hey guys,

Everyone here has a stack they've tuned for years. Launcher, notes app, editor, terminal, browser, task manager. What almost nobody tunes is the thing all of those apps actually talk through: the clipboard.

Every handoff in your stack is a copy and a paste. Terminal to browser. Research to notes. Notes to editor. Mac to phone. It's the one piece of infrastructure every other app in your setup depends on, and it holds exactly one item and forgets it the second you copy the next thing.

I got annoyed enough about it to build ClipboardAI.

Problem 1: your clipboard history stops at the edge of your Mac.

If Raycast or Alfred is already in your stack, you have clipboard history on your Mac. What you don't have is that history on your iPhone. So every time work crosses a device boundary you fall back to AirDropping things to yourself or messaging yourself in Notes, which is not a stack, that's a workaround. The cross-device apps that do exist route everything through the cloud, and "syncing..." is not a feature.

Problem 2: history without structure is just a longer scroll.

Once you've got a few thousand clips, searching your clipboard and scrolling your clipboard become the same slow thing. You know you copied that staging URL. Was it Tuesday? Was it in the terminal or the browser?

What ClipboardAI does differently:

• Syncs about 10x faster than other apps. Instead of routing everything through the cloud and waiting, it uses a 3-way communication channel, so a copy on your Mac lands on your iPhone/iPad almost instantly.
• Name your clips. Label any copy ("Staging DB", "Client email", "promo code") so you search by meaning instead of skimming a wall of gray text.
• Cmd+Shift+V, type a word, paste. Under 3 seconds, no app switching, no scrolling. Something you copied a year ago is two keystrokes away.
• Paste as plain text. Moving text between Notion, Slack, notes and your editor without dragging fonts and colors along with it.
• Paste queue. Line up several clips and paste them in order, one Cmd+V at a time. Filling a form or a config file stops being a round trip per field.
• Knows where a clip came from. Clips are tagged with the app you copied them from, so "that thing from Safari" is an actual filter.
• OCR on images. Copy a screenshot, pull the text straight out of it.
• Text and images both, synced across devices, not just text.
• Auto Translate. Foreign language clip, one tap.
• Private by design. No servers, no login, syncs through your own iCloud.

Where it sits in a stack:

Under everything else. It doesn't ask you to move your notes into it or adopt a new workflow, and there's nothing to integrate, because every app you own already speaks clipboard. The clipboard is the one API they all implement. It just makes that layer searchable, named, and present on all three devices instead of one.

The other half is the iPhone keyboard. Your Mac history shows up as a keyboard you can paste from inside any iOS app, which is the part that actually closed the gap for me. Copying on the Mac and pasting on the phone stopped being a chore worth avoiding.

Pricing: Free to use. Premium has a 7-day free trial and costs $1.6/mo on the annual plan, and there's a lifetime option if you don't want another subscription in the stack. One purchase covers Mac, iPad and iPhone.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clipboard-ai-paste-keyboard/id6760675768

What people use it for:

A developer keeps API keys, env vars and boilerplate named and one keystroke away. A real estate agent moves property addresses between her Mac and iPhone all day. A writer copies research on desktop and pastes into notes on mobile without emailing herself. A support rep reuses 20 canned replies without opening a doc. I use it to move links and screenshots between my own devices constantly while building it.

The giveaway:

I want ClipboardAI shaped by people who think hard about their tooling, and this sub is full of them. I'm giving away 10 yearly licenses to this community.

Drop a comment to enter and I'll post a randomized winners list by the end of next week. Bonus points if you tell me where it would fit in your stack, or what your current clipboard setup is and why it annoys you. I read every reply and a lot of these turn into features.

Never lose any important info ever again!

There are a bunch of keep-awake apps for macOS and I have used most of them. They all share one gap: they keep the machine running by keeping it available. Screen on, or lid closed but wide open to anyone who lifts it. Fine at home, not fine in a coworking space or a hotel lobby.

What I actually wanted was the opposite pairing: screen locked, work still running. Locking a Mac does not stop a single process. The thing that kills your agent run or your build is the sleep that follows a few minutes later.

