Tag: Life

My Mac Apps 2025

Slide from WWDC25 presentation on new MacOS, showing various icons and options

UPDATE: This post was super useful and made setting up my new MacBook Air (15″) super easy a few weeks back. I’ve switched out a couple of apps, and added one for those of us who have a ‘notch’ on their laptop screen.

I use iCloud for Documents, almost entirely use default Mac Apps these days anyway, so I’m intrigued to see what I’d ‘bring with me’ in terms of apps.

The list below is one I’ve maintained and updated over the past few years, it’s slowly whittling down (Sherlocking to the fore) to only a few and mostly (I think) because I’m just too used to having these apps supporting my usage, or as part of my … ugh… workflow.

So, a fresh install of MacOS26 and here are the apps I think I’ll reach for … but first, probably worth pointing out some of the apps I’m aiming to drop.

The biggest one (usage wise) will be to replace Day One with Apple Journal*. My biggest gripe when Apple launched Journal last year was that it wasn’t available on my Mac (where I do most of my writing), and that it didn’t have multiple journals. Well, both of those have been ‘fixed’ and with the aid of Shortcuts I can automate logging some parts of my life (workouts, weight-ins, mood updates), as well as the more wordy entries. I’ve found the prompts on the iOS app useful too so it bodes well. Day One is a great tool but no longer offers me anything else I really need or rely on.

It’s also bye bye to Raycast. I’m sure the power users will keep it but I only ever really used it for launching Apps and finding documents (and occasionally as a quick calculator/converter), all of which I will now be able to do in Spotlight.

It’s a big change from how things were in 2015, 2020,Ā  or 2024 that’s for sure.

Apps

  • Tot – Ā£20 (on iPhone or Watch, free on Mac) a wonderful utility for temporary text capture/edit. “Tot is an elegant, simple way to collect & edit text across your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. It’s your tiny text companion!”
  • Simplenote – used to easily get chunks of text from my work PC (via Simplenote web to the Simplenote App on my MacBook/iPhone)
  • Pixelmator Pro – Ā£50 – because sometimes you need a little more power than the standard image editor gives you. Has just been bought by Apple so I’m intrigued as to what will happen to this app next!

Utilities

  • AppCleaner – FREE – for when I want to remove some of these apps, it’ll find all the related files and get rid of them too.
  • AltTab – FREE – For those who also use Windows, this provides a smarter CMD+Tab app switcher, which includes sub windows too. So, if I have 3 draft emails, I can bring either one to the front.
  • Ice – FREE – menu bar tidier (less visual clutter)Ā 
  • MacMouseFix – FREE – finer control over scroll direction between trackpad and mouse
  • Today – FREE – a simple menubar icon that shows list of events for the current day, but if that isn’t enough, try..
  • Dato – Ā£9 – more extensive but same idea as Today (same developer too)
  • Pure Paste – FREE – automatically paste as plain text by defaultĀ 
  • StandApp – hourly reminders to stand (because I don’t always register the notification from my Watch)
  • Wallpaperer – FREE – A lovely little app that grabs an image each day from a given Reddit.Ā 
  • Caffeine – FREE – one click to stop your Mac going to sleep until you say so, handy for viewing movies, keeping Teams showing as online 😜 etc.
  • Supercharge – Ā£15 – adds in even more little useful things, cut and paste files, automatically open app windows if minimised and much more.

    Notch

    • Alcove – Ā£16 – adds a variety of useful system updates into the ‘notch’ of newer Macs.Ā 

    So, do you have a Mac? What apps are must haves for you?

    * Not quite, one thing that (as usual for Apple) is baffling missing is the ability to target a specific Journal via Shortcuts. I’m still pushing more journal entries into Journal though, and trying to figure out how best to import the 2000+ entries from Day One.

     

    Not yet sherlocked

    A generated image of many app icons in a colourful display

    For those unaware, sherlocking is real!

    It’s almost a year since I last took stock of what I use daily on my Mac but having recently gotten a new MacBook Air (for work) I realised that in that time some of my choices had changed and, even more exciting, I’ve discovered some new/better ones along the way! Huzzah!

    Many of my choices are free, some are donation/coffee ware, and some are paid. I have no problem paying for software and where the option is available I’ve usually plumped for Ā£10 as a suggest price for any donation ware app. In fact just pulling this list together has reminded me to go back and donate again as it’s been almost a year and there is no doubt that I’d be lost without each of these apps (something VERY apparent when you set up a new Mac and these apps aren’t there).

