Here is a short list of some great tools I've discovered over the past year.
macOS Only
Free Apps
- Raycast - Workflows, snippets, macOS spotlight on steroids. I previously used Alfred, another excellent Spotlight alternative. There are plans to create a version for Linux and Windows, but they want to get it right on macOS first.
- Dato - A better date app for macOS. I also love that you can have clocks for different timezones. I have a UTC clock which is super helpful when working on a remote team with colleagues all over the planet.
- Fig - VSCode style autocomplete in your terminal. It's more than that, but this is one of the first big things they've released.
Paid Apps
- Bartender - For managing your menu bar. I used to use Vanilla, but with the notch in newer MacBook Pros, Bartender made the menubar more usable when dealing with lots of menubar icons.
- Webcam Settings - Helps me prevent my Logitech webcam from losing focus. I also use it for zooming in on my webcam.
- CleanMyMac X - All I can say about CleanMyMac X is it has so many great tools for keeping your Mac running in tip-top shape.
- Cleanshot X - For better screenshots and screen recordings. I've found this super useful, and the UX is great. And to top it off, there is a great editor to modify your images.
OS Agnostic
- Starship - A customizable cross shell prompt. I love the extra info out of the box it provides for the shell prompt.
- mcfly - An enhance search for your shell history. Super charged CTRL + R!
Check out my uses page if you want to see everything in my toolbox.
Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash
Top comments (36)
Thank you for making me discover Starship 😁
I've got some errors in my WSL Ubuntu console with Nerd font, but I'll have fun getting more information and a nice terminal.
Starship is amazing! i wrote about it almost a month ago. nice to see it becoming more mainstream haha
Beautiful apps! Sometimes I miss my macbook but it's been years since I switched to Windows and now I'm in love with Linux
You should write a post about the tools you use on Linux! 😎
That's a great idea! I'll put it down on the list 😀
After spending 2 minutes looking at the fig web page, I have no idea how to install it or even what it really does.
I had the opposite experience. It’s seemed pretty clear to me that it provided autocomplete for the terminal based on the first image.
I’m sure @brendan from Fig would appreciate this feedback as they aim to make things as straightforward as possible.
Yeah, it provides autocomplete, but it looks like it does some sort of graphical shenanigans, yet says it's not a terminal emulator, but works with pretty much any terminal emulator. My guess is that it does something like the way you can show jpegs in terminals that support it, but who knows? Watching a gif of it in action could be showing native Cocoa stuff for all I can tell. Maybe there's a different spin of it for each OS?
There's no installer, and a lot of things that are links on the site don't go anywhere.
It's a lightweight webview on top of your terminal from what I've understood. It's using TypeScript and I believe they've been working on a moving parts to Rust.
@blackgirlbytes did a Twitter Spaces with @brendan this past week if you want to give a listen to the recording.
OK, I've listened to that. I'd never heard of Twitter "spaces" either, so TIL :)
And ah... it's MacOS-specific at the moment, which is why nobody can download it. I'm actually really curious about this and how it'll be different from existing auto-complete shell functionality besides looking more graphical.
Ahh, thanks for mentioning that. For some reason I thought it wasn’t macOS specific. I’ll update the post.
Yes, macOS specific. Confusion likely came from the fact that on macOS we show a download button, on Linux/Windows we show a waitlist sign up form!
Good catch, we should make this more clear.
And thank you for recommending Fig, @nickytonline !
Starship is a top of the line addition to any shell that it supports. Been using it for about a year and some already; makes spending lots of time in the terminal a lot more bearable since I have a mini-HUD available right above the prompt.
Useful stuff here, I'll definitely be trying Starship.
Sell me on Raycast? I'm a long-time Alfred user, keep hearing / reading comments about folks using Raycast, but since you're someone who made the switch, talk me through it?
I'm well overdue to put together a .uses myself, might get around to it sooner rather than even later...
I was happy with Alfred and then I tried out Raycast. It did everything Alfred did that I was using and even more.
I use it for window management, it has built in converters for measurements, etc.
I know there are Alfred workflows for that, but basically I just couldn't be bothered to switch back.
Although I already paid for the Alfred PowerPack, for folks looking for a free solution for personal use, Raycast is a good option.
More on the differences here, raycast.com/faq.
You unlocked a new level of productivity for us!
Few days ago I was also researching all productivity tools I know and organized them by categories - such as code writing, task management, knowledge collecting, time-tracking, keeping the focus. Then explained them. Maybe it would be helpful as well 🤞🏽
➡️ Productivity tools
@taskade is one best and awesome productivity tool currently I m using the most🚀😃.
+1 to @thomasbnt 's comment, Starship is a pretty awesome find!
Thanks for the recommendations!
this is perhaps the best tool there is for screenshots, app.prntscr.com/es/ you can make anotations, copy in your clipboard so you don't have to save it in your PC and paste the content anywhere.
if you are using linux/ubuntu, get flameshot, is basically the same
Love Starship its one of my favourites.
nice and thanks for providing amazing tools
Thank you for sharing this list. I look forward to testing out some of these tools.
Gonna steal a few tips
Starship is POG! I'm still on the fzf game, I've tried mcfly and it just never stuck for me.
I’m giving mcfly a go. So far I’m enjoying it. As always, use whatever tools make you the most productive. 😎
I'm obviously going to mention Endtest here.
It's the fastest way to create automated tests and run them on a cross-browser cloud.