You must promote your apps here if you do not qualify to post in the main feed through Trust or Transparency, explained here.
If you are:
NOT in the Mac App Store (MAS).
Do not provide meaningful public transparency
Created yet another dictation app (speech to text).
Then you are required to limit promotion to this megathread.
All promotion MUST follow PCP format or else we will remove it:
App Name/Title [Screenshot encouraged]
Problem: What problem does your app solve.
Comparison: Name a competitor or two and explain what your app does better.
Pricing Amounts+Link
P.s. Promotion here counts towards the 30-day limited promotion (Rule 3).
WARNING: There is a 90% chance Reddit will auto remove your post here if you have not verified your email in your profile and your first comment in this subreddit contains a link. Accrue 10 karma first without promotional comments and links to avoid this. The odds of removal is also higher for AI assisted posts (em dashes and other AI formatting characteristics likely trigger this).
Pro Tip: Please remember to upvote gems and downvote spam/clones... This will help inform a secret community project I hope to announce next month.
Thanks to u/esluisge, for investigating and sharing this with me.
What's going on: If you Google "pearcleaner," one of the top results (sometimes ranking above the real GitHub page) is pearcleaner.com. It looks legit. It is not. The real Pearcleaner is open-source by developer alienator88 and is distributed only through github.com/alienator88/Pearcleaner and Homebrew. The .com domain is fake, which is exactly why it's nowhere to be found on the actual GitHub page.
The trap: On the fake site, clicking "Download Pearcleaner Free" redirects to another domain (filemapleshare.com) that tells you to "download the app" by pasting a command into Terminal:
That base64 decodes to a URL on pine-1.com with a per-victim tracking hash. The command downloads a script and runs it immediately. The script is heavily obfuscated (random variable names, junk loops, fake "preflight check" functions) and its real payload is a gzipped/base64 blob that gets eval'd. Behavior matches the AMOS / Atomic Stealer family. It fingerprints your macOS version and then goes after:
…then exfiltrates it to the attacker. This delivery method which is to trick the user into pasting a command into Terminal — is called a "ClickFix" attack, and it's something to be weary of when downloading apps.
The one rule when downloading apps: Never paste commands into terminal. Unless it's a `brew install`, don't trust it.
If you already ran it:
Don't rely on just deleting files or running a scanner. Assume your saved credentials were stolen the moment it ran.
From a different, clean device, change passwords for Apple Account, email, banking, and anything saved in your browser. Email and financial first.
Enable/re-verify 2FA and log out all sessions everywhere.
If you hold crypto, move funds to a fresh wallet with a new seed phrase now.
A full macOS erase + reinstall removes the malware itself, but it does not un-send already-stolen data. Rotate credentials regardless.
Report the domains to Google Safe Browsing and the registrars: pearcleaner.com, filemapleshare.com, pine-1.com, pearl91.com. See more here.
Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the feedback on the last post about Nodes, it genuinely helped shape what we’ve been working on since.
Quick recap for anyone who missed it: Nodes is a native macOS Markdown editor, fully local, with a clean typographic interface that renders math, tables and code inline. The name comes from connecting your notes as nodes, and there are optional AI features built in too.
What’s new in 1.10.0:
Nodes now has a background agent, off by default, that reviews your notes on its own and suggests tags, short descriptions and reminders as it goes. It’s the first real step toward what we talked about in the last post: Nodes surfacing connections for you instead of you making them all by hand.
We also added Light Windows. A few people pointed out that Nodes couldn’t just open a random .md file living somewhere on disk. Now you can double-click any Markdown file in Finder and it opens as a standalone document window. If you don’t want to deal with the whole Nodes workspace at all, this is a way to just edit and save files on disk without any of that. And if a file turns out to be a keeper, you can pull it into your library from there.
And Nodes has semantic search now. It understands your notes by meaning, not just keywords, so a search for „remembering things“ can surface your note on spaced repetition even if it never uses those exact words. This runs fully on-device.
Smaller additions: a Home dashboard that gathers your tags, open reminders and recent notes in one place, and Flow, a distraction-free full-screen writing mode.
Problem: Most Mac markdown editors are either webview/Electron apps, locked behind a subscription, or cloud-based. I wanted something native and fully local, with a clean writing experience.
Comparison:
vs Obsidian: Electron, and built to be endlessly flexible for everyone. Nodes is native (SwiftUI), more opinionated and focused, with on-device semantic search and an open-source markdown engine.
Pricing: Nodes is completely free right now. In a few weeks we’re introducing two one-time purchase tiers: one that unlocks unlimited notes and tagging (the full editor), and a second one for the on-device AI features. If you download Nodes before that happens, you’ll get both tiers for free, permanently. No subscription, ever.
If you’ve been using Nodes and have a minute, a review on the App Store genuinely helps a small app like this. No pressure though.
I posted this here a couple weeks ago when the app was called bHive Filer and got a lot of genuinely useful feedback. 2.0 is out today and some of it came straight from this sub.
First, the boring bit: it is just bHive now. If you already have it installed, it renames itself the first time it launches. That only happens once.
What it does
You point it at folders you already have. It reads what is actually inside your files, documents, PDFs, images (it OCRs them), and now audio and video. Then you search by describing what you want instead of trying to remember what you named it.
Nothing moves. Nothing gets copied into a library. Your files stay exactly where they are, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.
The new thing: Ask bHive
You can now ask a question and get an answer out of your own documents. "What did the lease say about breaking early?" It finds the relevant files, reads them, and answers in plain language.
Two things I cared about here:
It shows you which files it used, so you can open them and check it. And it will tell you when it does not know rather than inventing something that sounds right.
It runs on your Mac. Apple's built in model works immediately with nothing to download. If you would rather run something bigger, there is a larger local model you can fetch.
Also new in 2.0
Audio and video get transcribed on device, so what people said in a recording becomes searchable and askable.
A library health view showing what is not searchable and why. Files that moved, drives that are not plugged in, things that failed to open, things still queued. Several of you asked for this and I hope it works the way you need.
