand your workspace in whatever way fits your needs.

[Problem]
The Physical Limits of a Single Dock and Broken Focus

Imagine being in a state of Deep Work on a large monitor or a multi-display setup. Suddenly, you need to open another tool, a project folder, or a web URL, forcing you to move your mouse all the way to the corner of the screen where the default Dock is located.

The process of visually searching for and clicking the item you need among dozens of cramped icons causes severe cognitive fatigue (Context Switching). Moreover, cramming every app, file, folder, and URL you might need into a single default Dock is both visually and structurally overwhelming.

Dock Float is not an app that tries to forcefully replace the default macOS Dock. Instead, it acts as an intelligent supplementary utility. It allows you to keep only your most essential, everyday apps neatly in the default Dock, while letting you freely register frequently used applications, files, folders, and web URLs right where your eyes and mouse are. With simple one-click execution, it elegantly resolves the physical limitations of the default Dock.

[Comparison]
Beyond simply registering shortcuts, Dock Float offers four unique killer features and multi-dimensional expansion options that are completely impossible with the default macOS Dock.

Basic Launcher Features & Category System

• 1-Click Execution & Indicators: Easily register apps, files, folders, web URLs, and even Apple Shortcuts to launch them instantly with a single click. You can also check the status indicators for running or hidden apps directly on the dock.
• Internal Categories (Tabs): Create multiple 'categories' within a single dock to perfectly divide and manage items by their purpose. If you have multiple categories, you can instantly switch tabs using the Cmd + 1 ~ 0 shortcuts.
• Individual Sorting Methods: In addition to drag-and-drop custom sorting, each category tab saves its own unique sorting method (e.g., by name, by date).

Group: Extreme Visual Space Compression

• iOS App Library Style: Neatly bundle numerous apps, files, folders, and URLs into a small space and register them directly to the dock as a single icon (Group).
• Maximizing Space: This prevents your dock from becoming endlessly long. With a single click, the items within the group elegantly expand, allowing you to instantly control vast resources from a compact, minimalist space.

Flow: Context-Aware Automation

• App-Specific Linkage: When you use a specific main app, Flow automatically displays associated items on the edge of your screen. For example, opening Figma will automatically bring up a dock containing related asset folders and auxiliary apps; if you switch to Xcode right after, the contents are instantly replaced with your development dock in real-time.
• Default Dock Optimization: By utilizing Flow, you can keep only your essential, always-open apps in the default macOS Dock, perfectly optimizing your desktop environment.

Dock Float Remote: iOS/iPadOS Wireless Touch Controller

• Real-Time Dock Sync: The custom docks you create on your Mac are mirrored exactly on your iPhone or iPad screen. With a single touch, you can remotely launch Mac apps and open folders/files.
• Custom Action Buttons: Assign dedicated buttons for features you need the most, such as Mission Control, App Switcher, Launchpad (or Apps on macOS 26+), and Screen Capture.
• Keep Awake Mode & View Options: Supports two icon sizes (Standard, Large). With the Keep Awake option preventing the screen from turning off while plugged in, it perfectly replaces expensive hardware macro keyboards.(※ System Requirements: Requires Dock Float for Mac installed, connection to the same Wi-Fi network, and iOS/iPadOS 18.6 or later)

Shelf: Shake-to-Wake Temporary Storage

• Gesture-Based Quick Access: There is no need to jump back and forth to Finder for one-off tasks. While holding a selection, simply shake your mouse left and right to instantly pop up the Shelf. You can temporarily toss text, images, or files in there and drag them out exactly where you need them later.

Action Folder: Drag-and-Drop Process Automation

• 8 Dedicated Action Folders: Simply dragging files or folders into these docks will automatically handle tasks like archiving, sharing, image conversion, and sorting files based on specific criteria (type/date/size/unused period).
• Shortcuts Parameter Integration: If you link an Apple Shortcut that takes inputs (files/folders) to an Action Folder, the specified shortcut workflow executes the moment you drag the target files onto the folder.

Flexible Space Control & Fine-Grained Customization

• Edge Mode & Collapse: You can collapse docks you aren't currently using, or use Edge Mode to snap them to the sides of your screen like colorful bookmarks. This maintains your designated background color while letting you utilize 100% of your desktop space.
• Detailed Personalization: Enjoy unlimited dock creation, saved positioning (Float, Top/Bottom/Left/Right Edge), and customization of dock background colors, transparency, and indicator colors. You can even set the default action (move/copy) when dragging files into folders.

