A giant list of Mac apps
I recently upgraded to a MacBook Pro with Retina display. It’s the first time I’ve had a fresh Mac OS X install for a while, so I carefully considered which apps to install. This list is essentially what I ended up installing, each app fully deserving a spot on my HD. There are a couple of web apps that I thought were worth mentioning too.
Audio/Video
- Boom
- I use Boom as system-wide equaliser. A little EQ and a slight boost of the volume and it brings a good pair of headphones to life.
- Smart Converter Pro 2
- Handy for converting movie files (avi, mkv, etc.) for the Apple TV or iOS.
- Spotify
- I switch between Spotify and Rdio periodically. Spotify just edges it as it seems to have a better selection of music. Regardless, pretty much the only way I listen to music these days is via streaming services.
- VLC
- Plays every kind of video file.
Design/Graphic Editing
- Aperture
- Purchased Aperture recently after a toss up between it and Lightroom. It’s a nice way to edit photographs but I’m not 100% satisfied.
- Icon Slate
- The best way I’ve found to export (retina) icons in different formats and sizes.
- ImageOptim
- Compresses PNG, JPEG and GIF files. Takes seconds and can hugely improve the load time of a website.
- Pixel Grinder
- The best batch image processor I’ve come across. Add 100s of images, configure some processing actions (resize, crop, watermark, grayscale, etc.) and hit start. A massive time saver.
- Paparazzi
- A small utility that takes screenshots of webpages.
- Pixelmator
- The reason I haven’t installed Photoshop. I use it mostly for cropping and resizing images but it has a really nice interface and plenty of photo editing potential.
- Sip
- A colour picker that can be called via a keyboard shortcut. Outputs the colour in your desired format.
- Sketch 3
- My design app of choice. Although slightly buggy, the clean and simple interface coupled with some really nice features make Sketch a winner.
Development
- Beanstalk
- Makes Git deployment easy.
- BrowserStack
- Web-based browser testing. Includes an impressive selection of browsers and operating systems (even mobile devices).
- CodeKit 2
- I use CodeKit primarily as a live reload tool (across multiple devices) and a SASS compiler. It does a lot more than that though.
- CodeRunner
- A handy tool for testing snippets of code or experimenting. Compiles PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Shell Scripts, etc.
- Dash
- Provides instant search to any programming language documentation. Handy for looking up that function you can’t remember how to use.
- Integrity
- Crawls a site and returns server responses, great for catching broken links. Part of my website pre-launch process.
- iTerm2
- My terminal app of choice. Still using the drop-down visor view and it’s great.
- Patterns
- A handy tool for writing regular expressions; especially useful if you’re not that familiar with regex.
- Sequel Pro
- A fast and easy-to-use interface for working with MySQL databases.
- Sublime Text 3
- My code editor of choice. I wrote about my Sublime Text setup.
- Text Wranger
- I use Text Wrangler for handling large text files (I’m talking about 5mb+ database dumps or log files). Find and replace operations that can take minutes in Sublime Text take seconds in Text Wrangler.
- Transmit
- The best FTP client I’ve tried. Works great for FTP and SFTP and also useful for Amazon S3 if you use that for storage.
- xScope
- A group of tools ideal for measuring, aligning and inspecting on-screen graphics. If you’re a perfectionist, you’ll want this app.
Productivity
- 1Password
- One of my most used apps. Every password for every service I use is unique thanks to 1Password. I use Dropbox to sync between Macs and my iOS devices.
- Airmail
- The best email app I’ve tried since Sparrow.
- Basecamp
- My project management tool of choice. Every client facing project I work on goes in Basecamp.
- Clarify
- Makes creating how-to guides really quick and easy. I use it primarily for make CMS guides for clients.
- Delineato Pro
- A minimal mind mapping tool, great for getting ideas out quickly.
- Due
- If I need a reminder to return a call, send an email, or get some milk, it’s in Due.
- Instapaper
- I save articles into Instapaper and then consume them on my phone. When I’m stuck without an internet connection, I always have something to read.
- Omnifocus 2
- Powerful, flexible and easy to use: 3 words that usually don’t go together.
- Passpack
- I use Passpack to share passwords with my team.
- Pinboard
- Where I store all my bookmarks.
- Soulver
- More like a spreadsheet than a traditional calculator, Soulver is a great way to work with numbers. The iOS app is great too.
- TextExpander
- A real time saver. I use it for expanding everything from lorem ipsum snippets to email signatures.
- Todoist
- Does everything I want from a task manager.See Omnifocus 2.
- Tweetbot
- My Twitter client of choice.
Reading/writing
- Marked 2
- A previewer for markdown files. I use it for proof reading anything I write in markdown and exporting to different file types. Also includes statistics such as word count, reading time, Fog Index and Flesch-Kincaid scores.
- MultiMarkdown Composer
- I use MultiMarkdown Composer for long form writing. The table of contents feature helps navigating longer documents and also makes it easy to rearrange sections.
- nvALT
- One of the most used apps on my Mac, nvALT stores all my notes in markdown. I don’t use pen and paper; literally everything goes in nvALT.
- ReadKit
- My RSS reader of choice.
- Ulysses III
- The vast majority of the writing that I do is in Ulysses. I really like the way documents are stored as stacks of sheets and of course it supports markdown.
Utilities
- Alfred
- Alfred is always the first app I install. Mac OS X doesn’t feel complete until Alfred is installed.
- Command-C
- Lets you send stuff from your Mac to your iOS device and vice versa.
- f.lux
- If you’re regularly up working late, you’ll probably like f.lux. It adjusts the colour of your screen based on the time of day, making it easier on your eyes.
- Moom
- Allows you to easily move and zoom windows.