Back up your Hives, tags and notes to a file and restore them later.
Search itself got a lot better, especially if you keep files in more than one language.
The honest parts
It needs macOS 26 and Apple Silicon. If you are on macOS 15 you stay on 1.3.1 and it keeps working, but you will not be offered this one. I know that is annoying and I am sorry. Apple released a ton of frameworks only available in macOS 26 and that dictated this decision.
The much better search model is a 515 MB download. It is optional, and bHive asks before taking it rather than just helping itself to your bandwidth. The built in model works fine without it.
It is free. No subscription, no account, no telemetry, no upsell later.
Hi, I am the developer of LookAway - a smart break reminder app for the Mac that knows when not to interrupt. I've spent the last 3 years building this app and it's now used by tens of thousands of people every day. I am truly grateful for all the love and feedback I've received.
What's new in 2.3.0
LookAway has always been about taking mindful breaks without interruptions. Until now, LookAway handled idle time poorly. When you came back from a long pause, it interrupted you with a modal asking if you had stepped away - which was pretty annoying.
This update aims to fix it. LookAway now looks at various system signals to understand whether you truly went away or were just reading for a while. Accordingly, it restarts or resumes your session on your behalf. In most cases, you will only see a small non-blocking toast to flip its decision if it got one wrong. The same toggle is also available in the menu bar, so you always have the final say.
That's not all. LookAway 2.3 also brings back advance skips: skip a break before it starts, with a per-day limit so it doesn't become a habit.
There are also new Custom Breaks: start a break of any length at any time, right from the menu bar with "Take a break for" option, a keyboard shortcut, or via AppleScript. Great for resting your eyes for 2 mins before a presentation, or taking a 10-min break after finishing a big task.
On top of that, there are three new animated break backgrounds, a reorganized menu bar, and lots of optimizations that bring idle CPU usage down to ~0.5%.
Problem:
The issue with many break reminder apps is not that they remind you too little, but that they do it without enough context. If a reminder pops up while you're in a meeting, recording your screen, presenting, or in the middle of something time-sensitive, it quickly becomes annoying and easy to dismiss.
I wanted LookAway to solve that better.
Comparison:
The main thing LookAway does differently compared to other apps (TimeOut, BreakTimer, Stretchly, and countless others) is iPhone sync. During breaks, it can sync with your iPhone so you're less likely to just switch devices and keep scrolling. As far as I know, that's not something the other apps in this category offer.
The second big difference is smart pause / context awareness. LookAway tries to avoid interrupting you at the wrong moment by adapting around things like meetings, screen recording, video playback, and similar situations where a forced reminder would feel frustrating.
Other things that set it apart:
posture reminders and blink reminders in addition to break reminders
a heads-up before breaks so they don't feel abrupt
a more detailed stats experience with things like Screen Score, session patterns, and natural breaks
Pricing:
LookAways costs $19 for the single-device perpetual license and comes with a 7-day trial. It's also available on the App Store.
2Do is for people who need more than a basic to-do list without being forced into a specific workflow. There is no wrong way to use it. Keep a simple list, follow GTD, manage detailed projects, or create your own workflow.
It supports tasks, checklists, projects, tags, Smart Lists, reminders, durations, locations, scripting, and Claude Cowork through MCP. It can sync (two-way!) with Apple Reminders, Todoist, Fastmail, iCloud CalDAV, self-hosted CalDAV, Toodledo, and Dropbox. It can also import existing data from Things 3 and OmniFocus.
2Do also lets you share individual lists with other people over local Wi-Fi. No internet connection or cloud service is required.
Comparison
Compared with Things 3, 2Do offers more sync choices, including Apple Reminders, Todoist, CalDAV, Toodledo, and Dropbox. It also provides flexible Smart Lists, different sort methods (and so much more!) and can import an existing Things database directly.
Compared with OmniFocus, 2Do offers a less prescriptive workflow while still supporting projects, subtasks, tags, priorities, start and due dates, recurring tasks, and advanced filtering. It can also import an existing OmniFocus database.
No Subscription. A direct 2Do Mac license normally costs $49.99 USD. New customers can currently get 30% off, reducing the price to $34.99 USD, with code 30OFFMYORDER at checkout.
The direct version is a perpetual license with no recurring charge. It includes 18 months of updates, and you can keep using the last version covered by your license indefinitely. Renewal is optional and currently costs $39.99 USD for another 18 months of updates.
🎉 XSpeak is turning one year old, which is quite a thing for me to realize.
One year of weekly or biweekly updates. One year of your continuous feedback. One year of issues and fixes, debugging, polishing animations, adding features, rewriting subsystems from the ground up, and reviewing thousands of AI-generated results to improve their quality.
There have been good moments and bad moments. First users. First paying customers. First mention in an article. Critical feedback. Critical issues and sleepless nights. And frankly speaking, I love every single moment of it.
XSpeak has grown from a small iPad app into a full-featured, multi-platform meeting notes available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Transcript editing? Sure. Playback? No problem. Custom Skills for AI analysis? Here they are. Need to transcribe an audio file? Sorry, haven’t done that yet, but it’s on the way :)
I’m proud of what has been built over the past year, and I’m thankful to all of you for your support. It always motivates and helps notice problems. There’s still a lot to do, and I’m not going to stop here. If you’d like to stay updated, join r/XSpeak.
Problem
Communication is hard and takes up a significant part of our lives:
Work meetings where you need to take notes and participate at the same time
Difficult performance reviews when you’re unsatisfied with evaluation results
Team stand-ups where it’s hard to follow everything that happens
New subject areas where you don’t fully understand what people are talking about
XSpeak helps in these situations:
It transcribes conversations live and records everything
It analyzes conversations in real-time and provides you with relevant facts, suggestions, highlights your actions, or even produces whatever you need via custom skills
Compare
Compared to Hedy, XSpeak is local-first, doesn’t require you to register an account, and is more affordable ($49.99 vs. $299.99).