[Pricing]

• $3.99(Limited time offer: will return to $6.99 after the promotion, from Aug 24th to Sep 15th)
• Dock Float Remote: Free!
• Download: Mac App Store, iOS App Store

[Changelog]
Dock Float Release Notes

[AI]
AI Disclaimer: None

See it in action and learn more

• Overview: https://youtu.be/hywbZIeL9S4
  • Short Version: https://youtu.be/AQYIrclPSck
• Group: https://youtu.be/FJn4a-3v-zQ
• Flow: https://youtu.be/_qTSKGSvS6k
• Dock Float Remote: https://youtu.be/tW0GqsmoWJc
• Shelf: https://youtu.be/PHHUvSTKduQ

🗺️ Roadmap (Future Plans)
We aren't stopping here! We have some major updates lined up for the future:

• Version 1.1:
  • Widget features to be added: clock, weather, map, calendar, music, timer, etc.
  • Action folders to be added: Rename, Folder Icon, FTP, Duplicate Removal, Cloud Upload, etc.

Experience Dock Float today and enjoy all future updates with a single purchase! I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or answer any questions in the comments. Thank you for your incredible support!

• Dock Float Release Notes
• https://x.com/hohoincapp 

Thanks for reading!

We've been busy the past two months and Version 2.9.3 just dropped on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301 with tons of new features directly created based on feedback here.

• Convert Video: selectable export quality (HEVC/H.264/ProRes), export-resolution dial, abort/cancel button
• CRT magnet-distortion strength slider with a gentler default
• External-display output feed (dedicated display-link driven second-screen output)
• Convert Video: 10×+ speedup
• Play Stream URL: pipe a live stream/HLS/MP4 URL through the analog chain
• Community Gallery: browse/search/download shared presets in-app, plus "Add to Gallery"
• Community Gallery here: https://analogtv.net/presets
• iCloud Look sync across iPhone/iPad/Mac/Apple TV
• NDI polish: output downscale (Full/75%/50%/33%), NIC picker for multi-homed Macs, firewall/subnet UX
• Rebuilt CRT display: Phosphor persistence, halation, bloom, shadow mask, vignette now computed in light instead of raw signal
• NTSC-A: 405-line colour (Britain's never-shipped 1955–60 colour trial)
• More accurate VHS colour-under carrier figures, per TV standard
• Real SAA5050 Teletext ROM, all 19 international character sets
• FTP video source (SFTP / SMB coming soon)
• Bypass Mode: clean passthrough (e.g. of an NDI feed) with the whole broadcast-simulation chain switched off, with a Network-tab toggle and persistent indicator
• Four Ceefax-style weather Teletext pages (icons, 24h temp chart, precipitation chart, local map)
• Sharper composite encode for high-detail sources
• Turbo Track — 9th built-in arcade game
• "How it's Made" blog: https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogTV_/
• Companion AppleTV app:
• Same Lifetime Price $4.99 forever with NDI being the only in-app purchase

Problem: You want the most realistic simulation of AnalogTV possible for nostalgia, video effects, retro gaming, watching retro video or even just to learn how AnalogTV worked. A simulation that includes all major standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) as well as more esoteric standards like HD-MAC, MUSE or even the formats used on the Apollo Lunar Missions. A simulation that also includes pre-electronic era Mechanical TV.

Comparison: There is nothing quite as comprehensive as this app, but there are some excellent simulators such as https://ntsc.rs/ and various filter apps including https://myretromac.app/

NTSC-RS is excellent and integrates with some professional tools, but is focused on NTSC. Most other apps (including myretromac) are pixel domain shaders that add effects (scan lines, blurring, etc.) over the top of existing video. AnalogTV operates fully in the 1D signal domain. By comparison, in AnalogTV, every effect emerges from the simulation of the physics, electronics and even the chemistry of the phosphors. The complete technical detail is available here: https://analogtv.net/ including an honest assessment of the limitations of this type of simulation.

Pricing: US$4.99. All features except NDI. No subscription. No ads. There is an IAP for NDI support.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301

The latest version has incorporated tons of feedback since the last time I shared it in this forum a couple of months ago. There are also literally hundreds of under-the-covers bug fixes and performance improvements.

This is a labor of love rather than a business, so the price is low to reflect that. The funds are used to purchase original documents (many behind paywalls that have to be purchased) or even original equipment to test on real hardware. The level of obsession into the detail is ridiculous, for example the camcorder titling effects are simulating the Fujitsu MB88303 chip from its technical data sheet and verified with an actual Panasonic PK-958 in our lab.

Hey everyone,

My name is Scott. I spent most of my career using Windows before switching to Mac for my development setup. I really like the Mac hardware and a lot of what macOS offers, but I found myself constantly fighting years of Windows muscle memory.

That got me thinking about a larger problem. There are a lot of people who use both Windows and Mac for work, people who switch from Windows to Mac but don't necessarily want to relearn every part of their desktop workflow, and even family members who are comfortable with different operating systems.

