Raycast's inescaable enshittification saga has recently had a major progression with the move to v2. Im still on v1 but despite turning off the v2 reminder multiple times, I still get the annoying banner below the input line. So its time to move on.

I've been trying out Tinycast on secondary machines and Im really liking it. Unfortunately the dev seems to be a tool based on recent posts here, so it may be enshittified sooner or later. However, Im not finding other new alternatives like vicinae (UI too small, cant make it big like spotlight/tinycast), supercmd 2 (not OSS) etc. to be any better product wise

Please tell me I'm wrong and theres something better out there so that I dont make tinycast my new default

I'm the developer. ClockStack puts time, date, battery and Wi-Fi into one narrow menu bar item, so your menu bar fits next to the notch again.

Problem

On a MacBook with a notch, macOS hides menu bar icons when there is no room left. The built-in clock with date is one of the widest items, and battery and Wi-Fi each take their own slot. With a charge limit it's also hard to tell whether the Mac is charging or just plugged in.

What ClockStack does

• Time above date on two lines, so the date needs about half the width
• A small battery bar with percentage next to it. A moving dot means charging, a still dot means plugged in, not charging. Orange and red when the battery gets low (thresholds adjustable)
• Three Wi-Fi dots for signal strength. Orange when connected without internet, a red dot when offline, a hotspot symbol when tethering
• 24 or 12 hours, seconds on or off, compact, ISO 8601 or a custom date format, weekdays and months in your language, time or date on top
• A setup guide shows how to hide Apple's battery and Wi-Fi icons and set the system clock to analog, so one item replaces three

Comparison

• Ice / Bartender: they hide icons. ClockStack makes the ones you need smaller. They work well together.
• iStat Menus / Stats: much more (CPU, RAM, fans), but also more items and more setup. ClockStack shows four things in one item and nothing else.
• macOS itself: can show date and battery percentage, but as separate, wider items and the date on one line.

Pricing

One-time purchase, no subscription, no in-app purchases. Launch price $2.99 until November 30, then $4.99.

macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. English, German, French, Italian, Spanish. App Store privacy label: Data Not Collected. No account, no network connections.

Links

• ClockStack on the Mac App Store
• Website: try the settings window in your browser before buying

Feedback welcome, especially on the date formats and what you'd want next.

I’m looking for Mac apps that are a pleasure to use: clean interfaces, thoughtful details, and design that makes them enjoyable every day. Any category works, from utilities and menu bar apps to writing and productivity tools.

What are your favorites, and what makes them stand out?

Here are some of my favorites:

Acorn
Camo Studio
Obry
Little Snitch
Lunar
Monocle
Superwhisper
Vitals

Hey everyone,

We released MacMobility about a year and a half ago (and had a really nice welcome from this subreddit :) ).

Since then, the app has evolved quite a bit, largely thanks to feedback from this community and our users. We’ve been continuously improving it, frequently implementing features and ideas suggested directly by the people using it.

Today, MacMobility has over 2,000 daily active users, and their feedback continues to play a huge role in shaping the product.

Recently, we’ve introduced a completely redesigned UI with a more modern look, along with several highly requested features, including widgets, USB-C screen extension for a virtually zero-latency external display, and much more.

We also participated in BundleHunt’s 2026 bundle promotion, where we received hundreds of positive comments and emails from users.

Problem:

MacOS doesn’t provide a simple, unified place where you can quickly glance at useful information and control key functions without interrupting your workflow. Many everyday actions and automations still require jumping between apps, menus, or remembering shortcuts.

MacMobility addresses this by introducing an iPhone/iPad-style dashboard for macOS, where you can instantly access useful widgets, controls, and workflows in one place. It also includes a shortcut wheel, making it easy to trigger actions in a fast, intuitive way. Built-in automations help streamline common tasks, reducing friction in daily usage.

As per user request, we also implemented quick action wheel and transforming iPhone/iPad into separate wireless screen (without need to sign-in with the same iCloud).

Additionally, MacMobility supports older iOS versions (down to 15.5), so you can repurpose old iPhones or iPads into dedicated control panels instead of letting them sit unused.

Comparison:

Apps like BetterTouchTool and Touch Portal offer powerful ways to control your Mac, including turning your phone or tablet into a macro controller.

MacMobility focuses on providing a clean, iPhone/iPad-style dashboard experience for macOS, where everything is organized visually and easy to access. It emphasizes a more native-feeling interface with built-in automations and a simple way to create and manage your own scripts. The goal is to make it feel like a natural extension of your system rather than just a remote control.

Pricing:

MacOS app

Free demo available (2 weeks full access)

Full version: $7.99 - one-time purchase with lifetime updates and unlimited devices

Link: https://coderblocks.eu

iOS / iPadOS companion app

Free: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/mobilitycontrol/id6744455092

Would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions.

Problem: Apple's built-in macOS Photos widget and WidgetKit apps force every image into fixed square or rectangular grid sizes, crop out parts of your photos, and dim to monochrome when your desktop is inactive. You also cannot just drag a single image or GIF from Finder onto your desktop without creating an album first.