Pricing
$49.99 lifetime
$3.99/month, 7-day trial
$19.99/year, 7-day trial On the free version, you get transcription with speaker identification, and your history is limited to 3 recordings. 👉 XSpeak on App Store
I built VaultSort, a Mac app for organizing files, finding duplicates, and protecting sensitive data. The latest version adds two features I think are particularly useful for people who care about privacy and security.
Problem:
It is easy to accumulate sensitive files on your Mac without realizing it. Tax documents, financial records, personal photos, passwords, and other private information can end up scattered across your drive. Finding those files manually is difficult, and protecting them often means dealing with complicated encryption tools.
VaultSort makes this easier by combining file organization with local-first privacy and security tools.
You can encrypt files and folders by simply tapping a YubiKey or using Touch ID. VaultSort uses hardware-backed WebAuthn authentication with a key that is actually derived from your hardware, so you can protect your
files without having to remember another encryption password.
VaultSort Guardian uses local AI to identify sensitive files
The new Guardian feature also uses a local AI model to help identify potentially sensitive files on your Mac. The analysis runs locally on your device, so your files are not uploaded to a cloud service for analysis.
Comparison:
Compared with tools like VeraCrypt, VaultSort is designed to make encrypting individual files and folders much easier. You do not need to manage encrypted containers or deal with a complicated workflow. You can select the files or directories you want to protect and encrypt by tapping your YubiKey or Touch ID.
We also have advanced organization features comparable to Hazel, but which also integrate with AI so that you can create new organization jobs using natural language.
Compared with general Mac cleanup and organization tools like CleanMyMac, VaultSort focuses more on what happens to your sensitive data after you find it. In addition to organizing files and finding duplicates, you can identify sensitive data and protect it with hardware-backed encryption.
Pricing:
VaultSort is free to download, with premium features available for a $24.99 one-time purchase. There are no subscriptions and free updates are included.
I am offering 25% off the purchase price with checkout code Q0MTK4MG - this discount expires on July 28th.
Capturing a screenshot is a solved problem; a dozen apps do it well. What isn't solved is everything around the capture. For example, finding a screenshot again. When you have multiple screenshots that just show the time the screenshot was taken. Sharing screenshots safely the API key you forgot to blur, the EXIF data you didn't know was there. Recordings that come out long and full of dead air, where the fix is re-recording or opening a real video editor. And sensitive captures sitting in plain sight on the Desktop. I wanted one app that does the whole lifecycle capture it, polish it, protect it, and find it again later.
What it does:
Capture. Draw a selection once, then decide: screenshot, annotate, copy, record video, record GIF, scrolling capture, or pin it to the screen as a floating window. Press Space to flip between region and window picking, just like the macOS tool. Scrolling capture auto-scrolls and stitches whole pages, waits for lazy-loaded images, and detects sticky headers and cookie banners so they only appear once.
A full editor. 14+ annotation tools including numbered callouts, word-snapping highlights, blur/pixelate, cut-out bands, and signatures. One click auto-censor emails, phone numbers, credit cards, SSNs, and API keys. A beautifier adds gradient backgrounds, window frames, and shadows, and you can round-trip between annotating and beautifying as much as you want.
Recording with post-production. Record screen, system audio, mic, and webcam, then fix the recording instead of re-doing it: auto-zoom on every click, keystroke overlay, speed ramps through the boring parts, a synthetic scalable cursor, webcam picture-in-picture, and on-device auto-captions. Export as MP4, a looping "GIF but tiny" video, or a 9:16/1:1 crop for social. The original file is never touched.
Smart Library. An opt-in, fully on-device index of every screenshot, you can search by the text inside it, the app you captured, your own label, or just by meaning ("deployment pipeline" finds your CI dashboard). It even indexes screenshots taken with macOS's own Cmd-Shift-4, since it watches the save folder. Sensitive apps are blocklisted from indexing, card numbers and tokens are stripped before anything is written, and there's a forget button for any capture or the whole database.
Plus the rest of the ordinary stuff you’d expect: OCR text capture, color picker, QR scanner with malicious-payload detection, a Touch ID encrypted vault for sensitive captures, EXIF/metadata stripping, a floating shelf that collects your last few shots, and uploads to your own Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, S3, or WebDAV. No vendor cloud, no subscription to share a link.
How it compares:
CleanShot X is the polished commercial benchmark for screenshotting in my opinion. it has great capture, annotation, and recording, with sharing built around its own cloud. macshot is free, open-source, native, and genuinely good. It has annotation, recording, scroll capture, auto-censor, and OCR. I have a lot of respect for what its developer built. We were working on our apps around the same time; they just shipped their story to the world faster, and I'm only now getting around to marketing mine. So the comparison isn't "they can't do X," it's what mine does differently I made a Smart Library that searches your screenshots by text, app, or meaning entirely on-device (and indexes shots from other tools too, since it watches the save folder), a post-production editor that adds auto-zoom on clicks, keystroke overlays, speed ramps, on-device captions, and a 9:16 reframe to a recording after the fact; and a Touch ID encrypted vault for captures that shouldn't sit on the screenshot folder. Uploads go to storage you already own (Dropbox, iCloud, Drive, S3, WebDAV) rather than a vendor cloud. I also allow local AI and other frontier models to be used to prompt captures (there are presets and you can add your own in the settings).
Pricing:
Free. No trial, no license, no account. (There's a companion Window Manager if you want it, $7.99 once for 2 Macs, but the screenshot app doesn't need it.)
Runs entirely on-device: capture, OCR, AI search, and captions never touch a server. No telemetry outside the opt-in beta program. Native Swift, macOS 14+, 25 languages. Developer ID signed and notarized, Sparkle auto-updates, not on the App Store.
I've been building Port22 for the last few months. I run a few AI coding agents at once, Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode, and I found myself stuck at my desk because of them. They stop every few minutes to ask permission to run a command, and nothing happens until someone says yes.
Port22 is a menu bar app for your Mac and an iPhone app. Every agent running on your Mac shows up in one list on your phone with a live view of what its doing. When one needs permission, you get a notification and answer it right there.