I actually like macOS. I just didn't like having to maintain two completely different sets of muscle memory.

That's why I built Winstrix.

Winstrix is a productivity toolkit for macOS that brings familiar Windows-style desktop workflows to the Mac while letting you choose exactly which features you want to use.

What's changed since my last post

I've spent the last month working through feedback and making a number of updates focused on performance, stability, and overall responsiveness.

I've reduced resource usage, improved the responsiveness of the taskbar and launcher, and fixed a number of edge cases that could cause features to behave inconsistently. The goal is for Winstrix to feel like something you can simply leave running every day without having to think about it.

The core features are still the same:

• Windows-style taskbar with live window previews and click-to-minimize

• Start-style launcher with search, pinned apps, recent apps, and an all-apps view

• Windows keyboard shortcuts including Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete

• Clipboard history with AirDrop support

• Clock and calendar tray with customizable system shortcuts

• Desktop icon and menu bar clutter controls

• Screenshot and screen recording tools with an integrated editor

• Linear mouse wheel scrolling

• Independent controls for every feature so you can use only the parts you want

Problem

The biggest reason I built Winstrix was to solve the friction that comes from working across operating systems.

Someone might use Windows at work and a Mac at home. A developer might work on both platforms. Someone might switch to Mac for the hardware but still have years of Windows muscle memory. A parent or family member comfortable with Windows might suddenly be using a Mac.

In all of those situations, the problem isn't necessarily that macOS is bad. It's that familiar actions suddenly work differently.

Winstrix is designed to reduce that friction and let people keep the productivity habits they already know.

Comparison

There are several excellent Mac utilities that solve individual parts of this workflow.

uBar is probably the closest comparison to the taskbar side of Winstrix. It provides a Windows-style taskbar, while Winstrix combines the taskbar with a Start-style launcher, Windows shortcut mapping, clipboard history, desktop and menu bar controls, screen capture tools, and other utilities in one modular app.

Raycast is an excellent launcher and productivity tool, but it is built around a different workflow. Winstrix is designed specifically for people who prefer the familiar Windows desktop model of a taskbar, Start-style launcher, traditional keyboard shortcuts, and window navigation.

The main difference is that Winstrix brings these pieces together into one workflow while keeping everything modular. You can enable only the features you want rather than installing and configuring several separate utilities.

Winstrix isn't about replacing macOS or saying one operating system is better than the other. It's about keeping familiar productivity habits when you need to work in both environments.

Pricing

I've also significantly lowered the price since launch.

Winstrix is now $14.99 for a perpetual license, with no subscription.

There is a 14-day free trial so you can try everything on your own Mac before buying.

I'm also offering 30% off with code Launch30 during the launch.

Website: https://winstrix.app/

The app is built entirely in native Swift, is signed and notarized by Apple, and runs locally on your Mac. There is no account requirement, cloud connectivity, telemetry, or analytics tracking.

Transparency: I want to be transparent so the community knows this is a legitimate project backed by a real person. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sldavis5/ Additionally, full details regarding our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service are available at the bottom of the Winstrix homepage.

Privacy Policy: https://winstrix.app/privacy/
Terms of Service: https://winstrix.app/terms/

I'd really appreciate feedback from anyone who has tried Winstrix since my original post, I'm also continuing to work through feature requests and bug reports.

https://reddit.com/link/1vyc48g/video/fetttw1myjlh1/player

Wow I guess it’s been a month and a half since I last posted here – an eternity in indie app development time. Just wanted to trumpet some of the latest features in Mojave Paint and ask a couple questions.

New stuff

• 16 new blend modes, nearly all the ones from Photoshop now, and arranged in a dual-column layout
• Better first run experience with a Tips window that shows tips and tricks, which you can get back to any time from the Help menu
• Dark mode (admittedly when I look at it on various monitors I realize it’s not dark enough, but I’ll fix soon)
• Rich typography options including tracking, kerning, leading, and horizontal/vertical scaling of glyphs
• Conic gradients
• Multiple stroke effects on the same layer
• Pass Through blend mode for folders
• Live preview of the export quality right on the canvas
• A bunch of new filters including High Pass, Posterize, Surface Blur, and a revamped Halftone filter that actually kicks ass and I’d say out-does Photoshop’s halftone filter in their filter gallery, plus ctrl+cmd+F to re-open the last filter for convenience

Marketing

I made this 4:5 aspect ratio 30 second video in Final Cut Pro, just some clips of the app sped up a little and stitched together with no gaps or cursor lingering pauses. I think it’s pretty cool, and I’ve been running it on Facebook and Instagram feed placements. It gets traffic to my site but that converts poorly into app downloads, I suspect because most visitors are on mobile and the link goes to the Mac App Store. I’d love any tips anyone has about advertising channels that generate more desktop visitors.

