Best Mac Apps I Actually Use!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Snazzy Labs shows off some his favorite Mac apps he installs every time he sets up a new Mac.
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Snazzy Labs has long been known as one of the most Mac-focused TH-cam channels and today, Quinn Nelson shows you some his favorite apps. While not all are exciting, they’re important: from utilities like PDFpen to launchers like Alfred with writing apps like Ulysses and Spark thrown in between, this is one you won’t want to miss.
0:00 - INTRO
0:26 - Adguard
2:23 - Alfred
5:17 - ApolloOne
7:58 - PDFpen
9:20 - SPONSOR: Setapp (including GoodTask)
10:54 - balenaEtcher
11:37 - Elmedia Video Player
13:42 - Magnet
14:55 - Notion
19:21 - Qobuz
21:00 - iStat Menus
21:49 - Sensei
24:00 - Tot
25:11 - Spark
28:10 - Unarchiver
28:54 - Ulysses
31:27 - Mactracker
32:34 - OUTRO
thank me later.
Life saver 🙌
The hero we need but don't deserve 😍
I appreciate you for your help. And also... HOW DARE YOU DISRUPT MY WATCH TIME!!!! 😂
Snazzy Labs he’s clearly challenging you 😂
Thanks for doing what Quinn couldn’t be bothered to
Rectangle is free, open-source and offers pretty much all the same features, so I prefer that over Magnet. Also as others mentioned, IINA is a better alternative to VLC, and is free and open source as well.
Totally agree. Since Rectangle, there is zero need for Magnet.
“If I feel like I’m memory constrained ...”
*shows off his 72GB free out of 96GB of RAM* 🤣👍🏼
Hahahaha not at the current moment.....
And I thought I had a lot of ram with my 24gb
@@agrisimfarming me with 8gb lmao
I refuse to ever have more than 32 GB before 2025.
@@agrisimfarming you do have a freaking lot of RAM, he just has more
I have an 11 year old crappy windows laptop, and I'm still watching apps that YOU can't live without on a mac 🤣
Try Linux, you won’t be disappointed.
u can hackintosh it
F in the chat, dude
sunny david Actually you’re the moron, eleven is used as an adjective here, so he is correct.
I have a late 2008 aluminum MacBook
I already liked the video for the brief Alfred tutorial. I've had it for years, but somehow never noticed some of the features that seem to make it so much more powerful. Thanks, @Snazzy Labs!
Quinn: I never pirate content
Also Quinn: Has Sonarr, Radarr and Lidarr bookmarked :D
What do these do?
They can just be used to organizer files. More incriminating is NZBPlanet and Sabnzbd.
The Ferris Buller Bluray file as well...
Quinn, wife and I recent did a compete switch from Windows and Pixels to all Apple and this video is awesome. If I could double like this I would.
Interesting. How are you finding it so far?
Great video. I had Alfred in the OS 8 days and it always broke when Apple updated it's OS. I remember the scars. Maybe worth checking again.
The find feature is also in spotlight. Just hold down option and click the file. The UI is better. I still think spotlight is way better. // IINA is a great player. Free.
Nothing beats how clean and smooth a native feature is. Alred seems cool but also clunky compared to Spotlight. +1 for IINA too
I actually find Spotlight to be the clunky one, compared to Alfred. Alfred is always faster, the UI is simpler, the keyboard shortcuts makes it faster, no need for a mouse whatsoever… With themes you can even make it look more like Spotlight.
Spotlight can’t integrate with Soulver. For me that makes Alfred insanely good.
@@edvard_r yeah im all for stock features, but for some reason spotlight is slower than Alfred. its basically the same for me except faster. kind of like how I use safari, but safari always misses suggestions. like I type: "you" and hit enter and I hit enter before it finds TH-cam. chrome finds it instantly. but I still use safari.
thanks for proposing IINA, i just gave it a try and i like it more than VLC or Elmedia
Man, I thought I knew most of these but.. Notion, looks so much better than what we use. Going to possibly switch, thanks!!