A few things I've spent the most time on:
It shows the real question. An early version tried to figure out the options itself and made its own Approve and Deny buttons. It got them wrong sometimes, which is not something I wanted happening with shell commands. Now it only shows the exact question and options the agent wrote.
The session waiting for you always comes first, so you dont have to hunt for it.
No account needed. Pair it with your Apple ID in three simple steps.
Works at home and away. At home your phone talks directly to your Mac. Away from home it works over cellular too. Only your Mac and your phone can read the data, and none of your code is stored.
Supported today:
Claude Code
Codex
OpenCode
Coming next:
Hermes
OpenClaw
The problem
If you leave agents running, you have two bad choices. Turn permissions off and you dont see a risky command until after it runs. Keep permissions on and you have to stay near your Mac waiting for prompts.
Remote desktop or SSH helps you get back to your Mac, but it doesnt tell you an agent is waiting for you. You still have to notice it yourself.
How its different
SSH apps like Termius or Blink Shell give you a terminal, but you still have to find the right session. Port22 tells you exactly which one is waiting.
Screen sharing apps like Jump Desktop or Screens work, but using a full Mac desktop on a phone isnt a great experience. Port22 is built for this one job.
Cloud agent apps start a new session on their own servers. Port22 connects to the sessions already running on your Mac, in your own folders, with your existing setup.
Where it falls short:
Mac only.
It supports terminal based agents, not Cursor's built in agent.
Its not trying to replace screen sharing, it just solves one problem really well.
Pricing
Free includes 1 Mac and 2 active sessions. Its not a trial and theres no time limit.
Unlimited Macs and sessions is $19.99/year as a founding price.
Its not available yet. Beta opens on or before July 31, and I'll be letting people in a batch at a time.
Happy to answer any questions, including what doesnt work yet.
I have a powerful Windows desktop at home that I use for development and GPU-heavy work, and a MacBook Air that I take with me when travelling or going to meetings.
Occasionally I need to use the full Windows machine remotely from the MacBook - not just access files, but work in Windows apps for a few hours. The home PC can stay powered on, and I have a decent internet connection at home.
I am mainly looking for something reliable and secure over hotel/mobile networks, with good image quality and low enough latency for normal development work. I would rather avoid opening RDP ports directly to the internet.
My current idea is Tailscale for private network access, combined with either Windows App/RDP, Parsec, or Sunshine + Moonlight.
What are people here actually using from a Mac to access a Windows desktop remotely? Which setup has been the most reliable for longer work sessions?
Problem I built Prism to solve I built Prism to solve the friction of constantly switching to browser tabs to use AI. Web-based AI tools break your flow and lack proper OS integration. Prism is a native macOS AI assistant designed to feel like a real Mac app instead of another browser tab. It handles multi-provider chat, Quick AI, browser automation, system-wide writing help, file creation, image generation, and even study tools like quizzes and flashcards, all with local-first privacy controls.
Comparison Compared to other AI wrappers or tools like BoltAI or TypingMind, Prism goes far beyond a simple menu bar chat window. While those apps are great for basic AI messaging, Prism acts as a deep OS-level productivity suite. It offers unique features like native browser automation, file creation, and built-in study tools that competitors lack. I am shipping frequent updates based on user feedback, so the app is actively improving rather than sitting as a one-off release. If you try it and something feels missing, I would genuinely like to hear what would make it better for your workflow.
Pricing & Plans Prism offers flexible pricing whether you want to use the app entirely for free, bring your own API keys, or use our premium hosted models. All paid subscriptions include 2 seats.
Prism Free (Permanent): $0/mo (Basic app access, 10 AI requests per day across your own keys and local models).
Prism (Standard): $3/mo (Full app access, local proxy to route IDEs/CLIs, web overlay, and 2 seats. Hosted AI added separately), Includes 3 day free trial.
Prism Plus: $15/mo (Full app access + ~350 messages of hosted AI usage included on GPT-5.6, Claude, or Gemini and many other providers).
Student Yearly: $10/yr (Full app access for students with a verified .edu email, hosted AI added separately).
Lifetime License: $60 one-time (Permanent app access. Use your own keys/local models, or add hosted AI usage packs a-la-carte).
Standard and Plus plans have yearly options as well with 2 months free.
LAUNCH PROMO Launch Special: The first 15 lifetime-license buyers get $60 in GPT-5.6 credits, which includes 8M Terra and 2M Sol tokens. Purchase by Sep 1; credits are active through Sep 5. This makes the license effectively pay for itself on day one.
Future Updates
Upcoming: iOS, Android, and Windows apps for others who do not have a Mac.
Transparency & Trust:
I am the sole developer behind Prism. I'm a student developer and you can verify my identity on my LinkedIn Profile or see my work on my GitHub Profile. You can also review Prism's Privacy Policy & Terms on our website.
While you're reading this, I'm probably sleeping or sleep deprived.
I'm trying to fall asleep, so might as well tell you about, Sxitch, an app I made because I kept getting disoriented while switching workspaces.. like, "Why is obsidian in workspace 1 when its meant to be in 3??"
So basically, I planned to do a mega release for it on Monday (20 Jul), because people have gotten used to its name based workflow in 30 minutes, and even loved that it works with muscle memory..
Like you literally just press a hotkey of your choice (right command is default) and then keep typing the apps name until no more apps match (which is usually in max 3 presses), like s will open spotify, or fir and fin will open firefox and finder respectively.. No confirmation required..
but since I'm a student, I had 2 tests, (on Tue & Wed) so the update got pushed by 3 WHOLE DAYS.. like its an atrocious delay..
However, I knew people wanted the features I promised them:
more layout options (like circular layout)
window positioning
a few bug fixes
- key remaps
Guess what.. I absolutely smashed those 2 tests, so in a good mood, i reached home and added these features in a whim, to make the entire feature list
app (free) & window (pro) switching
an intuitive hotkey picker
sxitch window positioning (free)
multiple layouts (free)
blacklists (pro)
key remaps (pro)
hotkey based app opening (pro)
vendor prefix stripping, (free)
hiding and quitting apps (pro)
open sourced
native swift app
Now how does this compare against RCMD or Dory?
