Productivity tools on MacOS

Here's a free Tuesday morning and ten years on a Macbook professionally, hope it helps!

System settings and preferences

• Accessibility -> Zoom -> Modifier key for scroll gesture
  • This is an accessibility setting that lets you zoom into any part of your screen by holding the modifier key (I have mine set to ^ control, full screen). I use this all the time, specifically whenever I'm trying to bring focus to something on my screen to someone, as opposed to me pointing and them squinting.
• Accessibility -> Color Filters
  • If you don't need color accuracy and have a desire to get your screen as orange/red as possible beyond what's possible with just Night Shift, use this.
• Desktop & Dock -> Position on screen
  • Since there's more real-estate horizontally than vertically, I prefer my dock to be on the left side, as opposed to the default bottom. I prefer left over right because I keep the dock hidden, and even though I'm always using trackpad/mouse, there will be times when I go to manually use a scrollbar and the dock can be annoying, popping-up on the right edge.
• Displays -> True Tone
  • Is a nice feature but if you work with colors professionally consider keeping this off. Night shift as well if for whatever reason you find yourself regularly working at night
• Control center -> Menu Bar -> Clock -> Analog
  • I set the clock to analog because 1) it can't be hidden, and 2) I replace it with Itsycal (see below). I rearrange it to be the most far right icon; this in effect becomes an icon to open the control center.
• Control Center -> Accessibility shortcuts -> Show in menu bar
  • If you use any of the accessibility settings, this adds a little button to your control center that lets you toggle them on/off. Feel free to add other things in this section to your CC that may be useful.
• Trackpad -> Tap to click
  • I find MacOS unusable without this on.