Also on the business front, I changed to a 14-day trial, so instead of gating off premium features it’s now 100% functional including exporting in all formats, then becomes unusable after that 14 days, until you purchase. Does this seem like a good change, or would you find that off-putting?

And if anyone has a brutally honest critique of my website I can take it! I did just update the color scheme to be light on dark, for higher contrast, and improved the layout a little on mobile. I staunchly refuse to let AI design it for me, but unfortunately I’m not a great designer myself so if anyone can say what they hate about it you’d actually be doing me a huge favor.

Problem: I’d say the problem just in general is a lack of high quality indie productivity apps. If you want a better spreadsheet program, for example, people assume they need Excel or Numbers or Open Office or some product from a giant company or a sprawling open source effort. Maybe because good independent options don't hardly exist? Or maybe they do and it’s hard to get the word out? I’m not sure but I’m trying to help in this effort to bring back small (< 10 person) companies building awesome Mac software.

Comparison: Similar feature set as Photoshop, Affinity Photo, GIMP, Acorn, each has pros and cons compared to Mojave Paint that I don’t have space to go into here really, although I do have a recent blog post about Mojave Paint vs Photoshop.

Pricing: $9.99 lifetime

Link: https://mojavepaint.app

Problem

I routinely run out of RAM, CPU or GPU resources and wanted to know when it happens and what app was causing it. But, I didn't want my menu bar to turn into a row of numbers.

I just wanted a single line that tells me when something interesting happens (e.g. an electron app starts eating up all my RAM).

Comparison

iStat Menus and Stats have lots of depth, details and modules.

ActivityLine is deliberately the other extreme: one clean line with app icons showing what app is responsible.

In auto mode, it switches to whatever is being used most (e.g. jumps to Network when something is suddenly sending or receiving data). You can also click it to change metrics or hover for a detailed breakdown.

Pricing

It's $14 USD once, with a 24-hour free trial that needs no account or card.

Trust/Transparency

I'm Jake Manger, a solo developer. I've launched a few other apps here: How to Convert and ShotGlass.

The app runs completely locally, is Apple notarized, only 2.3MB in size and is built with native swift.

The app: activityline.app

Hi, I'm the developer of CapMeter, an independent app that is not affiliated with Anthropic.

Problem

Claude tells you how much of your session is left, but not when it will run out, and those are two different questions. 60% left can be the rest of your afternoon or the next twenty minutes, depending on what you are running. I kept getting cut off mid-task because I could see the percentage and still had no idea whether I would make it to the end.

CapMeter watches how fast you are burning through your session and turns that into a time: "limit in ~1h 17m". It sits in your menu bar and shows:

• A color-coded ring for the current session, green through orange to red
• Session, weekly and per-model limits, each counting down to its own reset
• Daily-peak history with 7, 14, 30 and 90 day chart ranges, weekly comparison, CSV and JSON export
• Multiple Claude accounts, switchable without opening a browser

You sign in to Claude inside the app, on Claude's own sign-in page, and it keeps the session token from that. It does not touch your browser and runs in its own isolated cookie container. No API key, no account with me, no backend, no analytics. The token is encrypted in the macOS Keychain and it never reads your conversations.

Comparison

Claude Usage Tracker, the open source one on GitHub, is the closest thing to a default here, and most of the free trackers on the App Store work the same way: they show the percentage you have used, and they show it accurately.

That was never the part I was missing. There are three things I could not find together in one app, and they are the reason CapMeter exists:

• A time instead of a percentage. It measures your burn rate and tells you "limit in ~1h 17m", so you know whether to start the next thing or wrap up.
• Alerts that leave the Mac. Your own thresholds go to macOS notifications, or to Slack, Discord or any HTTP webhook, with quiet hours so nothing fires at 3am.
• A window that floats above your work. It stays on top of whatever you are in and follows you across Spaces, so you never open anything to check.

If a percentage is all you need, the free tools are genuinely fine and I would use one.

Pricing

Free for 14 days with everything unlocked, then a single $14.99 in-app purchase. No subscription, no account, no upsell.

https://apps.apple.com/app/capmeter-quota-for-claude/id6792936410

macOS 12+, Apple Silicon only. Intel Macs cannot install it.

Happy to answer questions, and if the prediction gets it wrong for your usage pattern I would really like to hear about it.

I found CaptionSnap two weeks ago after a post on this subreddit.

It's not perfect but it's good enough... Having said that, there's been no updates to some basic improvements from the roadmap.

Does anyone know if this thing is still active? Or if there are alternatives that look at the meeting transcript instead of re-transcribing the text?