RCMD uses cycling for a bunch of features.. I DON'T like cycling.. there's almost always some element of randomness in cycling, and sxitch aims to solve that.
Dory is cursor / mouse based. I haven't had to charge my mouse like ever because I'm just too comfortable with the keyboard and the trackpad gets, so if you're a keyboard person, Sxitch is better.
I sit at a standing desk all day writing code and my posture is shot. Shoulders forward, lower back doing its own thing. I know the exercises that fix it, the knowledge was never the problem. The problem is remembering to actually do them when you're deep in work at 2pm.
I built a menu bar app that handles the remembering for me. It has two modes: Sit/Stand for standing desk users (alternates intervals with a live countdown in the menu bar) and Move mode if you just want a recurring reminder to get up. It also has a daily posture exercise and stretching checklist grouped by problem area (lower back, shoulders, neck) with instructions for each exercise/stretch and little checkmarks per set. Resets every morning with a reminder so you actually do them.
I actually started as a personal tool because I didn’t want to pay subscriptions, but then I got good results and thought I’d share it.
No account, no network access, no analytics. It's sandboxed and stores nothing but your settings locally.
Comparison:
SitApp and Posture Reminder AI use your webcam to detect slouching in real time, which is clever, but catching yourself slouching doesn't fix the underlying issue of weak and tight muscles. You sit up for a minute and drift right back. Time Out and other break apps do the reminder part well but know nothing about posture or exercises.
Lumbar Jack is the combination I wanted: interval reminders plus the corrective exercises that address the actual cause, one purchase, no camera pointed at me all day.
ExtraBar is a command center utility for your mac, at first we referred to it as a menu bar manager, but while it does help you tame your menu bar by removing their native icons and managing them through it, it is not a traditional hide/show menu bar manager like Bartender.
Background
macOS Tahoe introduced several challenges to menu bar managers, and ExtraBar was our attempt to create a simple alternative. After fighting a losing battle with edge cases, we quickly pivoted towards a different approach, which is a customizable menu bar, one that's better referred to as a command center.
ExtraBar has 16 different actions for the apps you add to it like open, quit, force quit etc however, it's main power is deep links. Anyone would have used deep links before know how powerful they are, and how much time could be saved on operations your perform every day, that has a deep link.
Examples of deep links
(there are millions of deep links, those are just random examples):
- Open WhatsApp to a specific conversation
- Any operation on Raycast like caffeinating your mac or any action from any extension you install
- Open Notion or Figma to a specific page in the browser or directly in the desktop app
- Trigger a Keyboard maestro macro or a BTT gesture directly by using their native URL scheme (deep links)
In the video you can see me playing with different actions such as Open with App (Bloom), Raycast - which is literally built on top of deep links, as well as how I customized my CleanShot X menu with just what I need using Raycast Extensions.
Core Features
- 5 Display Modes: Menu bar, Floating bar, Collapsed mode, Notch mode & Hide/Show launcher style
- Built with focus on Keyboard navigation, you can call ExtraBar with your keyboard and navigate the menus however you like with numbers or arrows.
- Fully customizable menu bar with 15 actions (Open with, Run Script, Run Shortcuts, Hide/Show, Deep links, Keyboard Shortcuts and more)
- Included bookmark manager (seen in video) with cloud sync between devices, web dashboard, soon to be fully cross platform, read more here
Comparison
As I mentioned ExtraBar is different from apps like Bartender or Barbee as it's not about hiding and showing apps. Instead ExtraBar is about menu bar customization, and turning your menu bar into a command center that's personalized to you.
Pricing
€15 Summer Sale is running until 1st of August (40% off)
I've decided I like this place, so I am hanging around despite some of its quirks.
Take your average question, let's say it's someone asking about a simple app to keep a window on top. Within an hour, the replies will include:
A free open-source utility
A $5 single-purpose app
A $30 app that also performs 46 unrelated functions
A recommendation for Raycast
Someone saying that Alfred can do it better
Someone else announcing that subscriptions are destroying civilization
That guy who accuses everything of "being AI"
The developer of a completely different app, praising the question and dropping a link to his unrelated app "if you're interested"
This is a feature, not a bug.
Few things make me sadder than someone who confesses that they have been thinking about getting an app like Keyboard Maestro, but they're holding off because they "are not a power user." We need to clear up some misconceptions. First of all, their reaction is understandable: in KM, there are colored blocks, nested actions, variables, conditions, triggers, and mysterious references to shell scripts. The whole thing looks less like a Mac app and more like the control system for a nuclear reactor. Most people just want to open an app, do something, and close it. They do not want to spend Saturday afternoon creating a four-finger trackpad gesture that resizes Finder, launches Obsidian, mounts a server, and tells the kitchen Echo to play London Calling.
Some of us do.
The Power User Defined
A Mac Power User (MPU) is not necessarily someone who knows how to write code, who uses the Terminal exclusively, or has memorized every defaults write command ever posted on Stack Overflow.
A power user is just someone with a low tolerance for friction and a high tolerance for tinkering. That's the whole entrance exam. If you've ever been annoyed enough at a repeated task to wonder whether there's a better way, you're already qualified. The apps aren't the hard part; deciding you're allowed to use them is.
They notice repeated friction, investigate whether it can be removed, and then spend 45 minutes automating a task that previously took eight seconds. This looks irrational until the automation fires correctly for the first time. At that moment, the heavens open, angels sing, and those eight seconds become a matter of principle.
What matters isn't technical skill; it's the persistent belief that the Mac could behave better if only someone would make it listen. When you stop seeing applications as singular entities and begin seeing how they form an interrelated system, that's when you have the mental framework required of an MPU.
