AppAddict

500 App Reviews Published!

I posted my 500th app review this week. If you keep typing long enough, this is what happens. It makes me super happy and I hope I have helped some of you find apps that you've grown to use and love. If I have, please leave a comment, it will be motivating and appreciated. I want to give a shout out to r/MacApps for all the support and feedback I've gotten there. I also want to thank Scribbles, the blogging platform I've used the entire time. I recently added a way for developers to alert me to their apps. If...

March 29th, 2026

Automation Fans Are Going to Love PicMal for Conversions

Every Mac user eventually ends up with a pile of files that need converting. Screenshots that are too large for the web. HEIC photos from iPhones that need to become JPEGs. Audio recordings saved at ridiculous bitrates. Video files that need to be optimized for sharing. You can solve all of that with command-line tools like ffmpeg or with a handful of separate utilities. Or you can just use Picmal. Picmal is a single macOS utility that handles image, audio, and video conversion and compression. Once installed, it integrates directly into the Dock, Finder, menu bar, Services, and Shortcuts, so it behaves more like a...

March 26th, 2026

10 Tiny Mac Workflow Tweaks that Save Me Time Every Day

I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of friction from my Mac workflow. macOS is a great system, but out of the box it still leaves a lot of obvious automation opportunities on the table. I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of friction from my Mac workflow. macOS is a great system, but out of the box it still leaves a lot of obvious automation opportunities on the table. Most of the improvements I rely on come from stitching together tools like AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts, and a few power-user utilities...

March 25th, 2026 Mac Apps

Consul is Supremely Useful

I’ve become quite fond of Consul, a relatively new file conversion utility that’s both simple to use and easy to automate. The concept is almost absurdly straightforward: change the file extension to the format you want and the conversion just happens. You might think you’ll never really need to convert files from one format to another. In practice, that assumption tends to collapse sooner or later. A few situations I’ve run into over the years: • Switching from one e-reader (for example, Sony) to another (Kindle) and suddenly needing to convert an entire library of books. • My photography workflow revolves...

March 24th, 2026

If These Apps Are Missing My Mac Feels Broken

Some small utilities become so embedded in my workflow that they start to feel like part of macOS itself. When I sit down at someone else’s Mac or a freshly set-up machine and they aren’t there, it genuinely throws me off. I’m curious what apps fall into that category for you. SharefulOne of those apps for me is Shareful by Sindre Sorhus. The Mac share menu has always felt like an afterthought compared to iOS. Many developers don’t bother implementing it, and Apple keeps it oddly limited. Shareful fixes that by adding a few practical actions that save me a surprising number of...

March 22nd, 2026 Mac Apps

Resurf – A Well-Designed (Almost) Everything Box

Resurf is a clever new app, currently in beta, with a lot of potential. This is one of those “I needed an app to do X, so I built one” projects; the difference is that it was built by a design engineer who clearly understands macOS conventions. The result feels native and thoughtfully put together. Using it brought back a few workflow habits I haven’t used since the days when Evernote was king. The entry point into Resurf is a floating capture widget that you trigger with a shortcut. From there you can use either the mouse or the keyboard to...

March 21st, 2026 Mac Apps

Octarine: Powerful, Sophisticated and Easy to Use

I’ve been hearing about Octarine for a while. It’s one of those apps that people whose opinions I respect talk about with a certain level of admiration. After testing it as thoroughly as I’ve tested any app in a long time, I understand why. Octarine is a tool for creating, editing, and organizing text-based information using connected but independent documents: Markdown files. Without relying on plugins, it supports images, video, PDFs, and files created by other productivity apps. Those files can be linked inside Octarine but still open in their native applications. Octarine isn’t designed for a single purpose. It’s more like a flexible...

March 19th, 2026 Mac Apps

Setting Up a New Mac the Easy Way

[M4 Mac Mini]When I bought my last new Mac two years ago, I set it up the way I had been setting up my personal computers for years: plug in a Time Machine drive and run Migration Assistant. On a modern Mac with an SSD, even if you have hundreds of apps installed like I do, the whole process takes about 20 minutes. It recreates your Applications folder, brings over preferences, and generally makes the new machine feel finished almost immediately. Nothing could be easier. There is a downside, though. Migration Assistant faithfully brings over all the accumulated cruft along with...

