A giant list of Mac apps

Published: 09 April 2014

Tagged: #tech

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.