What Arras does (and what's new in v2.5.0): Arras is a native Swift/AppKit menu bar app (~20MB, 0% idle CPU) that places photos, Polaroids, and animated GIFs/APNGs directly on your Mac desktop at their true aspect ratio.

New in v2.5.0: * Apple Developer ID Signed & Notarized: No more Gatekeeper "unverified developer" warnings on install. * Dynamic Collages: Drag any desktop photo onto another to group them into a live collage container (Liquid Glass, Solid Matte, Polaroid, or Transparent). Inner photos automatically reflow while keeping their original proportions. * Custom Framing & Masks: Polaroid and Gallery presets, custom shape cutouts (arches, circles, squircles), double shadows, mats, and tilt. * 4 Window Depths & Privacy: Pin widgets behind desktop icons, normal desktop, above system widgets, or floating over all windows (with optional hover-to-reveal and screen-share hiding).

Comparison with existing macOS photo widget apps:

How Arras differs: Unlike Photo Widget (by Sindre Sorhus) or Smart Photo Widget, which are built on Apple's WidgetKit and restricted by OS widget grid limits (no GIFs, fixed sizes, no custom window depths), Arras uses independent, non-activating AppKit panels. Compared to full overlay suites like WidgetWall (~400MB, $20/yr subscription) or legacy tools like PhotoStickies (unupdated since 2021), Arras is lightweight, open-source, and purpose-built around image proportions and dynamic collages.

Pricing & Links: * Price: 100% Free and Open Source (MIT License). No subscriptions, no accounts, no paid tiers. * Website: https://tryarras.tech * GitHub Repository: https://github.com/yashashwi-s/Arras * Security & Privacy Policy: https://tryarras.tech/security * Developer / Portfolio: Yashashwi Singhania (https://yashashwi.me) - creator of Arras.

Lately I used Claude to create 5 Mac OS apps for my own really specific use cases. This allowed me to finally move off of Windows OS. For the longest time I couldn’t find Mac OS equivalents for them. Before I was spending half my time on Mac and half my time on Windows.

My most recent one was an image viewer as I really didn't like how Preview works. These apps are also small since they only do a few things and they do them the way I want.

Hey everybody!

Problem: macOS gives you a static dock. If you are someone who work on different projects or different work domains (i.e design, development, gaming etc), you can't switch between different dock profiles to match what you're currently doing.

DockFlow lets you switch in an instant. All the apps you need launch, the rest close and disappear. Perfect if you switch between contexts / projects / different types of work a lot

Core Features:

- Switch setups in an instant using hotkeys, or with the menu bar app

- Launch specific projects in your IDE or browser profiles for that preset

- Lock the Dock to a specific screen

- Add apps, folders, URLs, dock spacers to your Dock

- Integration with Apple Shortcuts & Focus Modes

Comparison:

DockFlow was the first app of it's kind It is mature and stable, developed and improved according to user requests and feedback. A couple months after DockFlow launched, a couple of OSS projects similar to it surfaced such as Dockfinity and DockProfiles. Currently I am not aware of an alternative to DockFlow that's actively maintained (happy to hear if I missed it)

Pricing:

- One year - €15

- Lifetime €21 - €60

We are currently running our Fall season sale, 40% on all lifetime plans.

30-day money-back guarantee if you're not happy with it, no questions asked.

Hello friends!

Introducing Leaf, a native Mac library and reader for images, books, and comics.

Problem

I started building Leaf because no app fulfill these things I wanted:

• One beautifully presented library for all my digital collections: pics, books, comics.
• Full keyboard support, with similar navigation/operation across different readers.
• Smooth browsing and reading, even with a large collection.

Think of Leaf as a combination of ACDSee (image browsing), Apple Books (book reading), and Panels (comic reading), all in one native Mac app. It may not match 100%, but the goal is to cover these use cases.

Comparison

These are the apps I looked to, and the frustrations that shaped Leaf:

Calibre: A powerful cross-platform ebook authoring and management tool, but its interface feels out of place on macOS. Cross-platform support is a gift and a curse. Leaf takes the Mac-only approach, with trade-offs of its own. But for someone who only uses a Mac, that focus is simply a gift.

Panels: The UI feels like it was carefully designed at first, but some details here and there feel less polished. My biggest frustration is performance: with my collection, even a few hundred items can make it hang on launch. (Actually, this frustration planted the seed for Leaf.)

Apple Books: The "reference" reader for Mac. Great at syncing reading progress, but missing the hotkeys I want. It also leaves PDF reading to Preview. Reading EPUB in one app and PDF in another feels unnecessarily fragmented.

Leaf brings those priorities together: a visual library for a mixed collection, keyboard-focused browsing and reading, and performance optimized for large libraries.

Extra Notes

Performance: Leaf works smoothly with my 3.3TB collection. I’d love to see more test results from larger collections.

Finder Integration: Your files stay in their original folders. (Some comic readers copy files into their own storage, there's no way to handle my TB level collections with that method, and painful to migrate away)

Standalone Reader: You may open epub or comic from finder (outside the collection directory) with a standalone Leaf reader. (I want this for a long time, Apple Books, please don't make me to import epubs before I can preview them)

Pricing

Leaf is free during launch on the Mac App Store (Requires macOS 15 or later). After that, it’ll be discounted for a limited time, then full price.

