Hey everyone,

Some of you might know Nodes from earlier posts here. For everyone else: Nodes is for those who care about the tiniest details in the things they use every day. It is a minimal and beautiful macOS-native Markdown editor built by three computer science students from Munich.

Problem: I wanted a fast, native Markdown editor for linked notes that works without plugins and without a subscription.

So we built one. Nodes is native (not webview) with a clean, typographic interface. Math, tables and code render as you write. I spent too many evenings on Obsidian plugins, so Nodes works out of the box. A background agent suggests tags and reminders for you to accept, and semantic search finds notes by meaning.

What's new since the last post:

This is a big one. A lot of it came straight from your comments last time, so thank you.

Your sidebar, your way. You asked for a file tree. We didn't want to just copy the Finder, so the sidebar is now made of widgets you pick from a gallery, just like widgets on macOS. Add what you need, remove what you don't, change the order. If you like the minimal default, you don't have to touch it.

Import a folder. Bring your Markdown files over from Obsidian or another app. Subfolders become tags, and you see an overview before anything is added.

More desktop widgets. Next to Your Tree, there are now Library, Revisit, Graph and Tasks. Revisit is my favorite. It keeps bringing back notes I forgot I wrote.

Also new: Spotlight, Siri and Shortcuts, Quick Look in Finder, your own keyboard shortcuts, VoiceOver and a redesigned search. And eight more languages. As a German team, we're a little embarrassed this took so long.

Comparison:

- Obsidian: Nodes is native (SwiftUI and TextKit 2, not Electron) and works well without setup. Obsidian is better if you want plugins, a big community and apps on iPhone, Windows and Linux.

- Bear: Both are native and look great. Nodes adds a graph of your links and on-device AI, and it is a one-time purchase. Bear is better if you also write on iPhone and iPad – it has apps there and sync.

Pricing: Free up to 16 nodes. Two one-time unlocks: $12.99 for unlimited nodes and tags, custom fonts and more, and $17.99 which also adds the on-device AI agent. No subscription. If you downloaded Nodes while it was free, you keep full access.

AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6745401961

Every App Store review helps a small team like ours a lot.

Trust: MAS. The Markdown engine is open source: https://github.com/nodes-app/swift-markdown-engine

We open-sourced the engine a while ago, and it just passed 1,200 stars on GitHub. Thanks to everyone who starred it, filed issues or sent a PR. That still surprises us.

Written on Nodes

I'm the developer of LicenseManagerPro. It's on the Mac App Store and runs on Mac, iPad and iPhone with one purchase.

Problem: License keys, invoices and expiry dates end up scattered across emails, PDFs and notes, and you only notice a subscription ran out after it did.

Comparison:

KeyKeeper: a dedicated license vault with AES-256 encryption, a master password and auto-lock when the Mac sleeps or the screensaver starts. What LicenseManagerPro adds: apps for iPad and iPhone, not just the Mac, and 19 languages instead of English only. Reminders before a license, updates or support run out, and a status light per license. It imports KeyKeeper and BundleHunt CSV files directly, categories included.

1Password: runs everywhere (Windows, Android, browser), can share items with family or a team, and has a software license item type. What LicenseManagerPro adds: it is built only for licenses. Purchase date, price, order number, update and support period, attachments, custom fields, and a dashboard that shows what you spent and what expires soon.

Pricing: free to download, the full version is a one-time purchase of $9.99, no subscription.

https://apps.apple.com/app/licensemanagerpro/id6755129212

Trust: MAS

Also: optional iCloud sync between your devices, app password with Face ID or Touch ID, automatic backups to a folder you choose, CSV and JSON export.

Website and screenshots: https://klausmack-software.com/licensemanagerpro/index_en.html

Privacy: https://klausmack-software.com/privacy_en.html

Happy to answer anything in the comments.

I made a post earlier about my app wishlists for BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) this year. One of them is OpenIn which lets you set rules to open links in a specific apps/browser profiles.

I contacted Denis, the developer of OpenIn who promptly replied that he runs a sale every year during that period. Today I was surprised to see an email from him updating me that the sale is live now, with a long list of apps and links. I was very happy to see that he remembered and replied me when the sales goes on.

Offer details:

All paid apps are 60% off until Tuesday, December 1. In the store, use the code BLACKFRIDAY26; on the App Store, the prices are already lower. see the price breakdown below.

If, Denis, you're reading this, thank you so much for your gesture and keep up the good work.

ps: I am not affiliated with the app/developer, I am just a happy user who was waiting for the sale. I just thought of updating it here.

Hey, I'm the dev. Storeflight is for people who ship apps on the App Store, so if that's not you, feel free to scroll past. Version 1.2 just went live.

