The 10 tools I install on every new Mac I get

I am currently on a company trip with my brand new MacBook and here are the things I always install first to get started:

• Homebrew - makes installing of low level stuff a breeze (free)
• Node/NPM - many things rely on it (free)
• Dropbox - still be best way to store and share content amongst machines, both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive drive me nuts with their file permission nonsense (paid)
• VLC - plays everything, has excellent keyboard shortcuts and can in a pinch even record screens for you (free)
• VS Code - coders gotta edit (free)
• GitHub Desktop - much, much easier than installing and setting up Git yourself (free)
• ImageOptim - file resizing and optimising images, even on the command line (free)
• FFMPEG - converts anything to anything on the command line (free)
• Handbrake - batch conversion of videos made easy (free)
• Screenflow - my go-to screen recording and video editing tool (paid)

Other essentials are a VPN (I use Mullvad and ProtonVPN), but that's about it.

Photo by iMattSmart on Unsplash

Comments

[Fyodor]

Don't you use something like Alfred or Raycast?

[Christian Heilmann]

No, I'm OK with spotlight

[Scott Eppler]

I'm a fan of Raycast! :)

[Konstantin Mednikov]

And also Script Kit. You can do a lot of really cool stuff with it if you can write typescript code.

[Jake Lundberg]

Raycast is so great! I love having such quick and convenient access to ChatGPT (as well as other plugins).

[Manuel Artero Anguita 🟨]

Saved 👌

My 2 cents (maybe you use some alternatives to these?)

• jumpcut: clipboard manager (free)
• spectacles: resize and move windows using shortcuts (free)
• iterm2: terminal (free)
• Spotify (usually hits my brand new laptop before the terminal xD)

[Christian Heilmann]

spotify is on my TV and running in the background or on my phone :)

[Rala Volo]

I've had to use a variety of Mac apps and so on more than once. But recently another difficulty arose, I didn't know where to save my screenshots that I take on this device. It seems simple, but I didn't know, I'm not an experienced user yet. Fortunately here setapp.com/how-to/save-mac-screens... I quickly got the answer to my question, there are a lot of useful recommendations. I hope it was helpful.

[Zakaria Hashmi]

Add docker desktop to it

[Christian Heilmann]

As I don't use it, I won't :)

[vuong ⛈️]

OrbStack is the one if you feel Docker is too slow and heavy on local env.

[Cherlock Code 🔎]

Thanks great tools! I've bookmarked this to remind myself to add some of these to devpages.io, a directory I built for finding developer tools and resources 🙂

[Rimsha Victor Gill]

This is a great curated list of free and paid tools to optimize productivity, development, media handling, and security on a new Mac