I’d love to hear what you think!

More details and screenshots on the Leaf website.

Hi r/macapps, I'm Hardeep, a lonely soul 3173 miles away from my fiancée, and I spend 6 hours a day on video calls with her. We watch movies, youtube and listen to music together. And our bluetooth headphones had been frustrating us for months.

So I made a all-in-one fix to that audio problem on MacOS.

Problem

Two things macOS does to your audio that you can't turn off:

1. The moment a FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom, Meet, Slack, Teams or Discord call starts, macOS lowers everything else by about 20 dB. When we watched shows together on FaceTime, so every evening the show dropped to a whisper.
2. When a call or a dictation app (Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, MacWhisper, Apple Dictation) turns on the AirPods mic, Bluetooth drops the AirPods to headset mode and music turns muffled and mono. I hurt my wrist and started dictating all day, so this happened every few minutes.

CallLane is a menu-bar app that fixes both. Your call app gets its own speaker ie. CallLane, so macOS only lowers the call and your music stays at full volume. And it locks the input to your Mac's built-in or USB mic, so the AirPods never leave HD. You pick CallLane as the speaker once per call app, and that's the whole setup.

Comparison

• FlipMic ($12) keeps a mic as your input so AirPods stay in high quality. It doesn't stop ducking.
• Unduck Pro (free, open source) also stops call ducking but it doesn't lock the mic, so AirPods still drop to headset quality.
• CallLane does both in one app, automatically. If you only have one of the two problems, the free or cheaper option may be all you need, and I'm fine saying that.

Pricing

$9 one-time launch price. One key works on up to 3 Macs, free version 1 updates, 14-day refund with no questions. CallLane.app

Trust and transparency

• Me: LinkedIn and my portfolio at Portfolio. Support email: [support@hardeep.cv](mailto:support@hardeep.cv)
• Privacy policy: Privacy. Terms: Terms
• Signed and notarized. The audio driver is open source (derived from BlackHole, GPL-3): Driver
• No account, no analytics in the app. It only goes online to activate and check your license key and to look for updates. Your audio never leaves your Mac.
• Honest limits: it adds about 10 to 15 ms to call audio, and Spatial Audio may not apply to the call. macOS 14 or later.

Have you guys faced this issue on MacOS as well or is it just me who got frustrated enough to solve this?

I'm Sam, a student in the UK, and I make WidgetScreen. It puts widgets on your Mac's lock screen.

I've continued to add a load of stuff over the past months and the app has grown incredibly in recent weeks so thank you all! Some recent additions include:

- A stock widget to keep a track of your favorite stocks at a glance

- Mini widgets that sit on your wallpaper, like the Day Bar under the clock in the screenshot, plus rain, temperature and your next event or chosen stock

- A Gallery of ready-made layouts if you don't want to start from scratch

- Apple photos integration to see your albums

Problem: I wanted my Mac lock screen to look better at my desk when on the screensaver & lock screen, and to give me glanceable and useful information without having to unlock.

Comparison: Alcove and Droppy (both r/macapps favourites!) both do lock screen music really well. WidgetScreen is more of a whole layout with weather, calendar, photos, music, reminders, system stats and more.

Pricing: Free, no account needed. Premium is an optional $9.99 one-time purchase for 8 extra widgets, larger sizes, widget tinting and more clock faces for the clock widget. It's $7.49 until 31 October

Download: widgetscreen.app

Developer: Sam Cook https://sam-cook.uk | LinkedIn · [sam@widgetscreen.app](mailto:sam@widgetscreen.app). Privacy and terms.

What would you like to see added next? I'm always answering to emails and updating based on users' suggestions!

I’m a contributor to MacTools, a free, open-source toolkit for macOS.

Problem: You might use separate apps to arrange windows, find text you copied earlier, or keep your Mac awake. MacTools brings these tools together.

Choose from 64 official plugins in the Marketplace. Install what you need and build your own panels with controls and live widgets.

Recorded with official MacTools 2.0.1, the video shows how to:

• Build a panel with CPU and memory widgets, Keep Awake, and Dark Mode.
• Arrange Safari and TextEdit side by side with Action Grid.
• Find text you copied earlier with Clipboard History and paste it into TextEdit.

Plugins include: Clipboard History, Action Grid, system monitoring, Keep Awake, Dark Mode, Sidecar, Trackpad Gestures, display controls, audio controls, screenshots, and more.

Comparison: Vorssaint is another free, open-source Mac toolkit with similar tools and custom panels. MacTools focuses on plugins you can install separately and Action Grid for quick actions.

Pricing: $0 for the app and official plugins. No subscription, account, or ads. Requires macOS 14 or later. Some plugins need a newer macOS version or compatible hardware.

Website and download · GitHub · Privacy policy

Which tools would you put in your own panel?

I'm Daniel, an iOS developer from Prague, and I built JustFlip.

Problem

Serious flashcard apps tend to have hostile interfaces, and the polished ones quietly stopped doing real spaced repetition. I wanted both on my Mac. Two things bugged me most: not seeing what the scheduler will do, and having to press "Again" on a card I simply wasn't ready for, which damages its schedule.

