Last year, on Christmas Eve, I posted my annual Essential Mac Software list for 2019. Here is this year’s list, which I drafted prior to reviewing last year’s.
Google Meet
Holy Shit: In March 2020, New Jersey locked down fast and hard due to COVID-19. Schools moved to full virtual instruction in March of 2020 and never came back for the rest of the school year. None of us knew how to do that.
Unmoored from a rigid bell schedule, I talked to staff face to face that I never met before for more than a moment. I hosted meetings with the pretense of providing leadership, but only to commune with people presented with an impossible task. I used humor, as I do, to diffuse difficult situations, and to encourage honest conversation. We all were searching for normalcy.
Our district uses Google’s then-named GSuite, and I embraced Google Meet as the official VOIP solution. Google Meet is dead simple to use, reliable, and effective. It’s cross-platform. Recent privacy changes are making it challenging for school districts who need to confer with non-Google-account-holding parents and guardians, and that’s a shame. I still use it constantly, though, and I appreciate its sparse interface but essential utility.
Agenda
Having many meetings, one after the other, requires an agenda. There are many ways to skin that cat (flat files, tags, and folders, for example), but I like Agenda. Agenda lets you connect notes to calendar events. [^Calendars have to be added to your Mac or iOS device through Settings or System Preferences (I.e. directly to your device); Fantastical accounts, for example, won’t work.] Agenda then drops a link to the meeting into to the calendar event details. The visual presentation is beautiful, and welcomes rich text and Markdown users alike.
Agenda
SoundSource
I calculated that I spent about $700 on video cameras and microphones to make working remotely (and supporting distance learning) better. SoundSource, like many of my purchases, was not required, but in improved every aspect of the experience.
Changing inputs and outputs. Checking levels. All from the menubar. Is dipping into System Preferences difficult to complete this task? No. But SoundSource puts it right on your menubar, with input and output levels nicely animated.
Webcam Settings
This perfectly singular purpose app allows me to create webcam presets and switch between them from my menu bar. Twilight? That’s a setting. Cloudy day? That’s a setting. Focused and useful. I wrote more about it here.
Fantastical
Fantastical makes adding Google Meet data to my work schedule seamless. Part of Fantastical’s allure is purely aesthetic, while other features–calendar groups and event proposals–are interesting but not useful to me. I did finally subscribe after sticking with the features from version 2 for a time. Across all three device class in the Mac ecosystem, it’s the most integrated and elegant calendar solution.
OmniFocus
OmniFocus is the where everything I have to do or have to remember goes. The review is crucial, and OmniFocus integrates this into the software like no other task manager.
MailMate
MailMate pairs a spartan UI with a powerful email engine. I rely on its search and smart folder functionality. MailMate is a Mac-assed Mac app for email.
MailMate
Spark
MailMate is for work; Spark is for everything else. It is decidedly of the newer UI design generation on the Mac, with a custom UI that looks unlike anything else. Spark syncs accounts so setting up a new device is a breeze. You can save smart searches in the sidebar, helping you focus. The paid tier helps team collaborate, but the free version has everything an individual would need. It’s my choice on iPadOS, too.
Spark
Keep It
The digital junk drawer is an app genre I am drawn to. I have a hard time sticking to one of these apps, and where I once obsessed with to-do managers, I now obsess with how to collect files vs using the Finder.
I was a longtime user of Yojimbo, and the only reason I’m not using it is because they never made a useful iOS app. I have tried EverNote and DEVONthink, and while I love the latter, some sync funkiness and their restrictive license led me to try Keep It. I like this app a lot, and shunt a considerable amount of data to it each day. Keep It deserves its own post for sure.
Folders, Collections, Tags, and OCR–with companion iOS and iPad apps that sync over iCloud–make me keep using Keep It.
Keep It
Money
You don’t really know how you spend your money. You might know if you’re up or down, but you don’t know where it goes unless you track each expense and categorize it. Money isn’t the only game in town, but it’s been around for a long time. It connects to most accounts, and you can set up rules about how to categorize transactions. Monthly and annual reporting is then effortless.
TextCase
TextCase takes text from the clipboard and performs manipulations, such as changing it to title case, small case, and other options. It reminds me a good bit of of an old favorite, TextSoap, and has companion iOS apps.
TextCase
Reeder
There’s a new version. It’s not terribly different or improved from the last version but it’s good enough that it warrants your consideration. I wrote about it after it was released, and I use it daily.
Reeder
NetNewsWire
Mac-assed Mac app emblematic of an era I miss very much. Competes with Reeder, of course, but the Smart Folders alone are worth a spin. Plus, it’s free.
NetNewsWire
Notes
It’s not better at anything that any Mac apps I use are (Drafts, Keep It), but I love the fast syncing, sharing with others, and the handwriting recognition.
MarsEdit
I don’t start writing in MarsEdit, but I publish most of my posts to Uncorrected using this Mac-assed Mac app.
1Password
The first thing installed on any device. I don’t know any passwords except for one, and I don’t use any other password manager.
LaunchBar
LaunchBar is probably number 2 on my installation list for a new Mac, and I use it all day, every day. It is one of the examples I would cite about why I prefer working on the Mac over iPadOS day in and out. Does it launch apps? Sure. But it’s my clipboard manager, app switcher, file manager, and the place I go to initiate a web search. I love LaunchBar.
Bumpr
Preferring Safari doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes need Chrome or Edge or Brave or another browser. As my employer is a Google GSuite house, I need to be logged into a Chrome-based browser most of the day. Setting Bumpr to your default browser allows you to choose which browser opens links you click from other sources (emails, messages, etc). It’s an elegant solution that beats cutting and pasting links.
Better Snap Tool
BST emulates and extends the Aero Snap functionality introduced into Windows 7. Like LaunchBar, I almost unconsciously use BST all day long. If it’s not running, I notice it within minutes. The base functionality is invaluable by itself, but you can extend its usefulness by assigning keystrokes and “Snap Areas,” which is a cool trick that a competitor, Mosaic, uses in a different but useful way.
Bartender
Big Sur worsened an already-vexing problem–the overcrowded MacOS menubar–by with generous padding between icons. Bartender continues to offer an elegant solution by tucking user-specified applications into a menu-bar submenu.
There Will Be Another
This list is not exhaustive; I use Excel and Google Sheets a lot, for example, and continue to use Drafts to start lots of writing. Other apps are new to me, and I’m excited to use them to see if they make 2021’s list. I recently purchased a license for Hook Pro, for example, and I’m excited to learn how best to use it to connect information from disparate applications and locations. I wrote about Filepane and Mimestream as well, and they appear to be taking up permanent residence in my menu bar and Dock, respectively.