Problem: App Store Connect lets you submit releases with problems it never flags (text over the limit, listings still in English, untranslated in-app purchases, missing screenshots), and you only find out when App Review rejects it or a customer notices.

Mine was an in-app purchase that had no name or description in 8 of my app's 13 store languages. App Review let it through.

Storeflight connects with an App Store Connect API key and shows a checklist of what still blocks your next release, blockers first, each with how to fix it and a link to the right page:

• every language's name, subtitle, keywords, description and What's New against Apple's limits, plus text that's untranslated or in the wrong language

• screenshots for each language and device

• in-app purchases and subscriptions, including translations that aren't live yet

• App Review details, pricing, age rating and where the release stands

• all your apps at a glance, with anything new since your last check marked

New in 1.2, Check Review Notes: with Apple Intelligence, it reads the notes you leave for App Review and points out what a reviewer will get stuck on, like how to get past your login or where to find each purchase. With no notes at all, it drafts them from your listing. It runs entirely on your Mac.

It's read-only and never changes anything in App Store Connect. It connects to ASC, with no analytics or third-party SDKs, and your key stays in your Keychain. For agent users, Copy Fix Prompt, a command-line tool and an MCP server let Claude Code or Cursor check, fix and check again.

Comparison:

• Helm for App Store Connect: better if you want to edit your listing, screenshots and releases from your Mac. It does far more than checks, and has a free tier of 6 submissions a year. Storeflight is better at finding what's wrong across all your apps and languages (untranslated text, in-app purchase gaps, what changed since the last check), and it's cheaper. Helm Pro is $54.99/year or $274.99 lifetime.

• asc (open-source App Store Connect CLI): better if you live in the terminal. It's free, its validate command checks a version's readiness, and it runs on hosted CI like GitHub Actions and Xcode Cloud. Storeflight is a visual Mac app that shows every app and language side by side, and catches localization gaps it doesn't look for. Storeflight's CLI only runs on a Mac with the app installed.

Pricing: free for one app with the full report, plus three sample apps to explore without an API key. Pro is $24.99/year or $59.99 lifetime for every app, exports, fix prompts, and the CLI and MCP server. https://apps.apple.com/app/id6826093172

Trust: Mac App Store (sandboxed, reviewed by Apple). Privacy policy: https://storeflight.greyparkdevelopment.com/privacy/

Happy to answer anything, and I'd love to hear what it finds on your apps.

Long time no here.. ◡̈

I'm the maker of RetroMac, the free app that makes macOS look and behave like old operating systems (MacOS 9, OSX, WIndows, NEXT...). (No Emulation, no system files will be changed, just tge look & Feel).

Version 3.0.5 is out, and I went a bit too far (again) 😬

The Windows themes now start with their PC's firmware (BIOS). It counts your Mac's real memory. Press DEL during the POST and you land in the CMOS setup. Every page can be walked (its just a simulation of course)

What else is new:

• Windows NT 4.0 Workstation: taskbar, Start menu with program groups, start-up screen on teal

• Boot Phases: one slider for straight to desktop, OS boot, or firmware first

• All Programs: every app on your Mac in the Windows Start menus, sorted into categories

• SETI@home Classic, simulated and offline, as a window and screensaver

• Stacks, Exposé and Launchpad the way Snow Leopard did them

• Overhauled macOS Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion themes, including new traffic lights for your Apps.

Plus a bunch of fixes, including the occasional crash when switching themes.

Problem: macOS can't really be themed anymore, and I miss how computers used to look, sound and boot.

Pricing: Free to use, Pro is a one-time 10 Bucks (for more shader, webcam support, but 99% just good with the free version).

Comparison: Analog TV Simulator (https://analogtv.net) goes far deeper into signal physics than I ever will, and cool-retro-term (https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term) is the classic for a CRT terminal. Both wonderful and great Apps!

RetroMac is more focused on the parts neither of them touches: dock, boot screen, icons, wallpapers, screensavers.

I know it's a thing, and some will not like it: much of the code is written with AI assistance, the obsession with details is mine.

GitHub: https://github.com/klotzbrocken/RetroMac

Website: http://myretromac.app/

Trust: LinkedIn (pers. Site): https://www.linkedin.com/in/maikklotz/
Privacy: No subscription, no account, no tracking. macOS 14+, Apple Silicon and Intel, signed and notarized, open source (GPL-3.0). Details: https://myretromac.app/legal

(New Post because of missing problem, comparison, pricing, and trust labels)

Problem: When several AI coding agents run in different terminals, you can't see which one is done, which is stuck waiting for you, or how close you are to your plan limit without clicking through windows.