On Spotlight you can hold Command while pressing Enter or clicking on a file or folder to reveal its location in the finder, like Alfred’s find feature. Won’t replace other Albert features but it’s nice if you’re fine with Spotlight.
Also Rectangle is a nice open-source and free alternative to Magnet. Also Keka is an awesome uncompressing utility. Also Karabiner-Elements is amazing to customize keyboard keys, like putting Esc on Caps Lock and making actual use of some weird keys on the TypeMatrix 2030 for example.
Some of my must-haves you’d didn’t mention:
- Bartender to clean up my menu bar (SetApp)
- AppCleaner to uninstall apps (easy, free, Edit: you mentioned it)
- Tooth Fairy to easily connect to Bluetooth devices with ONE click in the menu bar. Can’t live without it!
- Fantastical for calendar. It’s such a great calendar app, with its menu bar calendar and fast natural language processing. macOS/iOS/iPadOS syncing. Best calendar.
- The native macOS sticky notes app (like digital post-its)
- Pipifier (one click Picture in Picture in Safari)
Edvard Rølvaag at 22:26 he mentions appcleaner
Mišo Ranuša yes, I knew that actually. I just edited the first line in my comment to “didn’t mention” from “my favorites”. 🙈
Fantastical used to be an app I recommended but their change to the subscription model was just crazy for a calendar app, and not worth it in my view. The other apps you recommend are pretty cool though.
Actually TRIM is enabled by default in all the Macs with SSDs; it's not a feature that comes with Sensei, that allows only to switch it on and off without using the command line
Thanks for showing me Alfred. Funny story - I have a magnifying glass and a pork pie hat I've never put on. I downloaded the app...looked in the corner and started laughing. I admit to putting the hat on and grabbing the hand glass before launching Alfred. Thanks for the app and laugh.
If you press command return instead of just return in Spotlight it will reveal file in Finder instead of opening. That’s been a standard feature since pretty much every version of Spotlight after Tiger.
Daisydisk - cba to describe but simply put it’s the best disk analyser I’ve ever used. Best ui, one time purchase for paid version and very powerful
Definitely agree. That’s the app to get for freeing up space on the hard drive.
Alfred's snippets features are SOOOO useful when you're a developer.
You should try IINA for video playback btw. It's super quick and lightweight.
I had to pause the video at 5:50 to install Alfred and read a bit about how to use it. OMG, this is so exciting and what I was always hoping to get from spotlight. Usually I need to know the location of a file, and opening the file is not as helpful as knowing it's location.
Better touch tool is a necessity for me; gives me control over everything my mac does (and doesn't do). It also includes better snap tool. Custom touchbar, custom keyboard shortcuts, custom everything. Try it out I love it.
I love that you mentioned MacTracker many friends ask me for help about their Apple devices. I used MacTracker since 2012. Absolutely love.
14:43
Windows-type snapping was actually patented by Microsoft a long time ago, Apple couldn’t copy it if they wanted to
In my view, snapping is the only way to do window management, everything else is just junk....
Janne Boman true- good thing we had free and cheap apps which bring that functionality.
then how does every linux distro on the planet do it?
Where'd you get that keyboard @15:22 ?? It looks mechanical and good quality, which are both very difficult to find for MacOS compatible keyboards.
Just bought Sensei after seeing it in this video - amazing app!
in appstore?
Mactracker also lets you record all your Apple devices, their serial numbers, MAC addresses, purchase dates, inventory numbers, warranty status, etc.
good list, Alfred is awesome. I also really like DaisyDisk. It's just a nice looking simple app to show me everything on my drives. I know this is in a totally different direction than the video was going but if you want a GREAT bill keeper / tracker CHRONICLE is fantastic. uses icloud to sync to iOS and has been absolutely rock solid for me. can Not live without Chronicle
I bought a mac last week. I’ve literally already used all the tips and downloaded the utilities you’ve suggested in your previous Videos. I was prepared to do this even before I had a Mac. Thanks mate.