    Anyway, this is the list of apps I consider useful and that scratch some minor annoyances I have with MacOS when it doesn’t quite handle things the way I want. YMMV of course.

    Productivity

    • Spark – FREE – email client I use across Mac and iPhone. Handles multiple accounts, and the Snooze feature is a lifesaver (and lets me go as far ahead as I want, other apps seem to limit this to a few months or so). I do want to use Apple’s own but the limited Snooze is just enough of a deal breaker for me.
    • Ā Tot – Ā£20 – (on iPhone or Watch, free on Mac) a wonderful utility for temporary text capture/edit. “Tot is an elegant, simple way to collect & edit text across your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. It’s your tiny text companion!” or if that’s not what you need try…
    • Plain Text Editor – FREE – Simple distraction-free notepad (with tabs)

    Utilities

    • VLC – FREEĀ – video player, supports a multitude of formats.
    • AppCleaner – FREE – for when I want to remove some of these apps, it’ll find all the related files and get rid of them too.
    • Hazel – $29 (one off) – a simple way to keep your Mac tidied. Watches folders then runs rules, very powerful and very useful – I do not use this as much as I could, gonna investigate it again.Ā 
    • Flycut – FREE – Clipboard manager, nice little popdown menu of the last [x] copied items.
    • Contexts – $10 – For those who also use Windows, this provides a smarter CMD+Tab app switcher, which includes sub windows too. So, if I have 3 draft emails, I can bring either one to the front.
    • Timeout – FREE – a simple enough idea, an app that helps you take a break more often so you don’t end up staring at the screen for hours. Very customisable too.
    • Ice – FREE – menu bar tidier (less visual clutter)Ā 
    • CopyClip – FREE – a free clipboard manager
    • MacMouseFix – FREE – finer control over scroll direction between trackpad and mouse
    • Contexts – $10 – better window switcher than Alt + TabĀ 
    • Today – FREE – a simple menubar icon that shows list of events for the current day, but if that isn’t enough, try..
    • Dato – Ā£9 – more extensive but same idea as Today (same developer too)
    • Pure Paste – FREE – automatically paste as plain text by defaultĀ 
    • StandApp – hourly reminders to stand (because I don’t always register the notification from my Watch)
    • Alfred (FREE) /Raycast (FREE) – I like Raycast but the VC backing doesn’t always bode well so I’m back to Alfred which is good enough for me as I’m mostly using it for opening apps and files.
    • Wallpaperer – FREE – A lovely little app that grabs an image each day from a given Reddit.Ā 
    • Caffeine – FREE – one click to stop your Mac going to sleep until you say so, handy for viewing movies, keeping Teams showing as online 😜 etc.
    • Supercharge – Ā£15 – adds in even more little useful things, cut and paste files, automatically open app windows if minimised and much more.

    Creating stuff

    • Pixelmator Pro – Ā£50 – because sometimes you need a little more power than the standard image editor gives you. Has just been bought by Apple so I’m intrigued as to what will happen to this app next!
    • Simplenote – FREE – simple text/note app, syncs with iOS app. Has become a useful app for writing, clutter free and most of my longer blog posts or journal entries start here. Not used for storage (Apple Notes keeps my important stuff).Ā 

      Lifey stuff

      • Day One – Ā£35/yr – Journal app, only downside is no web app, syncs with iCloud. I use this almost every day, and for the letters I’m writing every month to my son (which he’ll get when he’s… 18 I think).

      And finally, if you’ve been through the list you’ll spot that quite a few are by one developer, well worth checking out their website for some other useful apps, free and paid!Ā 

      Hopefully if you are on a Mac you might have found something useful here, there are many many more little apps for many niches out there; I’d love to hear what your favourite discovered apps are!

       

      Plans and goals and things

      My life is on hold.
      My plans have wavered.
      My dreams are simpler.
      My hopes are vivid.
      My goals have shifted.

      As parents, Becca and I are well aware that it’s easy to lose yourself in the day to day of caring for our son. The weeks collapse on each other, and before you know it June has arrived.

      Finding time for ourselves is tricky, not always possible, and frequently gets lost in the needs of family and friends. A few hours here and there to chill and indulge in our hobbies is about all we can manage.

      And that’s just fine with me.