A screenshot is not just a screenshot. It must be captured, annotated, compressed, renamed, filed by date, and moved into an archive folder after 30 days. Ideally, none of this should require conscious thought. (Confession: this is my actual workflow via Screenshot X, Hazel, Clop and NameQuick). The question is never just, "What does this app do?"
It is, "Can I trigger it with a hotkey, AppleScript, URL scheme, command-line tool, Shortcuts action, Stream Deck button, or unusually aggressive trackpad gesture?"
They do not:
Necessarily know how to code
Have a "clean" setup; most of us are one launcher away from chaos
Agree with each other about anything, ever
That last one matters. Put two power users in a room and you'll get three opinions about clipboard managers.
We Hold Strong Opinions About Little Things
A power user can remain calm during the failure of an operating-system upgrade or a smoking router. If some app moves one menu bar icon without permission, however, the day is ruined.
Small interface problems become deeply personal:
An app opens on the wrong display.
A window refuses to remember its size.
A network share does not reconnect after sleep.
A menu command lacks a keyboard shortcut.
A utility uses 340 MB of memory while allegedly doing nothing.
A new app is Electron-based, or worse yet, subscription-based.
None of these problems threatens civilization. Still, each one produces the same response: "There has to be an app for this."
There usually is.
It costs $7.99 on Gumroad, was made by one person somewhere in Eastern Europe, and has settings for things you did not know macOS could detect.
Just a Little Too Proud
Every hobby has its peacocks, and ours are easy to spot. The menu bar with thirty icons, curated like a trophy shelf. The person who has "finally settled" on a text editor for the fourth time this year and announced it in a post. The one who describes their file naming convention with the quiet confidence of someone who has never once found the file they were looking for on the first try.
I can make these jokes because I am these jokes. My Mac feels broken if certain utilities are missing, and I have absolutely rebuilt a workflow that already worked because a new app looked interesting. The peacocking isn't malice; it's enthusiasm with nowhere to go. The only version that deserves an eye roll is the one aimed downward, at people who just want their computer to work. Those people aren't doing it wrong. They're the control group.
The sub is our natural habitat: developers answering questions in their own threads, lifetime-license hunters comparing notes like coupon clippers, and "best clipboard manager?" arriving roughly every eleven minutes and still getting sincere answers. Rarely does anyone get mocked for asking a basic question. The worst outcome is leaving with four new apps you didn't plan to buy.
That's the tell. Power users aren't gatekeepers by nature; they're recruiters. Ask one a question about window managers and your real problem becomes ending the conversation. You'll eventually find out that half of the complex setups presented are just hobbies, not necessities. The best Mac setup gets out of your way and lets you work without fighting you; utility count has nothing to do with it. Conversely, there's nothing wrong with tinkering with apps as an enjoyable pastime IF you have the self-awareness to know that is what you are doing. Always remember, the time preparing to work is not actually work. Don't be the guy who, on the clock, builds elaborate macro chains in Keyboard Maestro to rename screenshots, run them through an image optimizer, and archive them by year; only to capture two screenshots a month.
Wannabe power users are welcome here, and if you don't want that label, that's fine. Someone has to keep us honest
Problem: Scheduling a call means either endless "does Tuesday work? no, Thursday?" email ping-pong, or sending someone a booking link and making them do the work on your page.
I wanted a third option: just offer a few times in my own words, in the thread I'm already in. SlotPicker reads your Mac's calendars (iCloud, Google, Exchange, subscribed feeds — anything in Apple Calendar), shows your week as a 30-minute grid with your busy blocks already painted on, and lets you drag across the slots you're free.
One click copies them as clean, day-grouped, timezone-labelled text you paste into any email or Slack. Nobody clicks a link, they just read.
Comparison:
vs Calendly — Calendly is a booking page: you send a link, they open it, pick a slot, it books automatically. Great for high-volume inbound scheduling. SlotPicker is the opposite: no page for anyone to visit, no account for you or them, and it stays inside the conversation you're already having. Better for the occasional 1:1 where a booking link feels like overkill.
vsCal.com — Cal.com is great if you'll self-host for privacy, but that means running and patching a server. SlotPicker needs nothing hosted at all: it reads your calendar locally and makes zero network requests — no servers, no accounts, no tracking (the App Store privacy label is literally "Data Not Collected").
It's a native SwiftUI app (~12 MB), not Electron, so it launches instantly and looks like a Mac app. macOS 14+, universal.
⠀ Problem. macOS has a built-in Hot Corners feature that can be handy but is functionally limited. Default feature only lets you trigger basic system actions like starting a screensaver, showing the desktop, etc., so you can't use it to launch apps, run automations or something like that.
Comparison.
macOS built-in hot corners: basic functionality only.
BetterTouchTool does have "Screen Corners" triggers, but CCCCorners is an app focused on hot corners specifically – like assigning multiple actions to hot corners on multiple displays, etc., and it's easier to setup these specific scenarios than in BTT. Also, I noticed that in BTT there may be a small delay before triggering the hot corner action (compared to macOS hot corners), which is not present in CCCCorners.
CCCCorners is a lightweight utility that makes hot corners actually useful, allowing you to assign apps, keyboard shortcuts, and automations. Other notable features include optional modifier keys, multiple-display support, active zones, and more.
⠀
— BIG UPDATE —
Version 7.0 introduces Treadmill mode, which I believe is a key milestone after seven major releases. Treadmill mode offers an alternative to a simple activation delay: instead of waiting until the delay time is over, you can "push" the corner harder with your mouse. A visual cue indicates that the function is active – after that, you can either keep pushing the mouse or just left-click to activate the corner.
You can customize the mode by adjusting sensitivity (how much pushing is required), as well as the color and size of the visual cue; there's also optional trackpad vibration.
As it turned out from user feedback, accidental triggers are the number one reason many users avoid macOS hot corners entirely. Treadmill mode solves this problem on a conceptual level, as accidental triggers are much less impossible – all without compromising the speed and ease of activation.