"Spotlight is a really handy application" Oh boy I know what's coming.
I just love this video a lot and the comment section for being so awesomely not basic with Mac, I’m tired of the same crappy tutorials showcasing the same apps, I needed some of this.
Mine are: 1Blocker (I like to think it's better then Adguard), Copied, Fantastical, Macs Fan Control, Magnet, Amphetamine, DaisyDisk, The Unarchiver, Elmedia Player (the paid version is god sent), Folx (download from their website, not the App Store version, if you want to be able to download torrents), Authy, PDF Expert, Calcbot, Sip (Colour picker), Atom (Electron), Pocket Cast (Just a web wrap, but still amazing podcast app for macOS), Spark (Email), iA Written, Sketch (Think Adobe XD copied Sketch), Affinity (Designer, Photo and Publisher, amazing suite of creative apps). This about does it, among these I have DaVinci Resolve Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Motion (Apple), Handbrake, and yes, because I need most of them for work, Adobe (Premiere Pro, Audition, Animation, Illustrator, Media Encoder, and Photoshop). The Adobe apps are unfortunately necessary evil.
Good selection. I have a lot of these. You should check out Yoink, DefaultfolderX pop clip and Swish.
@@makasete30 Just bought Yoing, it's so fine useful when researching for a script/essay. Default Folder is so damn expensive, I like it, but can't justify the price. pop clip is a bit meh to me. I tried swish as well, I keep making mistakes on where I want to put the window, so for me Magnet makes more sense as window manager :D But Doing I really enjoy, thanks for that one!
Best app on Setapp is Slidepad, it's just a slideover window, but it means you don't have to have a separate space for many of the webapps and places in windows or on separate desktops, they are just s swipe or keyboard shortcut away. I even the toggle set to one my extra mouse buttons I use it that much.
I would also recommend Typeface for better font management and PDF Squeezer which just shrinks your PDF size down with some customization. Both of these are also on Setapp.
Then other recommendation outside Setapp would be DaisyDisk, literally the best storage viewer for seeing where stuff is stored on your hard drive.
Great list. I’m surprised Apple hasn’t purchased Alfred...yet (or the unarchiver).😳
Never heard of Snazzy Labs. It reminds me of AirTable though. Looks interesting.
Magnet is also a good find. I’ve been using Spectacle (using keyboard shortcuts). I’ll be looking into Magnet.
Thanks!
Rectangle is a Free version of magnet with keyboard shortcuts and snap functionality
@@rishad5539 Nice!
Have you ever try pi-hole as an add blocker? You can block your whole network from ads.
14:51 I think that Microsoft has a pattent on window snapping at least that's what I think I head on LTT
Have you tried the IINA open source Video Player?
NTFS for Mac is really helpful if you use Windows and macos as it allows you to write on NTFS drives using MacOS.
For months I pondered on whether I should get Alfred or not.. and today I watched this video and the selling point for me was the fact that I can locate file locations with it without it opening the app.. wow. Spotlight is annoying when I have to locate the folder a file is in!! Thank you Snazzy for showing this to me!!
The Verge? The guys that invented "tweezers"
The vereg
Most recently, HazeOver and Bartender 3. HazeOver is one of those apps you don’t even realise you needed until you try it, then you question how you even managed to survive without it. It’s super simple, it just dims the screen behind the app you are using, letting you focus on just that app. And as macOS as got flatter and blander in its windows and look, apps can easily get lost when you have a whole bunch open. HazeOver fixes that really simply and elegantly.
Bartender 3 is just a tidy up for the menu bar icons, letting you hide the ones you don’t need to see all the time. Mine was getting so cluttered and I really only need to see/access 2 or 3 for the most part, so this lets me hide all the others and still access them with either a single click or a keystroke.
Wish you'd indexed this. This video is crying out for that. :-) (especially for follow-up viewing)
done
Rectangle is an alternative to the magnet app with more features and also it is free!
