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Essential apps on macOS

Published on Nov 10, 2016

Someone who just bought his first Mac asked me which essential (GUI) apps I currently use that I could recommend to him. As this will probably happen again I'll just keep this list here so I can easily link to it.

1Password

  • Password management
  • iOS sync, all my important documents / certificates are stored in there and sync with my phone and browser extensions
  • 1Password also has a web interface so you don't have to install the program if you are on some other computer
  • Web: https://1password.com/

AppCleaner

Arq

  • Client side encrypted backups to a bunch of services, I use it for Amazon Drive, Google Drive and my own server via SCP.
  • Web: https://www.arqbackup.com/

Atom

BetterSnapTool

Calibre

Captured

Carbon Copy Cloner

Charles

Docker

Flux

iTerm

MacDown

Paw

  • REST client with a bunch of great features, especially the sync and a way to set variables in routes is super useful.
  • Free alternative: Postman
  • Web: https://paw.cloud/

Postico

Pixelmator

Textual

Tweetbot

Viscosity

Tower

Transmission

Dash

  • Offline documentation and snippets, I mostly use it for the snippets because it supports placeholders in snippets too
  • Web: https://kapeli.com/dash

XLD

  • Lossless audio decoder, I use this to convert Flac to Apple Lossless while automatically dropping this into the iTunes watch folder so it gets added automatically
  • Web: http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

LICEcap

TripMode

  • Useful if you tether through your phone a lot while travelling, enable network access on a per application basis.
  • Web: https://www.tripmode.ch/

NepTunes

GPGTools

  • GPG encryption integration for Mail.app and GPG Keychain to manage your GPG keys (Mail integration not updated for Sierra yet)
  • Web: https://gpgtools.org/

Kaleidoscope

Yate

The Unarchiver