Combined with standard activation delay, it makes CCCCorners finally feel like the ultimate replacement for native macOS hot corners. While hot corners in macOS is an abandoned feature that has little in common with CCCCorners, you can still use the built-in hot corners simultaneously with the app.
⠀
—
Requirements: macOS 11.0 or newer.
Would love to hear what you think about the new mode!
A huge thank you to everyone who tried Grambo, reported bugs, and shared feedback after my last post.
One piece of feedback that stood out was that after applying an AI rewrite, it was hard to tell what exactly had changed. For grammar fixes it wasn't a big deal, but for larger rewrites and tone changes, it made reviewing your writing more difficult.
What's new:
Comparison View to see exactly what changed between your original and rewritten text.
Custom Server URLs for BYOK, so you can connect to your own OpenAI-compatible AI endpoints.
Various bug fixes and improvements based on your feedback.
Better reliability and overall performance.
For anyone seeing Grambo for the first time, it's a native macOS writing assistant that helps you fix grammar and rewrite text anywhere on your Mac with a keyboard shortcut.
Comparison:
I tried tools like Grammarly, LanguageTool, and Refine, but I kept running into the same issues:
Too many clicks and interruptions
Distracting underlines and popup-heavy UI
Heavy workflows when all I wanted was quick rewriting
Limited personalization
Expensive subscriptions for simple use cases
Most tools focus heavily on grammar correction instead of fast tone adaptation
So I built Grambo initially just for myself.
Features:
Grammar correction & AI rewrites
Keyboard-first workflow
Custom prompts
Memory for names and writing context
Rewrite history
BYOK support for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama, and custom server URLs
Optional Grambo Cloud if you don't want to manage APIs or local models
Privacy:
Grammar correction works locally on-device.
API keys are securely stored in Keychain.
No tracking of your writing activity.
Your writing is never used for AI training.
Pricing:
Lifetime: $14.99 (launch offer, regular $39.99)
Grambo Cloud: $2.99/month
If you use your own API keys or local AI, you don't need a Grambo Cloud subscription.
Note: If you're on a version below 2.0, please re-download the app. We updated the licensing and update system, so older versions won't update correctly.
Trust part:
I am the ex-technical head of the Voicenotes app (~1M+ users). I have more than 6+ years of development experience.
some of you know me from clarity, the file manager i posted here a few months ago. this is a different app, same developer, and i want to be upfront about that from the start.
while building clarity i kept going deeper on one specific thing: what your files quietly reveal about you. personal id numbers sitting in old screenshots. gps coordinates in photos. your name in every document. and increasingly, whether an image was ai-generated. that rabbit hole got big enough to be its own focused tool, so i pulled it out and built privacy scanner around just that.
the ai part is why i shipped it now. the eu ai act's article 50 starts applying on 2 august, and it's about disclosing when content is ai-generated. privacy scanner reads the c2pa content credentials and ai markers that generators embed, locally, so you can see what your own files carry. it reads embedded metadata, it does not analyze pixels.
problem: your files carry a lot about you without you knowing. personal ids from 25 countries, gps and camera data, author names, download-source urls, and ai-generation markers. most tools handle one slice, and the web-based ai detectors make you upload your image to their server.
comparison: metadata cleaners strip exif but do not detect personal ids or read c2pa. the online ai-detection sites all upload your files. privacy scanner does pii, metadata, and c2pa detection in one place, on device, with no network access at all. you can verify that yourself, the sandbox has no network entitlement, so nothing can be uploaded even in principle.
pricing: scanning is completely free and unlimited, including all ai and c2pa detection. if you want to fix things (strip metadata, block out personal ids, export clean copies, generate a signed audit report you can verify with openssl), that's a one-time $9.99. no subscription.
macos 14.6+. happy to answer anything about how it works.
Series · Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | more parts coming
Part 2 ended in the middle of my story with the 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro. This is where Part 3 continues.
Compared with my 2008 MacBook, the 2014 MacBook Pro felt much thinner. I noticed the difference most in its display lid.
I was used to working with a MacBook on my knees, sometimes while keeping it connected to the charger. It still used MagSafe, but the thinner MagSafe 2 connector came loose by accident much more often. The original MagSafe connector on my 2008 MacBook felt much more stable to me.
That MacBook served me extremely well. More importantly, the apps I was finding were helping me build a macOS workflow that felt like mine.
Finding Files Without Spotlight
Years ago, when I used Windows XP, I was satisfied with its slow file search because it searched file names. I never needed the search engine to read the contents of every file.
Later, I used Everything on Windows. It did the simple job I wanted, but almost instantly.
My needs did not change when later versions of Windows introduced indexed search. A large part of my drive contained source code, and I did not want Windows indexing the contents of all those files. When I disabled indexing, it simply fell back to a plain file name search in the current folder. That was perfectly fine for me.
Spotlight brought the same kind of indexing to macOS, along with CPU activity for work I never asked it to do. I eventually disabled file indexing and kept using Spotlight mainly to launch apps.
I expected Finder to do what Windows did and fall back to a plain file name search in the current folder. Instead, with indexing disabled, Finder simply tells me that no files were found, even when I search a folder containing only a few files. The same thing happens while indexing is still in progress. I was surprised then, and I still am. I cannot understand Apple's decision to leave Finder search broken this way.
Spotlight also sometimes keeps a USB drive or SD card busy while indexing it and prevents me from ejecting it when I want to. This is especially annoying because I never asked it to index those drives.
In 2015, I found Find Any File. It became my only graphical replacement for the system file search. It searches directly by file name without requiring a content index and returns results quickly. It can search file contents when requested, but that is not how I use it.
The interface looks simple, but the app has much more inside, including hidden preferences for advanced needs.
When I contacted the developer in 2015, he explained that Find Any File could search the HFS catalog directly, much as Everything reads the NTFS Master File Table on Windows. It could even do this with some AFP network volumes backed by HFS.
That email helped me understand why the app felt so different from Spotlight.