      Coming from someone who likes a long term plan (I’ve already signed up to a cycling event for next year!) it’s been a shift of mindset for me but it’s been a surprisingly easy one. It helps that our son is an absolute joy most of the time, and I love spending time with him, just hanging out.

      My memories of the time I spent with my Dad were all around activities he was doing, and most of that was jogging with him, the occasional trips to the park with the dog and a frisbee/aerobee (he did love a throwing ‘gadget’), but very little of just hanging out with him. That’s likely due to my early years as an only child and learning to be self-sufficient and happy to content myself without needing a parent around, something Jack is slowly learning as we tend to only play when he asks. If he doesn’t, we leave him to his own devices.

      All of this means that my own time is very limited these days and whilst it’s nice to get a couple of hours to play FIFA, or go for a solo coffee date, it’s not the be all and end all of my aspirations.

      There are so many clichĆ©s about being a parent but I didn’t fully grasp the subtlety of this aspect of it, the loss of hobby time (as best as I can describe it) that you realise you aren’t really that bothered about.

      Realising all this paints the picture that Becca and I do NOTHING for ourselves which isn’t true. As previously mentioned we take monthly turns in a night at a hotel which gives us an afternoon/evening and the next morning to chill out, go to a gig, visit the cinema, have a relaxed dinner or, as has been the case so far, grabbing takeaway and slobbing out in the hotel room watching TV, which is just as wonderful.

      My life is on hold but will restart far too soon.
      My plans have wavered but only need moved.
      My dreams are simpler but far more important.
      My hopes are vivid and get brighter everyday.
      My goals have shifted for the better, for me, for Becca, for Jack.

      How NOT to make a smoothie

      I work in an office 3 days a week and, on those mornings, I prepare a smoothie to take with me for my breakfast.

      I make it the night before, as buzzing up a smoothie at 6am is likely to wake my toddler and I’d rather not do that to him, or my wife. So I blitz it up and pop it in the fridge and take it with me to drink at my desk. I also make a coffee for the train journey but that’s not the point of this story.

      A while back my old, Aldi, smoothie maker was starting to die so I bite the bullet, literally, buying a Nutribullet as the reviews suggested it was the best one for my needs (thanks, as always, to The Wirecutter review team). I have the large cup for it, with the ‘drinking lid’ add-on which means I can just make my smoothie, pop the drinking lid on and go. It’s fab, I can’t recommend it highly enough, it’s handled everything I’ve thrown in it with ease; frozen fruit, walnuts, spinach leaves and more.

      Once it’s made and in the fridge, the bladed section needs cleaned (you screw the ‘cup’ onto it, then invert it and push down to activate the WHIZZZZ). Once cleaned, we’ve just been popping the bladed section back in the base unit out of the way; and yes the unit sits at the back of the counter out of reach of our toddler.

      The ingredients for my smoothies vary a little but mostly consist of a banana, oat or almond milk, protein powder, milled chia seeds and a lingonberry mix, and from there sometimes a bit of peanut butter, some frozen mango or avocado, maybe some strawberries, a splash of apple juice, it really just depends what’s available. The cups come with a separate lid too, so I find myself, particularly on a Sunday, just popping bits and bobs in in the cup, snapping the lid on and putting it back in the fridge. It’s where all the bits of fruit that Jack decides he doesn’t want usually end up (or takes one bite off, I’m not fussy).

      The other morning, I’d been compiling my shake throughout Bank Holiday Monday, and on Monday evening whilst Becca gave Jack a bath, I got ready to blitz it up ready for Tuesday morning. I glanced over at the base unit, with the bladed section already sitting in it, waiting for me to lift it out and screw it onto the cup.

      A teeny tiny part of my brain reminded me NOT to tip the cup ONTO the blades. Gravity would not be my friend. I even giggled a little at the thought. Hey, I was tired, it had been a long (good) Bank Holiday weekend.

      I fetched the cup from the fridge, unscrewed the cap and, despite having laughed at myself about it a few seconds early, actually had to catch myself to NOT do what I’d just told myself not to do!!

      Even as I got the bladed section out of the base, and screwed it down onto the cup, part of my brain was STILL thinking .. this isn’t right, is it??

      The moral of the story is, whilst I did not tip a full smoothie cup of ingredients onto the base unit (and the kitchen counter and likely the floor), my brain was very close to doing just that.

      Twice!

      No, YOU are tired.