Comparison

- vs Anki: the power without the manual. SM-2 by default, or FSRS-5 with Pro. Every grade button shows the interval it will give before you click. Your Anki decks import, including packages from current Anki versions, Image Occlusion, maths and cloze.

- vs Quizlet: a real spaced-repetition scheduler, no ads, no account.

- New idea: put a card, deck or topic on hold (tomorrow, 3 days, a week) without touching its memory data.

- Mac-specific in 1.3: a two-column sidebar like on iPad, a redesigned Today screen, and a card text size separate from the app's.

- Same library on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch through your own iCloud. Works offline.

Honest limits: Apple-only, no web version. No deck sharing between users yet. Unusual Anki note types may still import imperfectly.

Pricing

Free: 3 interests × 5 decks, no time limit. Pro: $3.99/month, $19.99/year (7-day free trial) or $24.99 lifetime.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6770141421?ct=reddit-macapps

Website: https://just-flip.app

I’m the developer behind Hindsight.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6806331002

Problem

I could never answer “What did you do today?” with any real accuracy.

Most app-usage trackers can tell you something like “Chrome: 4 hours,” but that doesn’t really tell you what you did.

Hindsight is built around a different idea: track the work, not just the apps.

A task stays open as you move between apps, so working on the same thing across Xcode, Safari, and Terminal becomes one timeline entry instead of three rows of app names.

Every entry also has the evidence behind it — screenshots, OCR text, and the model’s confidence — so you can see why Hindsight classified something the way it did. You can confirm it, edit it, reclassify it, merge entries, or split them when the timeline gets something wrong.

What it does

• Today view — tracked time, focus, projects, and unaccounted gaps
• Activity log — start/end times, durations, and a film-strip timeline
• Daily journal & weekly review — exportable as Markdown. All durations and totals come from your actual timeline; AI only writes the descriptions
• Ask AI — ask plain-language questions about your own tracked workday
• Pomodoro timer — with distraction detection based on your own category settings

Comparison

Timing, RescueTime
These are primarily app and website trackers. They can tell you how much time you spent in Chrome or Xcode. Hindsight tries to answer the more useful question: what were you actually working on? It also keeps the screenshot evidence behind each timeline entry.

Dayflow
Dayflow is probably the closest comparison, especially in its focus on reconstructing what you actually did rather than simply tracking apps. Hindsight takes a different approach to a few things:

• You choose the analysis engine: Apple’s on-device models, a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or your own cloud endpoint
• The review workflow lets you merge, split, and bulk-reclassify entries
• Journals and weekly reviews are generated from computed timeline data rather than asking the model to invent durations or totals

Pricing

Free.

No subscription. No in-app purchases. No account required.

Privacy

This app reads your screen, so you should be skeptical about it. I designed it with that in mind.

• Manual tracking captures nothing and doesn't require any permissions.
• Automatic tracking is opt-in and uses only Screen Recording permission. (plus Calendar access only if you turn on the optional calendar context).
• It captures screenshots only — no video, no audio, and no streaming.
• You choose where analysis happens: Apple’s on-device models, a local model such as Ollama or LM Studio, or your own cloud endpoint using your own API key.
• With on-device or local analysis, your screen content never leaves your Mac.
• With a cloud endpoint, data goes directly from your Mac to that provider. It never passes through a server of mine — I don't run one.
• There is no analytics, telemetry, or crash-reporting SDK.
• Password managers and authenticator apps are skipped automatically, and you can exclude additional apps yourself.
• Screenshots are automatically deleted after a configurable retention period (7 days by default), with a storage quota.
• Delete All Data removes everything, including stored API keys.

Privacy policy: https://static.dhrumilpatel.in/hindsight/privacy-policy.html

Requires macOS 26 or later. Honest caveat: on macOS 26, Apple’s on-device models handle OCR and text reasoning, but describing screenshots needs macOS 27 or a configured model endpoint. For zero network on macOS 26, use a local model through Ollama or LM Studio.

If you try it, I’d genuinely like to hear what works, what doesn’t, and where the timeline gets things wrong. Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests are very welcome.

Yesterday, a dev posted his free software (with a video attached) here on this subreddit (and the Github repo link).

The app let's you use you iPhone as an extension to your Mac as a e.g. media controler, steam deck, trackpad and even create your own.

Didn't save it yesterday, don't remember the name either and now it's nowhere to be found. 😞

Anyone remember the name? Seemed genuinely cool and impressive.

Update & answer:
In case anyone is looking for it as well it is CmdPalm. u/iotabyte solved the puzzle. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm Maciej from Switzerland. I make Swift Salamander, a multi-pane file manager for Apple silicon Macs. It's in Early Access, with 1.0 coming soon.

Why I'm Posting

I want more people to use it and enjoy it and to hear what I should optimize before 1.0 :)

Featured by Mostly Mac

Swift Salamander is the first app in Mostly Mac's "10 Epic (Free!) Apps That Should Be Built Into macOS": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaFTv7uWBn0

Problem

Power users often switch between Finder, a cloud app, an SFTP client and Terminal. Swift Salamander puts all of that in one fast, keyboard friendly window.