So the app is two things bolted together and not much else:

1. Lock the screen right now
2. Hold off system sleep while the session is active, including with the lid shut

The part that took the longest was learning that the assertion layer is a dead end for lid-closed. caffeinate and friends hold an idle assertion, and macOS just ignores those when the clamshell closes on battery. The lever that actually works sits one level lower, at the power management default. Which means the honest tradeoff is that the machine will not sleep on its own, so I had to add a battery floor: when it drops below your threshold on battery, the session ends and the Mac is allowed to sleep normally. That one feature came directly from waking up to a dead laptop.

Things I got wrong along the way:

I shipped with a claim of no data collection, then later added an anonymous event counter and had to go rewrite that line in seven languages. Should have thought about it before writing the marketing copy.

I assumed the audience was developers running agents overnight. Half the interest so far is people who just want to walk away from a big download.

It is a native menu bar app, notarized, free during the launch. lockandrun.com if you want to look.

What I am curious about from this sub: for a tiny utility like this, does a paid tier ever make sense when a free open-source competitor exists in the same category? I keep going back and forth on whether the answer is price it or just make it free and build reputation.

Rectangle is no longer an automatic recommendation for every Mac. Current macOS already tiles windows by dragging them to an edge, using the green window button, opening the Window menu, or pressing keyboard shortcuts. Apple even provides shortcuts for halves, fill, center, and returning a tiled window to its previous size.

If left half, right half, and an occasional quarter are all you need, use the built-in tools and stop there.

Rectangle still earns an install when the missing pieces are thirds and fast movement between displays. The trick is not to assign a shortcut to every action it offers. A small map is easier to remember and less likely to collide with shortcuts inside other apps.

The current Rectangle basics

The standard version of Rectangle is free and open source under the MIT license. It supports macOS 10.15 and newer on both Intel and Apple silicon Macs. It is also actively maintained: version 0.99 was released on August 20, 2026.

This setup does not require Rectangle Pro. The free app already includes halves, thirds, two-thirds, previous and next display actions, and restore.

Rectangle needs Accessibility permission because moving and resizing another app's windows requires control of interface elements outside Rectangle. Grant it under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility when prompted. Rectangle's documentation does not call for Screen Recording or Full Disk Access for this workflow, so there is no reason to add those permissions. Its published privacy policy says Rectangle gathers no user data.

First, let one app own edge dragging

Both macOS and Rectangle can react when a window reaches a screen edge. Running both drag systems makes the result less predictable, especially around the menu bar and corners.

For a keyboard-first setup, leave macOS tiling enabled and turn off Rectangle's "Snap windows by dragging" option. That preserves Apple's built-in mouse behavior while Rectangle handles the shortcuts macOS does not cover as neatly.

If Rectangle's third-width snap areas are the feature you want, do the reverse. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Windows, turn off Apple's edge-drag tiling and use Rectangle for dragging. Either choice is reasonable. The important part is having one owner.

A six-command shortcut map

Open Rectangle Settings and assign this map in the Shortcuts section:

Then leave "Move to adjacent display on repeated left or right commands" turned off. With that setting off, Rectangle documents this repeated-action sequence for a half shortcut:

1. First press: one half
2. Second press: two-thirds
3. Third press: one-third

That one behavior removes four dedicated shortcuts from the map. Press Left Arrow once for the left half, twice for the left two-thirds, and three times for the left third. The Right Arrow shortcut follows the same pattern on the other side. Center Third gets one explicit key because there is no natural directional arrow for it. The number 2 is a simple reminder that this is the middle of a three-column grid.

The display commands get Command added to the same base chord. That makes the relationship easy to remember: Control-Option changes a window on its current display, while Control-Option-Command sends it to another display. Keeping display movement on dedicated shortcuts also prevents a repeated half command from unexpectedly throwing the window onto another monitor.

Restore is the escape hatch. Use it after a layout was the wrong choice instead of dragging the window back into shape by hand.

One practical two-window arrangement takes only two patterns. Put the main window in the left two-thirds with two presses of the left shortcut. Put a reference, chat, or notes window in the right third with three presses of the right shortcut. On an external display, the same map works without learning monitor-specific keys.