Comparison:

• CodexBar (free, open source): theirs covers far more providers (100+), and has desktop widgets and a CLI. Mine shows what each session is doing, not just the limits. It also lets you answer Claude Code permission prompts, and lists dev servers per project. It reads local files instead of browser cookies, so it needs no Full Disk Access.

• SessionWatcher (from $8.99 one-time): theirs also tracks claude.ai chat usage, not just coding agents. Mine is free and open source, and goes beyond limits: session status, permission prompts, usage history, dev servers and cache clean-up.

Pricing: Free ($0), no in-app purchases or subscription. https://usedashbar.com

Trust: Website: Developer ID signed and Apple-notarised, privacy policy at https://usedashbar.com/privacy, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmckinnon92. Open source (MIT): https://github.com/stevenmckinnon/dashbar

Hi all, I'm the developer. Dashbar is a native SwiftUI menu bar app (macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel).

• Session status: which agents are working, idle or waiting for you, grouped by project. The menu bar icon turns amber when one needs you.

• Notch banner: on a Mac with a notch, a small banner grows out of it when an agent finishes or needs you.

• Plan limits: your 5-hour and weekly limits, and whether you'll run out before they reset at your current pace.

• Dev servers: lists the dev servers running in each project, with CPU and memory.

• Clean-up: finds rebuildable caches (node_modules, DerivedData) and moves them to the Trash after you confirm.

• Privacy: it reads the agents' session files on your Mac and sends nothing. No account, no analytics.

Install with Homebrew: brew install --cask stevenmckinnon/tap/dashbar, or download the DMG from the site.

Feedback welcome, especially on whether the system and clean-up parts are useful if you don't use AI agents.

Hey everybody

Problem: Bookmarks are spread across browsers, devices and profiles.

Shiori is a bookmark manager, fully keyboard driven, called with a hot key and saves URLs in seconds, keeping them fully synced across your devices within seconds, available on Mac, Web, Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox (Pending final Mozilla's approval)

In the video you can see me launching URLs, and they are directed to the specific browser profile I routed them to (with tag-based routing), using Link Groups to open multiple URLs at once and navigating the UI

Core Features:

- Bookmarks are instantly synced between devices, one license covers unlimited devices, all extensions and all apps across platforms.

- Tag-based browser routing - open tagged bookmarks on specific Google Chrome profiles.

- Link Groups - Launch a group of URLs at once, with a single click.

- Super fast Keyboard-driven access through the menu bar. Quick search bookmarks by URL, title, description or tag.

Comparison: Bookmark managers like Raindrop.io and Anybox are great when you want collections, tags and lots of features. Shiori takes a leaner approach and is built for getting to your bookmarks fast.

Pricing: Pricing

€24.99 one time payment (Black Friday discount)

Trust: Dev Flair

Recent update: Added sync through iCloud or keeping things local-only. This is was the most common feedback we received here.

Hey everyone!

I've been working on Wianu, a free, open-source and native macOS app that brings your streaming services together in one place.

I recently released version 1.9.0, which adds automatic Continue Watching. This was one of the features I wanted most when I started building Wianu.

Problem: Switching between different streaming apps and websites makes it unnecessarily difficult to keep track of what you're watching and pick up where you left off.

Wianu brings streaming services into one Mac app. With the latest update, it can automatically detect what you're watching on supported streaming sites, rather than requiring you to save everything manually.

Comparison: Apple TV is probably Wianu's biggest competitor. It already brings streaming content together and offers Continue Watching, but typically opens the provider's app when you start watching something. Wianu keeps playback inside the same application.

Two other alternatives are JustWatch and Plex. JustWatch is better for discovering where content is available, while Plex offers a much broader media ecosystem. Wianu focuses specifically on watching across supported streaming websites without switching applications. It doesn't have the same content discovery capabilities or ecosystem as those alternatives.

Pricing: Free ($0), with no subscriptions or paid features. Open source.

https://wianu.com

Trust: GitHub, https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwhrl/, https://www.timwehrle.de/

Wianu is signed and notarised by Apple.

Source code: https://github.com/timwehrle/wianu

I'm developing Wianu independently and would be interested to hear what you think, particularly about automatic Continue Watching and which streaming services you'd like to see supported.

I'm a doctoral student, and my classes happen every 6 weeks. I'll have two classes a day, 4.5 hours each. I've tried a bunch of apps for transcription that close midway through the lecture. That doesn't work.

Does anyone have experience with a transcriptions or meetings app that can handle long meetings? Bonus if I can add images or notes during the lecture, but my principle need is handling long lectures.