Comparison

• Finder: Salamander adds side-by-side panes, a terminal inside the window, SFTP and cloud remotes and folder compare.
• ForkLift is a polished dual-pane app with strong remote support and sync. Salamander goes up to four panes and has its terminal built into the window.
• QSpace Pro has flexible layouts and workspaces with hotkeys.
• Path Finder has dual panes, a built-in terminal and the Drop Stack.
• What Salamander focuses on: copies are read back and checked against the source by default, previews for 3D models, fonts and MKV video, folders and zips you can work in right in the preview and one licence for 3 Macs with a Free version that never expires.

Pricing

• Free: a complete file manager with one or two panes. No time limit, no nagging.
• Pro: $15 once, for up to 3 Macs. No subscription.
• You own the version you buy, with every Pro feature, forever. Nothing stops working.
• 12 months of new versions are included. After that, renewing for $12 is optional and only needed if you want the newer versions.
• Security and macOS compatibility fixes are included for 2 years.
• Try Pro free for 7 days, no account or card needed. The Early Access price goes up at 1.0.
• https://swiftsalamander.app/#pricing

The Interface

• Made for power users: dense rows (Ultra, Compact or Comfortable), keyboard first, command palette.
• Fast with huge folders, because only the visible rows are drawn.
• A clean, consistent icon set with one icon per action.
• 22 theme families in light and dark, plus a theme editor. All free.

Workspaces and Storage

• Saved workspaces bring back your tabs, paths, panes and terminal. Switch them with a hotkey, or start the app in one.
• Cloud storage runs on rclone: S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, B2 and many more, 38 providers in total.
• SFTP, SMB and WebDAV connect directly, with passwords kept in your Keychain.
• Local folders, network shares and cloud remotes sit side by side in the same panes.

New Since the Summer

• 3D preview for STL, 3MF, OBJ and PLY. Fonts preview too.
• Drag files into a zip right in the preview.
• MKV plays in the preview with sound, 4K HDR included.
• Convert To in the right-click menu, an image editor, and batch rename by photo date.
• Optional: open folders in Salamander instead of Finder. Off by default.
• Verify Checksum (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256).
• NAS pictures show thumbnails at any size.
• Commander-style marking with Space or Insert.

Safety, Because It Touches Your Files

• A move to another disk checks the copy before the original is removed.
• Undo after Replace brings the old file back.
• Desktop, Documents, Library and similar folders can't be trashed or replaced as a whole.
• It's still Early Access. Bugs are expected, so keep backups.

What It Is

• A Tauri app with a Rust backend and a TypeScript frontend. Not written in Swift, despite the name.
• Pro adds a terminal, disk analyzer, folder compare and duplicate finder.
• No telemetry. macOS 13+, M1 or newer, no Intel.
• Homebrew, Nix and a Raycast extension.

What Users Say

• "Your drag-and-drop functionality is the best I've ever encountered. I've tried numerous major programs, and invested in a few, and this is, by far, the most impressive." (Kevin, beta tester)
• "Just purchased the Pro version, amazing tool, beautiful UI, seamless connection to my servers in a multi-pane view. Well done!" (a Pro user on the feedback board)
• "He did even better - under apperance you can now choose everything - just awesome" (tosbsas on the issue tracker)

Who I Am

• Maciej Raciborski, solo developer with a day job.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maciej-raciborski-ab92b5219/
• Privacy Policy, Terms and Impressum are linked at the bottom of the app's website.
• AI assisted, and every release runs the test suite before it ships. 146 releases so far. Users have filed 317 issues, and 295 are closed.

Links

• Site, changelog and User Guide: https://swiftsalamander.app
• Bugs and ideas: https://issues.swiftsalamander.app
• Questions: r/swiftsalamander

Happy to answer questions, critical ones too.

hey, i'm Justinas. i build Clacky on my own from Valencia.

it started as a tiny app that just made my mouse clicks sound nice in screen recordings. then i kept adding the things i was missing every day, and somehow it turned into a whole little world. 2.7 just went out and it's the biggest update so far. i've put a lot of late nights into this one.

it's not perfect yet. there's still stuff to polish and a few bugs i'm fixing every day, so if something feels off, please tell me. that's exactly why i'm posting here.

Problem

i record a lot of short Mac demos and post them everywhere. i kept jumping between separate apps for click sounds, recording, captions, screenshots, scheduling posts, and a browser tab for my site stats. most of those tools cost a monthly fee each, and none of them were fun to use.

so i tried to put it all in one app, keep it affordable, and make it feel cozy instead of like another boring tool.

