When it comes to great macOS tools, Notion and Raycast are always mentioned. But there are many more hidden gems. Today, I want to share a few tools that you might not have heard of but are incredibly useful.
Swish: Maximize Your Trackpad’s Potential
The MacBook trackpad is very convenient. Once you get used to it, you can completely ditch the mouse. However, macOS’s native window management is a bit underwhelming for such excellent hardware. Swish fills that missing piece perfectly.
It has no complicated interface—install and use immediately. Through intuitive gestures, you can manage windows easily:
- Swipe down on a window’s title bar with two fingers to minimize
- Swipe up to maximize
- Swipe left/right to occupy the left/right half of the screen precisely
- Pinch with two fingers to close a window
- Spread two fingers to go fullscreen
These gestures feel so smooth and natural that once you get used to them, there’s no going back. Swish elevates the trackpad from a pointing device into a physical language for interacting with windows—a true muscle memory tool.
ServBay: Say Goodbye to Messy Development Environments
This has been one of the biggest surprises I’ve encountered in recent years and easily deserves the top spot. As a web developer, configuring a local development environment has always been a headache.
In the past, we used MAMP, then manually set up PHP, Nginx, MySQL via Homebrew. Version conflicts, dependency issues, and system mess-ups were everyday struggles. Docker solved isolation problems, but for someone who just wants a stable development environment, it felt heavy and slow.
Then I discovered ServBay.
Why I love it:
- Doesn’t pollute the system: All services run in their own sandbox. Updates to Homebrew or macOS won’t break your setup.
- One-click multi-version switching: Need PHP 5.7 for an old project but PHP 8.4 for a new one? Switch instantly, with independent version settings per project. Smooth and seamless.
- High performance and lightweight: Not a VM, not a heavy container. Fast startup, minimal resource usage, Docker-level isolation without Docker’s complexity.
Whenever I get a new Mac, the first thing I do is install ServBay. It brings peace of mind, letting me focus on coding rather than fighting environment setup. For any web developer, it’s a gift.
Craft: Documenting with Style
There are countless note-taking apps, but I prefer Craft for documents I want to share externally or that require a clear, beautiful structure. If Notion is a powerful database, Obsidian a personal knowledge network, Craft is a beautifully designed study.
It has a smooth editing experience, precise typography, and Markdown support. You can create documents with cards, pages, and background images, making your work visually appealing. For project proposals, technical docs, or blog drafts, Craft feels like creating rather than just recording.
TextExpander: The Compounding Time-Saver
TextExpander saves seconds that accumulate into hours. It allows you to set abbreviations that automatically expand into large blocks of text.
For example:
-
;em→ full email address -
;sig→ email signature -
;phpdoc→ standard PHP function block
Over time, you’ll type hundreds or thousands fewer characters, reduce errors, and maintain consistency. It frees your mind from repetitive input.
Fantastical: A Calendar That Understands You
The native macOS Calendar isn’t bad, but Fantastical shines because of natural language input.
No more clicking dates and filling titles manually. Just type something like:
"Meeting with Alex next Wednesday at 3 PM next door"
Fantastical automatically parses it and creates the event. It also integrates system reminders for unified task and schedule management. Planning has never been easier.
ForkLift: Professional File Management Beyond Finder
Finder works for basic file browsing, but when it comes to more advanced tasks—FTP/SFTP connections, batch renaming, dual-panel comparisons—ForkLift is the way to go.
It’s a dual-pane file manager, like Total Commander for Windows:
- Move and copy files efficiently
- Remote access via FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3
- Batch renaming, file sync, app uninstall
Whenever I manage website files or organize resources, ForkLift is always open.
VLC Media Player: A Timeless Classic
VLC needs no introduction. Before streaming was mainstream, we downloaded files in various formats. VLC plays them all: .mkv, .avi, .rmvb, you name it.
Even today, it’s my go-to for videos QuickTime can’t decode or when precise subtitle/audio adjustments are needed. Open-source, free, cross-platform—VLC is a perfect example of a tool done exceptionally well.
Conclusion
No tool is perfect, but the best ones focus on solving a specific problem really well. Tools exist to serve us, not make us slaves to them.
What are your favorite productivity tools? Share them in the comments!
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