These are the Mac apps I install first

Happy New Year! Here’s my list, in no specific order, of macOS apps that I keep installed on my Mac.

• Rocket for easy emoji access
• Rocket Typist for expanding text snippets
• Just Press Record for accessing recordings from iPhone on the Mac
• Audio Hijack for recording podcast appearances and recording live streams
• MacWhisper for transcribing audio using modern AI
• Fantastical for viewing a list of upcoming events from the menu bar
• Cardhop for having an actually useful contacts app
• KeepingYouAwake for having a menu bar toggle to keep my display awake while working
• Claude for writing-focused AI chatbot access
• MacTracker for easily referencing historical Apple hardware details
• Shush for giving my microphone a software mute switch
• Black Highlighter for easily obscuring sensitive information before posting online
• Things for managing daily tasks and larger projects
• ChatGPT as my go-to AI chatbot for all the things
• Pixelmator Pro for creating featured images
• Motif for someday making photo books out of my library in Apple Photos
• Darkroom for some photo editing here and there
• iA Writer for offline writing with iCloud sync
• Tabs to Links for turning a set of browser tabs into a link list
• Broadcasts for tuning in to Accidental Tech Podcast on Wednesday nights
• Reeder for RSS feeds… sometimes
• Photomator for also editing photos
• MacFamilyTree for leaving my kids a reference of our extended family
• Screens 5 for remote access to my Mac mini from other Macs, iPad, and Vision Pro
• Numbers for tracking bills and such
• GarageBand for someday becoming a rock star
• Pastebot for clipboard history
• Exodus for $21 in crypto that my friend gave me
• Chrome for an extension that doesn’t work with Safari
• OldTweetDeck for streaming X on the desktop (this is that extension)
• Opera web browser for a dead simple, no fuss VPN
• StopTheMadness Pro for making the web a better place to be
• PiPifier for making picture-in-picture windows from video players that don’t play nice with built-in PiP
• Threads as a Safari “Add to Dock” app
• Zoom because let’s be real
• Webex because the makers of FaceTime prefer this communication platform
• VLC because it can play any media type
• Riverside Studio for video podcasting
• Plex Media Server for Plex stuff
• Perplexity for running different AI models
• Noir for making most of the web support dark mode
• MacLampsX for making it snow
• Kaleidoscope for running diff checks on changes between documents
• DaisyDisk for managing disk storage
• AudioCupcake to level out spoken audio
• 4K Video Downloader+ for archiving footage from the internet

Featured image: M4 Mac mini, Keychron K2, Logi MX Ergo, BenQ RD320UA

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