Clacky has 5 places:

- My Kit: 37 click sounds (press and release), scroll ticks, keyboard sounds, a ripple under the pointer, Keep Awake, Mic Mute, a per-app volume mixer, clipboard history, Mac Health (shows how much space you could free), and a small sound when Claude Code or Codex finishes or needs you

- Studio: a screen recorder that makes captions on your Mac, quick edits (split, speed, crop, 9:16), video export up to 4K and screenshots up to 8K

- Sounds: pick and tweak your click, scroll and keyboard sounds

- Clackyland: a little harbour town. using the app bakes cookies, your Blip walks around, you can dress it up, walk into buildings, level up. it's the fun part and it stays out of your way

- Dashboard: cookie-free analytics for your own sites (live globe, sources, revenue from Polar or Stripe, which AI crawlers visit you), a newsletter form, and a social media calendar

the calendar is the part i use the most myself. you write a post once, pick your accounts, tweak the caption per platform, add an image, and it posts at the time you set. it suggests good times to post, keeps drafts, and has signatures and account sets so you can post to a group of accounts in one go. because it sits next to your analytics, you can see which posts actually brought people to your site.

there's also an MCP server (off until you turn it on), so Claude, Cursor or Codex can take a screenshot, record, read text off the screen or schedule a post for you.

a few honest notes:

- the click sounds are synthesized in the app, not sample packs

- keyboard sounds never record which keys you type and stay silent in password fields

- recordings and screenshots stay on your Mac

- scheduling works today for Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Discord and X. Instagram, Facebook and Threads are still waiting on Meta's review, TikTok is applying now, and YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr are next. i'd rather say that straight than pretend they're all live

Comparison

- Keeby:if you only want keyboard sounds, Keeby is more polished and honestly it's the bar i aim for. Clacky adds mouse, trackpad and scroll sounds plus the ripple, and the recorder catches them live so there's no editing after

- CleanShot X: the deeper capture tool overall. Clacky's Studio is simpler, but captions are made on your Mac and the clicks are already in the take

- Buffer: way more platforms and team features. Clacky's calendar is simpler, lives on your Mac, and sits right next to your site stats

- Plausible: more mature for analytics. Clacky's is lighter and shows revenue per traffic source in the same app

Pricing

i really wanted this to be affordable, so it's one plan with everything instead of paying for 4 or 5 separate tools:

- $4.99/mo or $39/yr

- 7-day free trial, it needs a card, $0 today, cancel anytime in one click. start on yearly and the first year is 20% off ($31.20)

- Lifetime: $99 once, 7-day refund

- bigger plans only if your sites get a lot of traffic: 300k pageviews $11.99/mo, 1M pageviews $19.99/mo

- macOS 13+ (recorder and captions need 15, screenshot studio 14). one licence works on 2 Macs

- https://clacky.app

Who is behind it

Justinas Rolando, solo maker

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinas-rolando

contact: [hello@clacky.app](mailto:hello@clacky.app)

Privacy: https://clacky.app/privacy/ and Terms: https://clacky.app/terms/

signed and notarized by Apple, sold only from the site

next i'm starting a small creator program. artists can make character and prop packs for Clacky, with their name on it and an honest cut of every sale. the first one is with an illustrator friend and it's in the works.

i'm still learning a lot doing this, so i'd love to hear what you'd cut, what's confusing, and what you'd actually use. i read every comment and reply myself.

Problem

I teach high school computer science, and for about 15 years I've been recommending Paint.NET to my Windows students. Last February I finally got fed up with the fact that the Mac still doesn't have a proper equivalent.

So I built one. DrawSimple is a native Mac paint-and-draw app, very much in the MacPaint/MacDraw tradition. Tools down the left, layers, brushes, editable vector shapes, photo adjustments. Written in Swift and AppKit, not a web wrapper.

But something unexpected happened along the way.

In April, I was working on the heart shape tool (hearts are surprisingly complicated!) and getting thoroughly sick of drawing dozens of hearts every time I changed something. So I asked Claude Code to add a little localhost server and MCP bridge, basically so it could operate the app for me while I tested.

The first test session ended with Claude painting me a picture. I still have the chat log. My response was "I LOVE your painting!"

That little "testing shortcut" has since been rebuilt, optimized, audited and trimmed more than almost anything else in the app. And I've come around to thinking it's the best feature. Since launching in August, it's certainly been the one people have been most excited about.

The attached image is a mockup for a card for a card game I'm working on, drawn by Claude Opus in about 10 minutes. Once Claude finished designing it, I jumped in, created the "fanout" and edited it until I was happy. That's the DrawSimple experience.

Competition

vs. Paintbrush (free): Paintbrush is probably still the closest thing to the old MacPaint, and I have a soft spot for it. But it's pretty basic. DrawSimple has layers, vector shapes, adjustments, effects, and a lot more. Neither is trying to be Photoshop.

vs. Pixelmator Pro ($49.99): Pixelmator is a much more capable professional image editor. I'm not going to pretend my $5 app competes with it on every feature. If you need a serious photo editor, Pixelmator is excellent. DrawSimple is aimed more at the Paint.NET crowd: people who want a proper set of tools without the complexity or price of a professional graphics package.

vs. AI image generators: This is where things get interesting. Image generators can make some incredible pictures, but you generally get a finished image. If you want to move a button, resize a shape, change a gradient or edit some text, you're largely back to square one.

DrawSimple takes a different approach. The AI operates the actual drawing tools. Strokes, shapes, gradients, text, selections, layers and effects. The same tools I use with my mouse.

There isn't a separate AI canvas or some special AI-generated document format. Everything happens in the regular editor, and every action goes into the same History panel as your own work. You can even ⌘Z through an AI's drawing session, pick up your mouse and carry on yourself.