      Busy busy

      I’m almost approaching my first year at Allied Vehicles and I’m busier than ever but, looking back I can see how far things have come since I joined. It’s a very small team, in a very fast paced environment and a lot of what I’m trying to do is help mature our own processes. With a couple of new people joining our team it’s brought a lot of this into focus, both how far it’s come, and how far we have to go. And that’s before we get into all the Business Analyst work I’ve got going on. I was sad when my time with Virgin Money came to an end but in hindsight this new job has been a boon!

      It does mean that between my work, and having to be in the office 3 days a week, and spending time with my son, that I’ve not always been the best at finding time for me. I’ve barely been out on my bike, nor managed more than a few runs as, barely halfway through Couch-to-5KM I developed a bit of a niggle in my knee which meant I had to rest for a few weeks, got a physio session to sort it but still means I had to out of doing Etape Caledonia this year. I feel doubly bad for that as I’d talked two of my friends into it and, as one of them also dropped out, my mate is now doing it on his own, his first organised cycle too!

      Elsewhere, Jack continues to amaze and delight. He is enjoying a daredevil stage at the moment which is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time, and he flits between being barely a toddler to a young child in an instant, it’s quite startling. We are very lucky that we have a good routine that he understands so for the most part (I mean, he’s a toddler) meals, bath time and bed time mostly go without a hitch. And I’ve just jinxed it…

      In a couple of weeks we are heading up north, and will be sleeping with him in a tent. It will be his first time (technically his second but he was still a baby the first time on Mull) so it’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to it, and how the adjustment goes when we get back. That said, with all the fresh air, and the fact that Granny and Grandpa will be there too, we are pretty confident then sleep won’t be a problem for him as he’ll be exhausted.

      Heading into the summer months and on into October, I’m aware that my son is heading towards his 3rd birthday. He’s increasingly independent and we trust him and can leave him ‘unattended’ (in the next room!) to happily play with his toys, or stoating about the back garden looking for ‘wee spidurrs’ and ‘weuyrms’ and hopefully a ‘wee ant!’.

      And, inspired by my unstoppable force of nature of a wife (who’s currently smashing her C25K, and slotting in the odd yoga session when she can), I’ve even managed to sort out a few cycles for myself and will be signing up for the local gym soon too. I’m 50, not getting any younger etc etc and definitely not getting any more flexible, or stronger, or lighter with my present, very sedentary, lifestyle. I want to be around for many years to come to enjoy watching the person my son will grow up to be so I need to start taking better care of myself. And yes, I’m posting this wholly for accountability purposes!

      Fit for 50 was a goal but I’ll take Fit for 55 if that’s what it takes!

      A very minor peeve (in three parts)

      I digress. Where was I?

      Ohh yes, watching the ‘… is typing…‘ message and waiting, waiting, waiting on that third message…

      To recap, so far, they’ve sent:
      09:14 – Hi
      09:14 – Can I ask a question?
      09:14 – [… is typing]

      Aaaannnnnd finally a third message appears, the actual question that they wanted to ask me all along has finally been unveiled.

      I’ve still not seen it as I’m not at my desk, my status is set to Away with a little red circle helping (those who aren’t colour blind?) fully understand that I am not available to have questions asked of me now, forcing me to leave that message unread, unloved, floating in the ether until I deign to reply!

      Three separate messages, less than 30 seconds apart.

      Why?! Is there some setting I’m unaware of that automatically starts a new message based upon certain triggers? (they said “Hi”, quick start a new message… ohhh they ended a message with a question mark, start a new message…???)

      Or as is increasingly the case as I grow older mature, is it just me? Is my approach the wrong one here?

      Here’s how I’d do it.

      “Hi, was wondering if you can help, I need blah blah…”

      One single message; polite (I said Hi!), consenting their time (vaguely), and including the actual request itself. All in one line in one message so that the person who, I am pretty sure, can read English to a competent level, can parse it all immediately before telling me to naff off, or leave the message ‘unread’, or maybe even respond to my request.

      Like I say, this is not any real level of annoyance, in fact it’s barely a blip, a quick wondering that I toss aside with barely a second thought.

      But it keeps happening, and it’s not just one person and it’s not just my current colleagues. It is, and has been, rife throughout my career.

      Did I miss a class in school or something?

      Or is the problem me?

      Hi.

      [insert culturally prominent Taylor Swift reference here]

      Answers on a postcard, or in the comments as who can afford to send postcards these days (have you seen the price of a stamp! Bloody Tories!).