I tracked what each one saved me. These nine paid back their price in days, not months.
Last Tuesday, at 11:40 at night, Claude Code stopped in the middle of a refactor. Not with an error. With a rate limit. I was three files into a change in Notchy, I had the whole plan in my head, and the tool just said no.
I sat there and did the maths. I'd been paying for that limit with my evenings for months. It never showed up on a bill, only as lost nights.
That night I went through every tool I use to build and ship and asked one question about each: does this pay for itself? Nine of them did, in a week or less. Most are free.
These will help you:
- Write code and run commands without switching apps
- Launch anything in two keystrokes
- See what a commit actually changed before you push it
- Look inside a database instead of guessing what's in it
- Test an API before your users find the bug
- Send a bug report a stranger can actually follow
- Get back the thing you copied five minutes ago
- Put two windows side by side without dragging them around
- Know when your AI session is about to run out, before it does
1. Visual Studio Code
VS Code is the editor and the terminal in one window, and it costs nothing.
I used to keep three apps open to write code: an editor, a terminal, and a browser tab full of docs. Every build meant finding the right window, and half the time I typed the command into the wrong one.
Now the terminal sits underneath the code. I run the build, see the error, fix the line above it. Last month I fixed a crash in Notchy's clipboard code and ran the build forty times in one afternoon. If each run had meant switching apps, I'd still be there.
Price: free.
Checkout here: https://code.visualstudio.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac. It sends some usage telemetry by default, which you can turn off in settings. Your code stays yours.
2. Raycast
Raycast is a launcher that does the job of five menu bar apps, and you forget it's there.
Spotlight is fine until you want to do something with the thing you found. I used to open Spotlight, find the app, open it, then go find the file I actually wanted. Three steps for a one-step job. A quick calculation meant opening the Calculator app. For a calculation.
Raycast is one shortcut. Two letters, and there's the app, the file, the command. I launch builds from it, search files, do quick sums. I counted once: about fifty hits a day, ten seconds each. That's eight minutes a day, on a tool I never think about.
Price: free to start. Pro is a subscription, so check the link for the current price. The free version is what I use most days.
Checkout here: https://www.raycast.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac, nothing uploaded unless you turn on cloud sync yourself.
3. GitHub Desktop
GitHub Desktop shows you the diff before you push, so you stop shipping mistakes.
I used to commit from the command line and trust my memory. That worked until the day I pushed a debug print statement and a test file to a release branch, on a Friday. I found out on Monday, from a user.
GitHub Desktop makes the diff the whole point. Before I commit, I see every line that changed. Last month it caught a config change I made while testing and forgot to revert. One line, and it would have broken the build for everyone who pulled it.
Price: free.
Checkout here: https://desktop.github.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac. It talks to GitHub only when you push, pull, or fetch.
4. DB Browser for SQLite
DB Browser opens any SQLite database and lets you read it like a spreadsheet.
Guessing what's inside a database is a special kind of miserable. I had a bug once where a count in the app was wrong, and I spent an hour reading code, adding log lines, and rebuilding. The code was fine. The data was wrong. A stale row was sitting in a local database, and I had no way to look at it.
DB Browser is just a window onto the file. Open it, click the table, and there's your data. I found the stale row in about thirty seconds. An hour of guessing, thirty seconds of looking.
Price: free. Open source.
Checkout here: https://sqlitebrowser.org
Privacy: runs on your Mac, nothing uploaded. Your database never leaves your disk.
5. Postman
Postman lets you poke an API until it confesses, before your code ever touches it.
I used to test APIs by writing the code first and then finding out the endpoint was wrong. That's backwards, and I knew it was backwards, and I did it anyway, because setting up a test felt like work. Then I wired a whole feature to an endpoint that returned a 401 for one kind of request and worked fine for the rest. I found out from a user. Again.
Now I hit the endpoint in Postman first. Last month I was testing a webhook for my referrals site, and Postman showed me the 401 in about ten seconds. Ten seconds, versus a shipped bug and an apology email.