Applications

• Unless you're self-employed, these are things you may or may not be allowed to install per corporate policy. Nonetheless, these are things I use.
• Itsycal - Free tiny calendar app that sits in the menu bar. I have it set to show the time/date (E, MMM d h:mm a) to replace the default time. When you click the time it shows a small calendar, mimicking Windows behavior. I feel MacOS should just do this by default. If you link your calendar it can also show upcoming events.
• Raycast/Afred - Free/Paid spotlight replacement. Alfred is the one that's been around forever, Raycast a modern alternative. If there's one app I could choose to have it's probably this one. I personally switched to Raycast from Alfred years ago and I prefer it. I don't use any pro features, AI features and seldom 3rd party extensions. My absolute favorite thing is the built-in calculator, which I use for basic arithmetic, unit conversions, and more. For instance, opening up Raycast and typing "$23 $34 $22" shows $79; "63 days from tomorrow" shows December 9th, 2026, "$40 in jpy" shows "¥6,326", "130 kmh" shows 80.78 mph, and pressing return sends it to clipboard. Second favorite thing is the clipboard manager (set to cmd+shift+v) which I find an indispensable feature for any OS. Other things I use include color picker (set to cmd+shift+x), window tiling management (set to cmd+shift+control + left|right|up|down|m|.|return), emoji search (replacing the default one), caffeinate (keep computer awake), timer, and so on. It will for all intents and purposes replace a lot of small utility apps for most folk.
• Cleanshot X - Paid screenshot tool. If you take a lot of screenshots or videos, this is the best one. I'm on v4.6. My favorite features include: video capture capabilities (showing Loom like camera head, showing keystrokes, clicks, device audio and/or microphone audio), scrolling capture, screenshot annotations, and being able to set OCR capture to a shortcut (e.g. I press cmd+opt+7, capture anything on screen like I were taking a screenshot, and the words in that capture go into my clipboard). I use that last one all the time. Shottr is a free (like WinRAR free) alternative that works ok, just for annotating screenshots.
• Contexts - Paid window switching tool. Replaces the default cmd+tab switcher with a searchable list, which I much prefer. I bought a license for this years ago and it's something I use everyday and never think about it again.
• Ice (or any alternative) - Free app that lets you hide and toggle visibility of items in the menu bar. For a decade people used Bartender for this, and people don't like Bartender anymore, so there's a bunch of alternatives now. I don't like a cluttered menu bar and this one works fine for me (I click the menu bar to toggle hidden).
• BetterTouchTool - Paid complex automation / input customization utility. This is a heavy tool that's been around for a very long time that lets you do mostly anything that native MacOS doesn't when it comes to shortcuts, gestures, etc. I bought a license for v4 years ago and I'm still using it fine, I'm sure newer versions have more. It's hard to enumerate everything it can do but some highlights for me: specific app key forwarding and shortcuts (e.g. if I press cmd+k in this app, send cmd+p, or k+{delay}+tab+tab instead), hot corner functionality only if modifier key is held (I use it to quickly foreground apps, and would otherwise hate hot corners without this), customizing mouse buttons, etc. While Raycast and Hammerspoon (see below) can replace some common BTT functionality, nothing really comes close for obscure customizations, which can be worthwhile if you're constantly doing something for work.
• Default Folder X - Paid finder add-on to make it easier to open/save/organize files. I knew about this tool and didn't use it for a long time but recently had a relevant use-case and decided it was worth the purchase. My most used feature is being able to quickly search and jump to a specific directory in open/save dialogs.
• Hammerspoon - Free Lua-based scripting tool. If that means anything to you it may be valuable. It's similar to AutoHotkey for Windows.
• Automator / Script Editor - Apple's default scripting engine. I use this for automating things that often interface with the OS itself, and for adding Finder quick actions.
• KeyboardCleanTool - Free tiny app that locks your keyboard inputs so you can clean it. Helpful if you work around other people and care about appearances lol.
• RightFont - Paid font manager. I'm using an old version (v8) and despite its warnings still works. If you work with a lot of fonts and font collections this may be useful to you.
• Eagle - Paid photo/asset manager. If you work with lots of images and your work policy isn't strict with apps from Taiwanese companies, this is a helpful tool that I've been using for over six years. Similar to Adobe Bridge, or the defunct Google Picasa, but better.
• GrandPerspective/OmniDiskSweeper/SpaceRadar - Free visual breakdown of storage space on computer. These are free alternatives to the popular paid software DaisyDisk. It's helpful for finding large forgotten files deep in nested folders to help reclaim storage space.
• Syncthing - Free tool to sync folders across devices. Mostly self-explanatory; works seamlessly for me.
• Tailscale - Free mesh-VPN / firewall traversal tool. Some companies might use Wireguard or Tailscale (based off Wireguard) for VPN. I use it to VPN into my home network when I need something.
• UTM / VMware - Free virtualization/emulation software. If you have reasons for needing to run VM's, these two are good (VMWare used to be paid, but as of two years ago it's free). I prefer them to say VirtualBox (VirtualBuddy is fine). Some companies I've worked for only provide Parallels licenses, which is a paid alternative.
• Antinote - Paid tiny note app. Similar to Default Folder X, knew about it for a long time and then decided to eventually buy it ($5) for a specific use-case. I really just wanted a note taking app that allows named variables. I have it set to my right hot corner and use it for quick jots. Can export to Apple Notes, Obsidian, etc, if that's important to your workflow.
• Quicktime - Apple's default media player; listed here for professional context because if you have an iPhone you can plug it in and view and record the screen through the Quicktime window. Most screen-sharing apps let you connect a mobile screen, this is just an easy way. On later MacOS and iOS versions there's now a native iPhone Mirroring app.
• SublimeText - Free/Paid text editor. It's a really good text manipulator. One of the oldest installed apps I use regularly, and even though I've long since replaced it for coding and writing, I always come back to it for manipulating text. Vim is the only thing that comes close, but that has a learning curve, whereas Sublime has a very easy, performant interface with regex and multiple cursors. Free like WinRAR but worth the license.
• Handy - Free voice transcription app. Open source, downloads and runs local modern transcription models wrapped in a GUI. Only recently started talking to my computer regularly. New paradigm, works honestly pretty well, still developing the muscle memory for it (e.g. me typing instead of speaking this list).
• Blip - Free cross-platform airdrop. Pairdrop.net if you don't want to install anything (but Blip does work well).