March 16th, 2026 Mac Apps

Four Indie Mac Utilities That Quietly Improve Your Workflow

Independent developers continue to build some of the most thoughtful utilities on macOS. These are small, focused tools that solve real workflow problems instead of trying to become the next all-in-one productivity suite. Here are a few that recently caught my attention. StealthlyFor anyone whose workday involves frequent Zoom, Teams, or other online meetings, presenting a professional, distraction-free screen matters. The same is true if you record tutorials or training videos. You want viewers focused on the content; not scanning your Dock, desktop, or menu bar for clues about your life. I installed Stealthly for both myself and my wife as soon...

March 13th, 2026 Mac Apps

Developer Spotlight: The Low-Tech Guys, Maker of Clop, Lunar, rcmd, Pipiri and Crank

It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted me to approach the lead developer to learn more about the past, present and future of the company. But first, the apps. Crank Crank acts on triggers you define to take action without requiring user intervention. It’s more powerful than just Apple Shortcuts or Shortery, but...

March 10th, 2026 Mac Apps

My Stream Deck Setup for macOS Automation

I get a lot of use out of my Elgato Stream Deck. It’s one of the best hardware purchases I’ve made in a long time. It didn’t start that way. Shortly after I bought it, I discovered that the device falls under the privacy policy of its parent company, Corsair. The policy reads like it was written by lawyers trying to cover every possible future use case. According to the policy, potential data categories include: • identity information (name, account ID, email) • device identifiers and serial numbers • IP address and network data • usage data and clickstream behavior •...

March 9th, 2026

Mac Menu Bar Chaos

Where We Are… And WhymacOS 26 (Tahoe) is now months into its lifespan. The UI chaos it caused for menu bar management apps has calmed down a bit, but the situation is still far from stable. A combination of API limitations, OS-level redesigns, and tighter security controls broke many of the assumptions apps like Bartender, Ice, and Barbee relied on. As a result, behavior that used to be predictable is now anything but. Common symptoms include: • icons disappearing and reappearing randomly • the OS overriding the order of icons • management apps losing track of icon positions • items reindexing themselves...

March 8th, 2026

ScreenFloat is a Different Kind of Screenshot App

I only recently realized that my use of screenshots falls into two very different categories. On one hand, I use screenshots to illustrate blog posts and social media. That usually amounts to two or three captures a day. On the other hand, I take screenshots constantly for technical reasons; learning a new application, documenting my self-hosted server configuration, keeping track of network settings in my home lab, or simply capturing information during everyday tech work. For the past couple of years, I’ve relied almost exclusively on CleanShot X for screenshots. Recently I discovered ScreenFloat, which is designed for the second scenario. It’s not...

March 6th, 2026 Mac Apps

Why I'm Ditching Third-Party File Managers

I’ve long been in the habit of using third-party file managers on macOS. I used Pathfinder for years, then switched to Qspace Pro a couple of years ago. I also bought Bloom during a Black Friday sale last year to see what it could do. Recently, though, I’ve grown tired of paying the RAM tax these apps demand. Both Qspace and Bloom routinely use over 1 GB of memory. In my setup, they are often the most RAM-hungry applications running other than Chromium- or Gecko-based browsers. I still don’t understand why Apple hasn’t implemented an optional dual-pane interface in Finder. But if the goal...

March 5th, 2026

NeoFinder: The Mac App That Makes Offline Drives Searchable

[Image]Why NeoFinder MattersNeoFinder is a macOS app that catalogs disks and media, creating a searchable database of your files no matter where they live: internal drives, external drives, NAS volumes, shared network drives, removable media (CDs, DVDs, USB drives), and even inside archives. The real magic is its ability to search offline drives; drives that aren’t currently mounted. NeoFinder does this by maintaining an inventory of file names, folder structures, and a surprisingly deep set of metadata. It can even generate thumbnails and previews for many media types, so you can visually identify files without connecting the original drive. For...

March 4th, 2026