Price: free plan, with paid plans on top. Check the link for the current prices.
Checkout here: https://www.postman.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac. Your requests go only to the API you point it at. Cloud sync is optional, and off until you turn it on.
6. CleanShot X
CleanShot X takes a screenshot, lets you mark it up, and gives you a link. No file to clean up after.
I answer bug reports all day, and one without a picture is a guessing game. Before this, every screenshot meant taking it, opening Preview, cropping it, drawing a circle, saving it, finding it on my Desktop, and attaching it. Six steps, for something I do ten times a day.
Now I take the shot, draw the circle, copy the link, done. Last week a user sent me a screenshot of a crash. I annotated it, sent it back with the fix, and the whole exchange took four minutes. It used to take fifteen.
Price: one-time purchase, no subscription. I'm not quoting the exact number here because it changes with sales, and I'd rather you see the real price on the site than a wrong one from me. Check the link.
Checkout here: https://cleanshot.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac. Cloud links are optional, screenshots stay local unless you choose to share one.
7. Maccy
Maccy remembers everything you copy, and gives it back with one shortcut.
I copy a crash log, then I copy a link to send someone, and the crash log is gone. That used to happen to me three times a week. I'd go back to the app, find the log again, copy it again, and paste it into a message that was already half written. Sometimes I'd just retype the whole thing from memory, badly.
Maccy keeps a history. Copy three things in a row, hit the shortcut, pull back the first one. That's it. No account, no sync, no fuss. I use it most answering support emails, when I'm copying a log, a link, and a version number in the same minute.
Price: free. Open source.
Checkout here: https://maccy.app
Privacy: runs on your Mac, your clipboard never leaves it. Nothing uploaded.
8. Rectangle
Rectangle snaps windows into place with one shortcut, and it's free.
I used to drag windows around by hand like it was 2009. Code on the left, docs on the right, and I'd spend a minute every time getting the split right. Then I'd open a third window and ruin it. I did this for years. Dragging windows is not work, it's the opposite of work, and I was doing it ten times a day.
Rectangle is one shortcut. Left half, right half, done. During a refactor I keep code on one side and docs on the other, terminal underneath when I need it. The windows stay put, and I stay in the code.
Price: free. Open source.
Checkout here: https://rectangleapp.com
Privacy: runs on your Mac, nothing uploaded.
9. Notchy
Notchy puts your AI usage in the notch, so you see the limit coming before it hits.
Full disclosure, I built this one.
This is the one from Tuesday night. Claude Code stopped mid-refactor, and I had no warning at all. I didn't know how much of my session was left, or when it reset, or what it had cost me. I was flying blind on a tool I use for hours every day.
Notchy reads the usage window from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot and shows it right in the notch: tokens, cost, and how much of the window is left, with an alert before you hit the limit. Now I glance up and know if I have twenty minutes left or two hours. If the window is nearly gone, I save the big refactor for after the reset.
That one change gave me back a dead evening a week, from one glance at the notch.
Price: €14.99 one-time until Nov 30, then €24.99. 7-day free trial. No subscription. Version 2.0.8.
Checkout here: https://notchy.dev
Privacy: runs on your Mac, nothing uploaded. No account needed for the trial. It reads your local CLI logs, or a provider API key you store in the Keychain.
The takeaway
Add it all up. Seven of these nine are free. One is a one-time purchase, one has a free plan with paid tiers. The only price I can quote you exactly is mine: €14.99 until the end of November. The whole stack costs less than one dinner out, and it pays for itself in a week.
The expensive tools aren't the ones you buy. They're the ones you don't buy, and then you pay for them with your evenings.
Which one are you installing first? Tell me in the comments. And if a tool pays for itself in your week, I want to hear about it. I read every reply.
I'm Vishva. I make Notchy, a Dynamic Island for your Mac, and Peekaboo, a Mac app for finding files in plain English and freeing space with undo. I write about Mac apps and AI tools that actually save time. Follow if you want the next list.
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