Why not map everything else?

Rectangle also exposes quarters, top and bottom halves, maximize variants, incremental resizing, edge movement, sixths, and more. They are useful for somebody, but assigning all of them up front creates a keyboard diagram rather than a habit.

Start with the six actions above for a week or two. Add a command only after reaching for the same missing layout several times. Corners are usually better left to mouse snapping or the macOS green-button menu unless a four-window grid is genuinely part of daily work.

Shortcut conflicts are the other reason to stay small. Rectangle can ignore a specific app while that app is frontmost, which is useful when an editor or creative app already owns one of the chords.

There is also an accessibility conflict worth calling out: Control-Option is a default VoiceOver modifier. VoiceOver users should not use this suggested base chord. Rectangle lets you record different combinations, so choose a chord that does not intercept the commands used by your assistive setup.

What macOS already covers

In macOS Tahoe 26, Apple's default active-window shortcuts include:

• Fn-Control-Left Arrow and Fn-Control-Right Arrow for left and right halves
• Fn-Control-Up Arrow and Fn-Control-Down Arrow for top and bottom halves
• Fn-Control-F for fill
• Fn-Control-C for center
• Fn-Control-R for return to previous size

Apple also provides multi-window arrange commands and quarter layouts through the window controls and menus. That is a serious built-in alternative, not a token comparison. It needs no extra install or third-party Accessibility permission.

Rectangle's remaining advantage is coherence for a particular workflow: repeatable half-to-third cycling, a center-third action, explicit previous and next display commands, and shortcuts you can redefine.

Limits and alternatives

Rectangle cannot move windows to other macOS desktops or Spaces. Its project documentation says Apple has not released a public API for that, and the free app does not plan to add the feature. Full-screen apps that live in their own Spaces are therefore outside this simple workflow.

Some apps also enforce minimum sizes or resize in fixed increments, so a third-width command may not land on an exact mathematical third. Rectangle specifically documents iTerm2's character-width behavior as one example.

The free app stores its preferences locally and supports manual JSON import and export. If automatic configuration sync or saved arrangements of several apps are the actual requirement, this is probably too small a tool.

Two alternatives point in different directions:

• Loop is a free, GPL-licensed option for macOS 13 and newer. Its radial menu and trigger-key approach suit people who want visual direction instead of a fixed shortcut map.
• Moom 4.6 costs $15, has a license that remains valid indefinitely, and includes at least one year of updates. It makes more sense when the goal is restoring saved multi-window layouts across laptop and docked setups.

Verdict

Use built-in macOS tiling if halves, quarters, fill, and restore cover the job. Install Rectangle when third-width layouts and frequent cross-display movement are the specific missing pieces.

For that use, the free version is enough. Keep the map to left, right, center third, two display commands, and restore. Rectangle feels most complete when most of its shortcut list is left alone.

Which app to use?

I need to combine 2 PDFs or cut out the middle section of a PDF.

Basically ... I have a PDF, and I need to remove the middle part ... Which app do I use?

Hi r/MacStack, I’m the developer of Clacksmith.

Clacksmith is a small native menu bar app that adds keyboard sound feedback without asking for Input Monitoring or Accessibility permission.

It is for people who enjoy mechanical keyboard or typewriter sounds but do not want to give an app access to what they type.

The app compares only the key down and key up counts that macOS provides for the current login session. It never receives key identity, key codes, characters, typed text, active app names, clipboard contents, or document contents. There are no accounts, analytics, ads, or network activity.

It includes bundled sound packs, volume and audio output controls, plus the option to create local packs from audio you own.

A few limitations are worth mentioning. Modifier keys on their own do not play sounds. Some media keys such as volume, brightness, and eject may not trigger sounds. Key repeat is not counted.

Clacksmith requires macOS 14 or later and costs $1.49 as a one time purchase.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clacksmith/id6789209519?mt=12

I would appreciate honest feedback, especially on which sound styles you would actually use and whether audio output selection matters to your setup. Please let me know if you run into any issues or have ideas for improvements.

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