Apps after getting featured in Snazzy Labs' video :
*STONKS* ↗️
Albert is a great alternative to Alfred for Linux :DD
Also Etcher is fantastic
I was here when this video was still processing.
TH-cam commenters are proud of some of the weirdest shit.
@@TryMyMartini It's indeed weird if you take the internet even a little bit seriously haha
Beck when I used macOS I had some of these installed but I didn’t realize exactly how powerful Alfred is.
The reason window snapping is different on macOS than on Windows is because Microsoft has patented the technology
Håvar Ingmund Henriksen Ubuntu can do it and it’s free. Apple just doesn’t care let’s be real here
Hùng Phạm I’m. It sure it’s that simple. LTT did a video on it and that was indeed the reason they said they found out. Could be wrong though.
Ubuntu may just be small fry and not worth Microsofts time- let’s be real here.
Ubuntu and other OSS can do it the same reason ubuntu can read USB thumb drives, that are almost universally formatted using a patented microsoft file system, because of a patent group that microsoft is a part of that lets purely open source (as defined by the OSI) software use their patents for free.
Then how come a paid app is allowed to SELL that functionality? Surely it would be very illegal if they were selling a technology that someone else has patented?
@@5yuoxzdgqspjhxswwazhyo227 Because they're small enough that Microsoft don't care. They're a fraction of the size of Ubuntu or GNOME.
I think you covered this one in a previous video, Vanilla. It really cleaned up my menu bar and I've recommended it others because of you.
Can we get a whole video on Alfred??
Yeah this. I feel like Snazzy could really do it justice and show how good it is with all the options.
in spotlight you can use the default macOS way to show the location of the file: when you "open it" via mouse click or enter button - press CMD and you'll get fined window with the location of the file
Oh, so you press the alt-right, do you?
IINA is the best Mac video player. Open source too. And it looks gorgeous
I just got OpenCore macOS High Sierra for my AMD Ryzen pc. So these'll come useful :D
Why dont catalina?
I have an Nvidia GTX 1050ti as my GPU, so High Sierra is the max for me.
19:58 Yessssss Glass Animals. Little bit of the smaller British stuff making it over the pond to cool TH-camrs!
Quinn: "I never pirate content" 13:27
Also Quinn: Ferris Bueller's Day Off 1986 BluRay 10.08GB 22:46
And the Safari sidebar with sonarr and radarr...
I've been watching Mac app videos for years but yours is the first to get me to actually download so many! Great list 🤙
Cheers!
OMG, you pay for so many apps! :O
Good for you, I feel guilty if I subscribe to Netflix and Spotify xD
I’ve had MacTracker on my iPhone for a while now, it’s really really helpful when buying Mac’s on eBay. You can easily compare CPU’s and performance.
I never knew there was an iOS version!
Great list, but I'd definitely recommend IINA over Elmedia Video Player
I tried the Pro version (included in SetApp) and I wasn't very impressed. IINA does pretty much the same, looks better and more native, seems to perform better with 4K 10-bit color HEVC files and it's FOSS to boot.
I'd also recommend Keka over the Unarchiver, it has a better design IMO and it also CREATES archives.
Loved how the little "Ad in 5,4,3 ..." popped up while you were explaining Ad Guard 😁
I can live without a Mac, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
pdf expert is the best pdf app, not cheap but worth every penny I've paid!
Next video title: Worst Mac Apps I can live without
PS. You should hire me I have really good ideas like the one above
I like using Flow - a pomodoro timer for studying
@@nels8302 I put in 12 hours daily for med school, definitely works
Mac doesn't have window snapping because Microsoft owns the patent. LTT mentioned it in a video.
Swish is so much better
PathFinder, been using it the last 10 years instead of Finder mainly because of the stupidly simple feature ”double-click when clicking icon”. Sooo many clicks saved! Oh and tabs before that.
I use it too. I appreciate that you can bring colour back to icons, and more easily change icon pictures. There’s so many customisable actions though. Path Finder is well worth it.
dont use magnet!!!! use rectangle, its free and open source and has G A P S
Bettertouchtools.....
thanks, i didn't want to pay 3$ for magnet and i also prefer opensource software
How do you enable gaps?