Find Any File is another rare app whose current Mac App Store binary I tested locally and confirmed to be unsandboxed. As I explained in Part 2, Apple requires new Mac App Store apps to use App Sandbox, while some older apps that were already in the store were allowed to preserve their existing architecture. That makes long-maintained apps like this especially difficult to replace inside the store.
I bought Find Any File more than ten years ago. It is still updated, no one has forced me to pay again, and I still cannot remember finding a single bug in it. That combination is rare.
The Calculator I Could Make My Own
As a student, I used many different calculators. PCalc became my favorite. I first used it on my iPhone 3GS and later bought the Mac version.
What made it different for me was its customizable interface. I liked that the calculator was resizable and that I could customize every button, letting me shape it around the way I worked instead of adapting to a fixed layout.
PCalc began in 1992, long before I found it. It is still maintained and still feels like the same focused app I liked from the beginning.
Learning How Much Memory I Actually Used
I like finding unusual and useful apps, then trying them to see whether they improve my workflow. iStat Menus is one of the apps I kept.
When I first tried it, I wanted to add some useful information to the menu bar. I ended up keeping it for a completely different reason. Today, my menu bar is minimal, and iStat Menus adds only one icon showing the charge levels of my batteries.
What made me appreciate the app even more was its ability to keep a history of my MacBook usage. I can review my memory use over the previous 30 days instead of judging it from a single moment in Activity Monitor. This shows me how I actually use my MacBook's RAM over time and how much I really need.
That history helped me understand how much RAM would be enough for me when I upgrade to a new MacBook. It gave me a practical answer instead of a guess.
The version I bought was later followed by another paid major version. I still recommend supporting it. Sometimes we need developers to keep pushing updates, but sometimes they need us to support their work.
Seeing How Fast My Drives Really Were
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test was one of my favorite benchmark tools. I remember seeing this app everywhere, in YouTube videos and screenshots across the web. It still appears in those places after so many years. Its two large read and write gauges have become iconic, and I believe many of you will recognize the interface immediately.
The simple interface delivered exactly the information I wanted to know. I liked using it to compare the speed of my MacBook's drive with the drive in my Windows PC. The app also let me choose the test file location, so I could point it to a microSD card or external drive and find out its actual read and write speeds.
A standalone version arrived on the Mac App Store in 2011, and Blackmagic Design continues to update it.
Three More Mac Developer Interviews
These interviews are exclusive to my Reverse Everything blog. I hope other developers, especially new ones, find them useful.
Find Any File — An Interview with Thomas Tempelmann
Ighor July
What motivates you to continue developing and supporting Find Any File after so many years?
Thomas Tempelmann
Find Any File provides a side income that I rely on. I also enjoy getting feedback for my work, which is why I make my products personal instead of hiding anonymously behind a company name.
I also earn a little from another app, iClip, although its popularity has declined because there are many competitors. On the other hand, Find Any File has become popular enough to maintain a good reputation without advertising, which is not one of my strengths.
I have tried to create other apps that would earn money, but none of them has worked out so far. I keep trying, though.
Ighor July
What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?
Thomas Tempelmann
Keep your users happy. Even if they ask for features you do not want to implement or cannot implement, show that you understand what they want and politely explain why you cannot fulfill the request, even if the reason is simply that you do not have enough time or the effort would not be worthwhile.
When possible, add small things, even if you would not find them useful yourself. Users will tell others and praise your effort and reliability. That is how I still have a near-perfect five-star rating on the Mac App Store.
What motivates you to continue developing and supporting PCalc after so many years?
James Thomson
Stubbornness, mainly :) Really, it's still a good app to keep up with the changes each year, and keep learning. But, I want to keep it going. It's been 34 years, so I don't feel I can really stop now! Maybe when I get to 42 years. Plus, it has provided a good income, and it's nice to be able to pay the bills.
Ighor July
What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?
James Thomson
The easiest thing is to make something because you actually want to use the app yourself. Don't just make something because you think it will make money. If your heart is not in it, you will get bored of it easily!
What motivates you to continue developing and supporting iStat Menus after so many years?
Marc
That’s a great question. It’s a joy to work on a tool that we use ourselves, and it always brings a smile to my face when I see it in someone’s menu bar. It’s even been in TV shows before!
Ighor July
What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?
Marc
Honestly, it comes down to people liking your app enough that they’ll use and recommend it. The challenge often isn’t technical. It’s about building up trust and respect.
I also feel like getting noticed is harder now than it used to be. There’s a good chance luck and timing played a big role in how things turned out for us.
I built AppUFO.app to Localise iOS Apps with AI. It translates the xcstrings file from Xcode in a few seconds.
Problem
Some weeks ago I went to localize one of my Apps. This was my first time localizing an iOS App. I quickly realised how long the process takes (3days+) & how expensive it is ($100+ for each language). This is not acceptable in 2026 with all the AI. So instead of working on that app, I took a tangent and built this mini tool for mac.
Comparison
vs onesky: Both Apps have basic features like Glossery, Character limit, Ai Context. Onesky is have the option of human translators. AppUFO is fully offline (accept AI translation), is a lot cheaper, allows you to use the latest LLMs & the process is lot faster. AppUFO is targeted more for the indie dev.
vs lokalise: Both Apps have the same basic features. Localise works with web, ios, android & other software, while AppUFO is dedicated for iOS Apps. Lokalise has a lots of team features, while AppUFO is targeted for indie devs. AppUFO is a lot cheaper & affordable.
Pricing
€39.99 Lifetime, no subscription. Bring-Your-Own-AI-API-KEY
€9.99 Monthly - AI translation included, no API Key required.
€69.99 Monthly - AI translation included, no API Key required.
"...we have had to remove the AIRMAIL account and email address as it “compromised my MacBook laptop and infected other email accounts..."
Note: to say this user is not at all tech savvy would be an understatement.
The email address in question is IMAP/SMTP that originates within an organization website where I have security on all the email addresses. No one else has reported an issue. I do not have an issue.
I tried a number of apps to get her set up but she had issues with all of them before Airmail, which is not what I generally recommend.