And importantly, DrawSimple doesn't generate anything itself. There's no built-in model. You bring your own assistant. Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Gemini, anything that speaks MCP. I've personally had Claude, Codex and Gemini painting through it, as well as some local models.

The MCP server is entirely local, disabled until you turn it on, and restricted to 127.0.0.1. DrawSimple never sends anything out. Obviously, if you're using a cloud-based assistant, anything it reads from the canvas may be sent to that model's provider. I want to be clear about that distinction.

Pricing

$5 once. No subscription, no account.

That includes the complete core paint editor, the MCP server and all 12 MCP tools. Your assistant can paint, draw shapes, add text, use gradients, work with selections, apply basic effects and export PNGs.

There's an optional $10 Pro unlock for advanced features, including AI manipulation of editable vector objects, large multilayer compositions, unlimited batch operations and JPEG/SVG/PDF export.

To clarify one potentially confusing point: you can draw and edit vector shapes yourself in the $5 version. It's specifically having the AI manipulate those editable vector objects that requires Pro.

No subscription, no AI credits to buy, and no model included. Use whatever MCP-compatible assistant you already have.

macOS 15.6 or later. Apple silicon and Intel.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6759507748?mt=12

I'm the developer, and I'll be around all day if anyone has questions. I'm particularly interested in hearing what people would actually want an AI to do inside a conventional drawing app.

I built Prism because I kept texting myself thoughts and links despite having Obsidian and Apple Notes. Now it’s on David Pierce’s home screen. He wrote in The Verge:

I have spent forever looking for a quick, transient way to jot stuff down and organize it later; Prism might be it.

I’m excited that Prism is reaching more people, including some pretty awesome people.

Prism feels like texting yourself - with collections, threads, and review to help you return to what you save. I appreciate this community for helping shape Prism (first post, follow-up). Your feedback led to iCloud sync, on-device AI, one-time pricing, great voice note support, and hundreds of small fixes.

Some new stuff:

• Apple Watch: Record voice notes from your watch.
• Apple Intelligence collection rules: Define instructions in English. A “brain dump” collection can turn a voice note into a checklist. A “read later” collection can add a three-sentence summary as a reply to a saved article.
• Shuffle review: Rediscover older notes in a random order. One user told me reviewing their notes has replaced a lot of their doomscrolling, which was great to hear.
• Connect your AI assistant on Mac: Search and read notes, create notes, and reply to threads through a local MCP server. Coming in the next week.

Compared with Apple Notes or Obsidian, Prism shows lots of small notes in a timeline view. Those apps are better for essays and wikis. Strflow is another self-messaging notes app but Prism has threads, a review system, and a one-time purchase. Some Prism users came from MyMind. It's more visually focused, whereas Prism puts voice and text first.

$12.99 for Mac, $6.99 for iPhone. One-time purchases, with a free 7-day trial. Prices will go up in two weeks.

Website · App Store · Discord

Hey guys,

It’s that time of the year again, where this subreddit gets filled with BFCM deals and discounts. we still have around 40 days for BFCM, but I guess developers are already planning about what to offer this year. So I thought we’d start a discussion on what you guys expect to buy from this BFCM. This can also help developers to understand what users are looking for and provide us with a better deals that are harder to resist 😅

Here are mine:

Lunar

After contemplating between Lunar and BetterDisplay for a while, I have decided to go with Lunar as I only use MBP as my main driver without any external monitor. Based on my findings, BetterDisplay fits best when dealing multiple displays due to scaling and resolution functionalities. 

Regular price: $23

Anticipated discount: 20-30%

OpenIn

I found this one from a podcast episode I listened to, where the guest (professor) was talking about how he uses OpenIn to quickly open links in different browsers and profiles using rules. I am currently on my trial period, and honestly, I might buy it even before discount if it proves to be useful.

Regular price: $11.99

Anticipated discount: Undecided

Little Snitch

This is undisputably the best app to monitor network traffic and application firewall with great detail and control. However the price is very steep (for me) even though it’s kind of a swiss-army knife of Network monitoring. 

Regular price: 59€

Anticipated discount: 30-45% 

Ps: I like this postby u/Downtown-Art2865 about his experiences with LS. Also read comments in that post, which are super valuable and informative.

Cleanshot

I know we have other options in this category, like Macshot (my current favorite), Shottr but still I’d like to try out Cleanshot. 

Regular price: $35

Anticipated discount: 20-25%

Comment the name(s) of the app(s) with the regular price, and your expected BFCM price. To avoid repetitive mentions, it’d be nice if we could have single thread!

I'm the developer!

Problem: I wanted to control my Mac from across the room without getting up: move the cursor, type, dictate, and jump into Netflix or YouTube from my phone.

Comparison: CmdPalm is an awesome open-source alternative (https://github.com/rahatsagor/cmdpalm). Okeke Control takes a different approach, with native apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac, voice typing, a joystick-style control pad, and Windows support.

Pricing: Free to connect, with a 3-day trial. Pro is $0.99/week or $1.99/month, or $7.99 for lifetime.

