Following with my updated tradition of naming the software I see myself using in the new year (instead of looking back)

Newcomers

Spark Desktop (Beta)

I wrote about the newly released Spark Desktop, here back when it came out, and I’ve continued to use it daily over my beloved MailMate.

The beta crashes a fair bit, without warning and without any indication of why, but it is generally stable enough for daily use. It maddeningly lacks keyboard shortcut support right now, which is almost a deal-breaker, for system-level actions like copy and paste.

App-level keyboard support, however, makes for a productive email environment, and the Command Center is a familiar affordance borrowed from PKM software that puts almost every command at your finger tips… mouse not required. I am shocked sometimes by how quickly I am able to winnow down a few crowded inboxes, and the emerging AI features are making it even faster.

Spark Desktop Beta Spash Screen

Spark Desktop’s Actions Menu

Yoink

I’ve been using Yoink for some time now; I purchased the Mac and iOS versions near the end of 2018. I saw it as a great way to share bits of data (URLs, text snippets) between iPhone and Mac. Oddly, though, Yoink doesn’t sync (a strong competitor, Gladys, does).

Yoink sits on the side of your screen, hidden, until you start dragging something towards it. A shelf then pops out, and you drop content into the shelf. The shelf remains exposed until you drag the content back out.

A common example for which I use Yoink is taking a screenshot on the Mac, grabbing it in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and then dragging it into the shelf. Switch to Messages or Spark, and drag the screenshot into the next app. I do this with links a lot, too. Yoink remains onscreen until you’ve done something with the content you dragged into it, which I initially saw as a limitation, but have come to appreciate, as it keeps Yoink from getting clogged up.

Raycast

Raycast is an example of a utility that highlights how the Mac is, and will likely always be, a tool completely different from iPad and, to many users, more interesting and flexible. Raycast is, broadly speaking, a competitor to launcher apps like Launchbar and Alfred. But interested users might find enough about Raycast to use it alongside their preferred launcher.

Raycast can easily become a Spotlight replacement for finding files. Like Spotlight, it can look up words in a dictionary. It can do so much more, though: it can be Paletro, search Craft, create drafts in Drafts, and resize windows. Raycast will search DEVONthink, YouTube, and Google. It’s a calculator. You can use it to store and expand text snippets.

Raycast

Related: Raycast Does Window Management Too

Tabby

Tabby acts like command-shift-a in Chrome, but for all of the browsers running on your Mac (save FireFox, if you happen to use it). You invoke Tabby via keyboard shortcut or menubar icon, and you are presented with a list of open browser tabs, organized by browser. You can search the list or mouse to the tab you want to activate.

If you hop between multiple browsers during the day, this is a must-have utility.

Tabby

TextSniper

TextSniper cops Apple’s default screenshot behavior but instead of taking a screenshot, it applies OCR to the text on-screen and performs OCR on it. If you have a JPEG or PNG scan of text, for example, that someone sent you, you can use TextSniper to convert sections of it into text you can paste into an email, text editor, or email. It’s amazing and always useful.

Craft

I’ve been writing about Craft here as I’ve been using it for a while; it’s a different kind of text editor and page layout application that has more in common with services like Google Docs than tried-and-true word processors like Nisus Writer. In addition to being available everywhere, Craft offers PKM features in a rich-text environment. Hard-core text editor fans are not likely to find Craft compelling, but the ability to drag anything into your Craft document is powerful and liberating.

Taking notes during a Zoom meeting? Grab a screenshot or download a file and drop it into the document. Want to create a nested outline? You can do that. Like to keep your hands on the keyboard? Type a “/” and you will see a menu with commands to change formatting, insert tables, and more. And the linking within Craft is a PKM enthusiast’s dream.

A Craft Document Collecting Links

DayOne

I’m trying to journal more, and DayOne makes it easy to add data to your journals as you go, is present on all of your Apple devices, and is safe and secure. It’s easy to use Apple’s Share Sheet to put something you find into your journal for later retrieval.

Related: Why You Should Keep a Journal and Why Keeping a Diary Can Save You.

DayOne Entry Back During the OG Quarantine

Bike

Jesse Grosjean of HogBay software has made some of the most compelling productivity software for the Mac, most notably TaskPaper, and invented said file format along the way. Bike is an outliner that artfully blurs the line between plain and rich text formats. And the text animations, to my eye, look a bit like Word on Windows–which I like a lot.

As with TaskPaper, Bike isn’t an application that exists on iPhone or iPad.

Bike Outline

TextSoap

For about the last year, I have been editing and preparing my state professional organization’s online newsletter, and the article body font–set in 15-point Helvetica–is most easily set to large swaths of text using TextSoap. It’s been a long time since I’ve used it, but it works as well as ever.

HookMark

I had gotten out of the habit of using HookMark (previously Hook) but their recent update and beta, plus a couple of stress-inducing projects, have me at it again. HookMark provides a Mac-level means of linking data. My particular workflow involves linking all manner of resources to OmniFocus projects and tasks so that OF is always the hub of what I’m working on.

HookMark Showing Files Related to OmniFocus Project

Related: Hook: A Quick Look

Evergreen

I still use these apps nearly everyday:

• Omnifocus
• DEVONThink
• Drafts
• Safari
• NetNewsWire
• MarsEdit
• iA Writer
• 1Password
• Bartender
• Arq
• PopClip
• Mosaic
• Fantastical
• Drafts
• Soulver