After a long time, a real ‘QUINN’ video from Quinn. Thank you mate!
4:05 I can go press Alt-Right
Uh oh
What perfect timing I just put a new ssd in my old MacBook Pro late last night and I was watching your other older video on this topic! Just woke up to this one :) yahoo
Apps I use:
Sys admin stuff
Apple Remote Desktop - Expands on the native 'screen share' along with cataloguing all devices on the network, install packages, unix commands, remote deploy
Chronosync + Time Machine - Chronosync keeps sync of any files, data etc.. from one source folder/drive/location and mirrors on a target folder/drive/location - this can be more granular in it's sync and scheduling than Time Machine (I still use Time Machine for full quarterly backups of all Mac devices on the network)
iMazing + Time Machine - Has a lot of things in common with Chronosync, but instead focuses on iPhone and iPad devices....currently testing out to see if it supports Apple Watch as well.
Quality of life apps
Duplicate File Finder - If you have thousands of copies of the same file even though they have different names, sizes, (2) (3) (4) etc...you can just drag and drop folders into for comparing and it will bring up all the duplicate files and you set rules what the critieria is to keep what files or do it manually.
Compare and Sync Folders - Has a fair bit in common witth Chronosync AND Duplicate File finder, but I also have it for the compare of every file between two folders for any necessary differences based on size, modified, name differences etc.....
MEDIA HOME THEATRE MAC
+ Kodi - it is open source, free - no subscription and can work offline (no need to authenticate) Media Player - movies, tv shows, music, gaming (requires particular plugins) and highly customizable.
I have it running 24/7 on a dedicated desktop of my MBP - and have it showing via a projector or it is a Media server for any media clients and controlled with a blue tooth harmony remote.
+ Anydvd\HD - rips my Blu Ray, DVD collection and transcodes into popular digital formats so can be used by media players like Kodi
+ Ember reloaded, Tiny Media Manager and rename my tv series are movie and tv metadata, artwork scrapers and creates the files that media players like Kodi can read andto make your media collection presentable on your Home theatre computer.
Kodi has it's own inbuilt scrapers, but it is highly inaccurate and time consuming to fix up, where as a combination of Ember (best for movies), Tiny media manager (best for tv shows) and Rename my tv series (critical for naming so scrapers like Tiny MM can find the show details more accurately) is best.
Thanks for the recommendations, but why don't you use chapter markers in your timeline as it would make it easier to find the app. I'm interested in quickly after watching your videos?
My favorite Mac apps:
1. Rectangle: FOSS alternative to Magnet
2. Karabiner-Elements
3. Alfred
4. Dozer: Free alternative to Bartender
5. The Unarchiver
6. AppCleaner
7. CheatSheet: good when you forget how to take a screenshot
8. Disk Inventory X: Like WinDirStat but for Mac
Some of my snazzy apps - Alfred, bartender, LastPass, spectacle e tick tick. but great recomendations
Great video Quinn. For Alfred, do you recommend purchasing the Powerpack?
So what did you do those 10-20 years before mac apps were created
Childhood.
Quinn doesn't specify it much, but there's a number of apps here than are actually on Setapp already. 💪
Ulysses is without a doubt a MUST-HAVE app for anyone even remotely interested in writing in any shape or form. The only down side is the paid subscription.
However, setting goals, different layouts and all the solidity of the app makes it worth-while.
I disagree, and would recommend Scrivener as must have if you are interested in writing. It does far more than Ulysses and is only a one time purchase. There’s so many options and there is a good tutorial that comes with it, though you can just use it like Ulysses if you want to keep it simple. The only draw back is that you need drop box if you want to sync with IOS.
I had both, but seeing how much more scrivener offers for a complete writing tool, and how ridiculous the subscription model is when the Ulysses app was already successful, I think people should check out Scrivener first before even considering the expensive and ongoing cost of Ulysses.
