List of Productivity Apps

Sometimes I get asked about the things I use to build, stay productive, or buy to pretend I’m being productive when I’m really just procrastinating (master procrastinator here). Here’s a list of all of my favorite stuff.

Main Apps

• Obsidian: The best note-taking app using non-linear note styles. Community-built plugins also got you covered for anything you could ever want in a note-taking app.
• Anki: Struggling to remember facts? Ankify it! Anki uses spaced repetition in flashcards to help you retain information. You will either become part of the Anki cult or quit within a week.
• TickTick: A great task-manager app with a powerful calendar baked in. There’s also hotkeys for global task input, powered by NLP.
• Raindrop: Drop all your bookmarks, references, and cool websites here, and you can view them anywhere. It’s free, comes with great tagging organization, and has a cool logo.
• ChatGPT: If you don’t know what ChatGPT is, you’re living under a rock. Get it. There’s now a Mac app with a global hotkey, which saves you time from typing chatgpt.com.
• Arc: “Arc is the Chrome replacement you’ve been waiting for.” Great tab management and many UX enhancements. Never thought I would switch from Chrome, but here we are.

Useful MacOS Apps

Free

• Bitwarden: Bring the power of Google passwords to any application you use. Saves the hassle of remembering 100+ different passwords. I paid $10 a year to also save TOTP 2FA codes within Bitwarden so I don’t have to open another app to access them.
• Shottr: Versatile screenshot tool with extremely powerful features, including scrolling capture, OCR, and screenshot editing.
• Rectangle: Snap a window left, right, and across monitors! Why doesn’t MacOS support Windows-like window management natively, I don’t know.
• DeepL: I should really study my Chinese, but DeepL is the only reason why I don’t. Translate screenshots, documents, and text more accurately than Google can.
• Raycast: A feature-rich application launcher that has dethroned Alfred as the king of application launchers. Though that might spark some arguments.
• Maccy: View your entire clipboard history and paste them. Great if you copy a lot of information, which is literally everyone.
• Expanso: Can’t be bothered to type your long email address out or your address? Setup keyboard shortcuts to expand anything you want.
• Keka: If you understand the pain of downloading a .zip file and then manually unzipping it, just get Keka. Auto unzips files, and can also compress files too.
• AltTab: I love how Windows handles AltTabing, so let’s move that feature to MacOS as well! Works wonders if you have 20 applications open at the same time.
• BatFi: Extend your MacOS battery life. Charging your MacBook battery to 100% is bad for the battery – BatFi will limit the maximum battery percentage to 80%. Good enough for most people.
• Warp: A modern, AI-powered terminal. Much better than the default terminal or iTerm2. Use my referral code to download it for free with an exclusive theme!
• Draw.io: Free collaborative diagramming software. Great for creating flowcharts, diagrams, and more for your blogs or projects. The best diagramming app I’ve ever used.
• PDFGear: Anything you need to do with PDFs, PDFGear has you covered. No longer do I need to open a webpage to compress, merge, or OCR my PDFs!
• Latest: A simple app that keeps all your other apps updated. No more manually updating apps, and no more annoying update notifications.
• SoulSeekQT: A criminally underrated music downloading app. P2P connections to download high-quality music. Especially great for audiophiles who want hi-res FLAC files.
• Grammarly: Free grammar and spell checker that works on almost every website and app. It’s a must-have for anyone who writes a lot.
• HandBrake: Open-source tool to convert video formats and compress videos. Better and faster than going online and searching “MP4 to AVI converter.”
• Clop: Optimizes EVERYTHING you download on your Mac. Clipboard images with built-in downscale and crop! Videos! PDFs!
• AppCleaner: Thoroughly uninstalls an app and all its associated files. No more leftover files from an app you deleted.
• MacWhisper: Transcribe any audio (files, audio playing from websites, etc) into text. And it’s done all locally on your Mac - no sending your data to OpenAI!
• Folder Peek: Put folders in your Mac’s menu bar. It’s a great way to quickly access your most used folders, especially if you nest folders deep.
• Command X: Cut and paste files using Cmd+X like in Windows. Should’ve been a feature in MacOS from the start.
• Barbee: If you downloaded all my recommended apps, your Mac menu bar is probably a mess. Barbee lets you organize your menu bar with a second, pop-over menu bar so it’s not a mess. I find it much better than HiddenBar (another free alternative) or Bartender (which undergone some shady stuff recently).
• Flow by Wispr: Allows you to use your function key (who actually uses this?) to initiate voice dictation, meaning I can type at 200 WPM all the time now.
• Karabiner-Elements: Sets up a hyper-key which can be used to do almost anything on your MacOS.

Paid

• DaisyDisk: Find big files on your Mac so you can clean them up. It’s a great way to free up space on your Mac.
• Screen Studio: Ever want to create stunning recordings of your screen? This one uses AI to track and zoom in on your cursor, add backgrounds, and add animations.
• Parallels: So I can actually access engineering apps like Altium or Solidworks on my Mac. Having native Apple Silicon optimized engineering software would be awesome though.