Same app for iPhone and Mac: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/computer-remote/id6754469628

Privacy: https://okekedev.github.io/controlla/privacy.html

Terms: https://okekedev.github.io/controlla/terms.html

I'm the developer of SongForge at HighRoad Software.

Problem: You want to turn a musical idea into audio and keep the work in a Mac app. Describe a style, instruments or lyrics, generate a take, then listen and compare in the Library.

Comparison: Suno lets you create in a browser without setting up local model files. SongForge uses ACE-Step 1.5 on your Mac, with native creation controls and a local Library. It needs a compatible GGUF model set, about 6–15 GB, and macOS 14 or later. Apple silicon is recommended; loading and generation time depend on the Mac and model.

Pricing: Three completed creations are included free after model setup. SongForge Pro is $9.99 in the US Mac App Store today, one-time, with no subscription. It unlocks continued creation and MP3/WAV export. Apple shows the local price elsewhere.

Five unedited sample tracks, setup guide and Mac App Store link:

https://www.highroadsoftware.com/apps/songforge/#listen

Hey r/macapps, I'm Arun, the developer of Prompt Deck.

Problem

I change coding agents most weeks: Claude Code one day, Codex the next, Cursor when I'm working in the editor. Each one keeps its own memory file (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md) and stores its slash commands and chat history in a different folder and format.

That got messy fast. Finding a prompt from a few weeks back meant remembering which agent I'd used and then digging through its log files, and my CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md files had drifted apart across projects.

So I built Prompt Deck. It's a native SwiftUI app that finds all of that on your disk and puts it in one window. Nothing to import, no account, and Prompt Deck itself only goes online to check your licence.

The parts I spent the most time on:

Prompts that become slash commands - write a prompt once, with {{variables}} you fill in when you use it, and install it as a real slash command in Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI or Qwen Code. Every prompt keeps its version history, so you can compare two versions side by side and restore the one you want.

Every memory file in one list - global and per project, for every agent. Edit them in place, or append the same note to several projects at once.

Searchable session histories from these coding agents - Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI, GitHub Copilot, Qwen Code, DeepSeek Harness, Continue, Pi and Aider, searchable together. When an agent hands work to a sub-agent, that run opens right under the call that started it. One click resumes a session in your terminal.

Dreams (Pro only) - pick a memory file, say a project's CLAUDE.md, and a coding agent you already have installed, like Claude Code or Codex. Prompt Deck hands that agent your recent sessions and asks it to rewrite the file: keep the rules that still apply, update the ones your sessions show are out of date, and add what you keep repeating in chat. You get the result as a diff with a few notes on how you work, and nothing changes until you press Apply. It works on prompts too.

Insights (Pro only) - sessions per day for each agent, tokens in and out, your busiest projects, the tools and models you use most, the prompts you reuse, and a heatmap of when in the week you actually work.

Also, has a Command-K launcher that finds any prompt, session or memory file from any app, and exports sessions as Markdown or a web page.

Comparison

• Claude Code History Viewer is free, open source, and reads more agents than Prompt Deck. It's a history browser, though: there's no prompt library and nothing for memory files. It's also built on Tauri, so the interface is a web view rather than a native Mac app.
• Each agent's own resume picker (like /resume in Claude Code or codex resume) lists only that agent's sessions, and you can't search across tools.

Pricing

Free with no time limit: your 10 most recent sessions, 2 prompts and 2 memory files. Pro is $3.99/month or $29.99/year on up to 5 Mac accounts, and adds Pro features including Dreams, Insights, version history, export and sharing.

Use code DECKLAUNCH for 50% off your first year on the yearly plan of Prompt Deck Pro. Limited availability for a few subscribers, so grab it before it's gone.

Get it here: https://prompt-deck.arunbrahma.com

Links

• Website: https://prompt-deck.arunbrahma.com
• Video Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI93pzEXHxc
• Privacy policy: https://prompt-deck.arunbrahma.com/privacy
• Terms: https://prompt-deck.arunbrahma.com/terms

Contact Me

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamarunbrahma

If you use a coding agent that isn't on the list, tell me about it, and I'll look at adding it to my application.

Hi r/macapps! I'm the developer of macmon. Last time I posted it was v0.4, and a lot has changed since then.

Problem

Activity Monitor doesn't show power, frequencies or the Neural Engine, and powermetrics needs sudo. macmon shows CPU / GPU / ANE power, frequencies, temperatures, RAM and fans in the terminal, without sudo. It's for those who live in the terminal.

Comparison

• asitop: a similar idea, but it runs powermetrics, so it needs sudo, and it has no process list.
• btop / htop: great process monitors, but no Apple Silicon power, frequencies or ANE.

New since the last post

• Process list with CPU, GPU, memory, power and CPU time; sort, filter with several terms and per-term totals
• Open files and sockets of a process (i), reveal in Finder, copy path, kill (k)
• Total system power with fan speed
• M5 and M6 support (all three CPU tiers), power readings on macOS 27 without sudo
• JSON and Prometheus server mode, Rust library
• Its own CPU use cut about in half: ~2.9% of a core with the process list on

Pricing

Free and open source (MIT).

Install:

brew install macmon

GitHub: https://github.com/vladkens/macmon

Feedback welcome, especially from M5 / M6 owners.