Hey snazzy, what do you think of IINA as a replacement for VLC? Free, open source and built specifically for Mac
As a new Mac user, Magnet will be an app I'll get once my new MacBook comes in. Thank you for the video.
Why does everyone who do app reviews consistently miss Default Folder? That app is amazing and saves so much time.
Ad guard for safari is free btw, the one for the whole Mac you have to pay for
I've tried to use Alfred multiple times but it's never been as great for me as everyone makes it sound. It cant't even calcualte percentages. Everyone always says it does so much but doesn't really get into what that actually is. An in depth video about it would be cool.
Most informative apple video ive ever seen. I will absolutely check out several of these apps.
Look into Pi-Hole on RaspberryPi, it’s a lifesaver for your whole WiFi network, so you don’t have to worry about AdBlocks and AdGuards locally.
P.s. for example, combined with an old monitor and almost any RaspberryPi, you can create a nice cheap dashboard with calendar, weather and news which will work as a DNS server to filter out ads and trackers on your network. I love the automation...
These Mac videos you do have made my life so much easier. just thank you so much
Cheers!
Great video Quinn! Do you have any recommendations for personal finance Mac apps? I'd love to know what tools you use for this.
I just use QuickBooks Online.
AdGuard has browser extensions that are completely free btw. You only pay for the full app to run on the whole mac blocking everything, but browser-only extensions do the job just fine and are free.
A big pleasure from here, thank you for this productiv video.
i will say there are some of the app's I've will loving to use ❤️
Thanks for the video Quinn. A number that I'll check out - as a retired IT guy, I don't need the workflow and team apps (hurrah!). Alfred, ApolloOne, Elmedia and Magnet jump out at me.
One for you - Roon from Roonlabs to enrich your music experience. Use it with Qobuz and it's fantastic (I use Tidal). There are good TH-cam reviews from John Darko and Hans Beekhuyzen on the software.
Keka is better than the unarchiver imo. It can compress files whereas the unarchiver can't, and it's free & open-source. It's paid on the App Store if you want to download from the Mac App Store and support the dev
Quinn, would you consider going further in-depth on how you made your Notion pages, also possibly providing us a download template if you'd be so kind? :)
His whole TH-cam section was about 95% stolen from Thomas Frank's free template which you can get online, and he has a couple of videos about. Just Google 'Thomas Frank Notion templates' 🙂
Do you use Spark as your Primary Email Client? What do you use for your primary calendar? THANK YOU! GREAT STUFF!
He uses Fantastical
Some better alternatives out there
Movist Pro / IINA > Elmedia (Movist for HDR, IINA for everything else)
BetterZip >>> Unarchiver it's not even close
CMMX > Sensei (but neither are necessary)
Also Numi would likely be a great companion for Tot, works much better than the calculator widget
I have Alfred installed for 2 days now. I don't like it that much. I usually use Siri to check the spelling. But Spotlight is actually better for me. It has Siri knowledge (very very helpful), and really I can ask it anything. I know it's the same if I hit enter in Alfred to search google, but I prefer spotlight. But I still have Alfred (on alt space), because it's actually very helpful for commands. Like force closing apps, or shutting down etc.
Dude Tovala for life. So glad I saw your app video.
Snazzy is always improving my life. Thank you!!
I can’t live without this content
One of my absolute favorite mac app right now is Bartender, since I have a crap ton of login items that just run in the menu bar. Im also a big fan of Ubersicht. Getting fully customizable widgets on your desktop is a must have.
I'm so sick of everything moving to 'subscription' based. I miss the days of buying a piece of software and owning it forever...and subscriptions really start adding up very quickly.
Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, Better Touch Tool, Hazel, iTerm2, Omnifocus, Ulysses, Bear, Spark, Time Machine, Chronosync, iStat Menus, Downie, MindNode, CleanMyMac X, Elmedia, Timing, Viscosity... and many more... Mac os is “GOD” mode for productivity!!!
Man you worked really hard on this. I hope you keep growing man. Wish I could subscribe twice
Thanks dude!