Files and file organization

• I dislike a cluttered desktop, so I keep two folders _Sandbox and _Projects. Sandbox has long just held things that may end up on my desktop, an intake for things that may not have a place yet. Screenshots are configured to be saved to ~/Documents/Screenshots. Projects is where I keep all of my organized work. The name and structure of this directory may vary. Sometimes it may be in Google Drive. More on what works for me below.
• I made a GYST system for keeping work files organized. When working as a designer for clients, it'd be something like below (there's a bit more detail within each numbered folder, just keeping it brief here for an overview). Depending on you do, this will look a little or very different; for my personal files and self-employed business, I use a moderately modified version of the Johnny.Decimal system, of which relevance to you may be very high or very low. In any case, my advice is the same: come up with a system that works for you and then stick to it (and evolve it when needed). You'll thank yourself later.

-- _Archive
-- Client
------ Project
---------- 01 Received
---------- 02 Documents
---------- 03 Research
---------- 04 Assets
---------- 05 2D
---------- 06 3D CAD
---------- 07 UI
---------- 08 CG Renders
---------- 09 CMF
---------- 10 Photography
---------- 11 Outgoing
---------- 12 Deliverables
---------- 13 Presentations

• I bought Default Folder X because I realized the friction of navigating to directories to save files on MacOS (on Windows I'd use Listary for the same purpose). With DFX and a Raycast extension that moves selected files to a directory you specify, I have found myself more regularly placing files where they should be, usually at the time of save, rather than post organization later. There's apps like Hazel that can help automate file organization, but in practice the files I'm organizing usually require manual input and decisions.
• If you select multiple text or images in Finder, you can right click -> quick actions -> create PDF. This is helpful MacOS command that's not always very well known.
• If you select multiple files in Finder you can right click -> rename, and there you'll find MacOS's built-in bulk rename utility that's also fairly unknown and quite solid for most use-cases. In the unlikely event you need something more robust (similar to Bulk Rename Utility on Windows), there's Name Mangler and A Better Finder Rename.
• In Finder, turn on path bar, status bar, and Recents in your sidebar if not already there. Spacebar lets you preview items in Finder.

Command line tools

• If you don't find yourself in a terminal ever, this may be less relevant to you. Besides Homebrew I'm also going to leave out specific managers (e.g. for python, node) because if you're using them, your workplace probably has a standard/PoV.
• iTerm - terminal emulator. There's a dozen, this is just an old and very popular one at one I use. It's my left hot corner.
• Homebrew - MacOS package manager. This lets you install a vast majority of CLI tools, and some desktop applications, in the terminal. There are others that folks will argue are better, this is just the most well-known and used.
• ffmpeg - Suite of libraries for manipulating and processing audio and video. Many programs are using this under the hood. I use it to convert MOV to MP4's to share videos in work platforms that don't preview MOV's, MP4's to GIF's for work platforms that can't show video, and to reduce the filesize of videos I'm sharing by fixing a constant rate factor. The last one is one of the most awesome things on this list truly, I even made a quick action to quickly run it on any file. At CRF 28 or so, it's basically magic -- it'll take a 1.4GB video down to like 70mb with virtually no discernible loss of quality.
• fzf & fzf-tab - Fuzzy searching and fuzzy shell text completion. If this sounds useful to you it very likely will be. I also like being able to fuzzy search previously entered commands.
• zoxide - cd replacement. Uses database and frequency algorithms to quickly route you to directories. So z acme would be equivalent of cd ~/Desktop/\_Projects/Clients/Acme.
• ripgrep/rg & fd - grep and find replacements. Before I used the CLI regularly I preferred GUI's. Windows has Everything Search which is an incredible piece of software and nothing really comes close on the Mac side. I used HoudahSpot but eventually found the most capable are these two tools. I use yazi (see below) sometimes as TUI for these two.
• yazi - Terminal file manager. I usually just use finder, but there are some limited cases where I find a terminal file manager helpful, and this the one I use. I like how it has integrations with other utilities like rg/fd and how easy it is to view and edit (text) files when jumping around directories.
• visidata - TUI for exploring and manipulating tabular data. If you work with datasets of any regularity, this is pretty fun tool that let's you analyze and understand the shape of the data. Especially when the size of the dataset causes performance issues in something like Excel.