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Favorite or good apps and why?

slooksterPSV

slooksterPSV

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 17, 2004
3,545
309
Nowheresville
I'm looking for suggestions on apps for macOS. I am running a 2009 Mid with 4GB of RAM. Here's what I have installed so far:

iBooks Author
Whatsapp
Spotify
Pages
Numbers
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Mac
Steam
DeskTube
OneDrive
OneNote
iMovie
GarageBand

So I'm looking for good apps or apps you guys enjoy. If you want to notate why, that would be great.

Thanks
 
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  • Goofy (Facebook messenger client that works very well - it's an open source project too.
  • Chrome (if there is a problem with Safari or you need Flash Player for a specific website.)
  • Mindnote Lite (if you can still find it, great little mind map software)
  • Malwarebytes (unfortunately has become a paid app.)
  • OpenEmu (one of the best emulators: from Gameboy to PS1 to PSP to Sega to ....)
  • Project IINA (best and most powerful videoplay back app on Mac.)
 
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Lyn is a neat lightweight image browser/manager. Scrivener has everything and the kitchen sink for authors of long manuscripts. OmniOutliner is terrific for complex outlines and light word processing. Evernote is my essential go-to app for notes and miscellaneous writing, and it runs on all my devices.
 
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slooksterPSV said:
I'm looking for suggestions on apps for macOS. I am running a 2009 Mid with 4GB of RAM.
So I'm looking for good apps or apps you guys enjoy. If you want to notate why, that would be great. Thanks
Click to expand...

coconutBattery - current battery health shows info about the battery in your Mac and iOS devices
Macs Fan Control - Monitor and control fans on Apple computers
CustomMenu - build custom global menu for finding and lunching apps, files, and folders and switching
Keynote - Great "free and better" alternative to PowerPoint
OmniGraffle - create precise, beautiful graphics, data maps and great diagrams
VLC - plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols
Microsoft OneNote - Great for note taking, planning, tracking and syncing with iPhone and iPad
 
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That's pretty open-ended. Here are a few that I think are free or well worth the money:

• Blender – the best free and open 3D modelling app
• MuseScore 2 – the best free and open music notation app
• Xcode – the best app for making Mac and iOS apps
• Monity (inexpensive) – add some basic system data to Notification Center
• Deliveries (paid) – reliable package tracking
• Pixelmator (paid) – the best Mac image editor (Pro coming soon, so maybe wait)
• Motion (paid) – very fun and powerful for 2D graphics and other video effects
 
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BBEdit. It does text files. well.
Yojimbo. I keep lots of little logs and lists and hardware specs and stuff. Yojimbo keeps them all together with global search capabilities within its database of files. Handles passwords too.
FindAnyFile and EasyFind, because Spotlight is inadequate and annoying.
 
Freddy Fruitfly said:
- Little Snitch 4 - Makes internet connections visible
- Bartender 3 - Organize your menu bar apps
Click to expand...

Little snitch is good...

Partron22 said:
EasyFind, because Spotlight is inadequate and annoying.
Click to expand...

This is the part where I don't undersand Apple's brain-picking well enough... You need a separate app because Spotlight can't search Preferences folders by default.... You must go into these "special" folders in order to search, just sounds like an obvious mistake to me.... At least Apple should have added a criteria setting here.
 
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Tech198 said:
Little snitch is good...



This is the part where I don't undersand Apple's brain-picking well enough... You need a separate app because Spotlight can't search Preferences folders by default.... You must go into these "special" folders in order to search, just sounds like an obvious mistake to me.... At least Apple should have added a criteria setting here.
Click to expand...

Make a setting that users can enable. A checkbox that marks a Boolean with a function when it’s iterating to include the preferences folder. Sounds like it would only take... 20 lines of code and a checkbox.
 
Piezo and Airfoil: sound capture and pushing music around my house
Tidal: high quality music streaming (No TV so this is my -expensive- luxury item)
Deckset: Moved from PPT to Keynote and finally Deckset because it's quick, easy and audiences prefer the result
BusyContacts: Work in education so keeping in touch is essential. Tracks communication and activities with individuals
Debit & Credit: Good value efficient money manager
Notability: Just begun to use it in earnest and wish I'd done so earlier
Wunderlist: Teamwork. Is it the most unstated and popular application? And it's free.
Dyrii: Diary. Keeps my head in order.
Bento: Sadly no longer supported but was and still is a good database app

PS Useful thread.
 
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CarbonCopy Cloner. It's free and it can make timemachine like backups for one drive to another. It has great scheduling tools and it's never failed me once!(Except for when the physical device fails...then the copy doesn't work).

I even have the software setup to copy my two Harddrives(mirror) at anytime both drives are connected.
 
CCC - backups (paid)
Bartender - menu bar management (paid)
Moom - window manager (paid)
Papaarazzi - full-screen screenshot tool and save as .pdf (free)
Deliveries - package delivery tracker (paid)
Path Finder - two-column file manager (paid)
1Password - password manager (paid)
TextExpander - text snippets (paid and has moved to subscription)
FreeSpace - menu bar app to monitor storage free space (free)
OmniSweep - identify and manage large files/folders on your hard drive (free)
Unarchiver - .zip .rar .7up compress/decompress utility (free)
Spotify - music streaming (subscription)
BBEdit - text and programming editor (paid, but offers basic editing options in free mode)
 
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nnoble said:
Piezo and Airfoil: sound capture and pushing music around my house
Tidal: high quality music streaming (No TV so this is my -expensive- luxury item)
Deckset: Moved from PPT to Keynote and finally Deckset because it's quick, easy and audiences prefer the result
BusyContacts: Work in education so keeping in touch is essential. Tracks communication and activities with individuals
Debit & Credit: Good value efficient money manager
Notability: Just begun to use it in earnest and wish I'd done so earlier
Wunderlist: Teamwork. Is it the most unstated and popular application? And it's free.
Dyrii: Diary. Keeps my head in order.
Bento: Sadly no longer supported but was and still is a good database app

PS Useful thread.
Click to expand...

Wunderlist was great but it's not not getting updates since Microsoft bought it and they posted a notice on their blog early this year to say it will stop working soon.

I've ported to Todoist but do miss Wunderlist.
 
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MakeMKV - rip blu-rays's to mkv format. Paid
Evernote - Store documents and notes here.I even have entire books (pdf) in here. (subscription )
SecureCRT - excellent SSH client for Windows and Mac. Paid.
Dayone - Journalling app. Paid.
Airmail - great consolidated email tool. Works well with Exchange , Gmail, Apple Mail, and more. Paid.
Atom - Good text editor with tons of plugins that extend functionality a crazy amount. Free.
Plex Media server - The only way I watch my Movies / TV show collection. Free.
Paprika - store and share recipes. Also does grocery lists and meal planning. Paid.
 
Some of my most used apps are

Evernote
Scrivener
Pocket
Pixelmator

Occasionally:
Notability
DayOne
Audacity
SimpleNote
Not a Mac app, but for documents I like to use Google Docs
 
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