Apps make your Mac amazing. Here are some I find useful, so you may too.

Alfred

Free Basic Version, PowerPack £29 or £49  Learn More

Spotlight has improved over the years, so some people don’t think they need a launcher app. I disagree. Alfred offers many features not found in Spotlight, that you have to check it out.

I only put my most used apps in my Dock to keep it clean. Instead of having a full dock with many small icons, Alfred lets me have quick access to all my apps and more. It’s one of my all time favorite apps. To use Alfred you:

  • Hit a keystroke (I set mine to Command–Escape).
  • Start typing the name of an app you want to launch (or webpage, contact, etc.).
  • Hit Return to lauch it!

Alfred does more than just launch apps though. It can play iTunes music, create an email with an address in your contacts, and so much more. The PowerPack lets you create workflows to do so many different tasks!

Rectangle

Free (Open Source)  Learn More

This is a great app to resize windows with customizable keystrokes. I use it when coding, putting my code editor on one half of the screen and my web browser on the other.

Display Menu

Free  Learn More

This app adds a handy icon to your menu bar that lets you change display settings quickly. Depending on your display setup, you can set the screen resolution, toggle mirroring, and adjust refresh rates. The Displays panel in System Settings (formerly System Preferences) does not show me specific resolutions for my Retina display, so I must use this app to choose specific Retina or non-Retina resolutions. This is especially useful when designing websites, because I can switch to a non-Retina resolution to see how things look.

YemuZip

Free with ads, $4.99 with no ads  Learn More

This is a must have for anyone that works in a cross-platform environment! Apple’s built in Zip Archiver includes special Mac invisible files such as .DS_Store files. Mac users don’t see these files, but PC users do. YemuZip creates .zip files without these files, so Mac and PC users both get nice clean zip files! YemuZip is free, but you can buy YemuZip Pro on their website for $4.95 or on the Mac App Store for $4.99. The Pro version lets you turn off the small ads within the app.

ImageOptim

Free (Open Source)  Learn More

A must have for web designers! PNG, GIF, and JPEGs exported from Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. can be shrunk even further without loss of quality. Just run them through ImageOptim and it typically reduces their filesize. Run it a couple times, until it no longer shrinks the files!

Transmit

$45  Learn More

This is the gold standard of FTP apps. It’s fast, reliable, and has a ton of features.

Cyberduck

Free (Open Source), Donations Welcome  Learn More

The best free FTP app I’ve found so far. It that has a nice interface, is easy to use, and performs well. Be careful when downloading though. I sometimes see ads with download links for other software that you don’t want, so be sure to use the proper download links!

ScreenFlow

Free Trial, $169  Learn More

If you need to capture videos of your screen ScreenFlow is awesome. It not only lets you capture your screen, but it also lets you edit the captures, put various clips together, add callouts, audio and more. I use Screenflow to record my YouTube videos as well as the video demos for my InDesign scripts.