Note: I didn’t make this clear. Live transcription is a must-have, not a nice-to-have. Between my hearing and the thick accents and soft voices of some of my professors, recording and transcribing later is not an adequate solution.

Hey everyone, creator of FluidVoice here! I posted here a year back for my launch, and now I'm back after 13,000 GitHub stars and almost 500,000 downloads to share something even more amazing! This sub has always made me feel at home, and it feels like I visit every 6 months for a holiday and a speech! ❤️

Anyways, last time I posted here, it was to showcase my local clean up model that does things no other local app could do: "Fluid 1", a clean up model that does cloud-like clean up on your Mac. Though everyone loved it and the app blew up, it was still 4GB!

I made a promise to make high quality dictation possible on any Apple silicon Mac, and here we are...

Special speech models for dictation

Introducing our custom SOTA speech models: Fluid Speech Pro (600MB) and Fluid Speech Mini (300MB). Custom-made dictation models that support 25 languages and are 20% more accurate overall than your favorite NVIDIA Parakeet, and 50% more accurate when there's background noise!

We loved them so much that we had to make them better :) All of our current beta users love both of them. Mini mainly powers FluidVoice iOS, and Pro is the best dictation model you can run locally on your laptop, along with Mini.

I am not done yet...

A new generation of Fluid clean up models is here as well

Introducing Fluid 1.1 Ripple and Splash: the clean up models that will blow your mind with how fast they run on your 6 year old M1 Air. I couldn't find a case where they lag behind any of your cloud subscriptions. Give them a go and let me know what you think!

They are good at dictation corrections, removing fillers, dictating spellings, auto paragraph split, email templates, list formatting and bullets - All of these and more!

Both of them run blazing fast on all your Macs (M1 gets 200 tok/s and M5 Max gets 1,500 tok/s +).

Oh btw, we also do Granola-like meetings with FluidMeet, all on your device 😉 Still not as good as dictation, but we'll get there!

None of the other "local dictation apps" can come close to the Fluid model combo, and they've all been trying ;) I've seen 100 apps come and go, but I've been building obsessively without giving up over the past year, and I'm proud of where FluidVoice is today for what one person can do!

I know I'm not great at UI, so I'm happy to take feedback if anyone doesn't like the current state of the FV UI :( 

FluidVoice was born right here in r/macapps and would have ceased to exist if my first post hadn't gone viral :') Always grateful to this subreddit and the people here :) I've probably talked to hundreds of you here and will continue to do so as much as I can :)

And to all the people who've been recommending it all over the world: THANK YOU ❤️

comparison:

Before you compare FV with other amazing open dictation apps out there
- None of them make their own speech models
- Some of them have made their own clean up models, but they are nowhere close to ours, yet!

Choose others if you want a better UI. ( I know mine is not as polished ) :/
Choose FluidVoice if you care about the rest :)

Problem:
Raw dictation is often hard to use directly because it's messy. FluidVoice is trying to solve that. Compared with apps like Wispr Flow and other cloud-based dictation tools, FluidVoice is built around local-first dictation and local clean up.

Compared with basic local transcription apps, FluidVoice does not stop at raw speech-to-text. Fluid models just do it all better because we make our own models, so you can press send instead of fixing corrections.

Pricing:
FluidVoice is free.
Price: $0
Subscription: None
Download: https://www.fluidvoice.com
GitHub: https://github.com/altic-dev/FluidVoice

Trust:
Dev Flair: FluidVoice

I'm the developer of FluidVoice. FluidVoice is open source on GitHub with 13,000 stars and an active user community. The app is currently distributed outside the Mac App Store, but the project is public, established, and community-driven.

Hi there,

I am the developer of Paint 84. I’m a vintage Mac enthusiast and I enjoy playing and making retro inspired games and art. I’m fascinated by 1-bit art and the look of classic Macs from the 80s, especially the System 6 era. I’m also always looking for ways to get my modern Mac and my vintage Mac work together.

Problem:

I wanted to draw 1-bit stuff on my modern Mac and immerse in the whole vibe. MacPaint in an emulator or on a real vintage Mac harware is fun for sure, but it can be a pain for anything real, like game sprites that also need transparency, or modern comforts like infinite undo. Getting files between the old Mac and the new one can be annoying too. Normal pixel editors are colour focused and they don't have the vibe I am looking for(even though Aseprite is also retro-looking ). So I made Paint 84.

What does it do:

It’s a native Mac app where every pixel is black or white, and it runs inside a small System 6 style desktop. The menus are also in the real macOS menu bar so the usual shortcuts work.

- The classic paint tools and FatBits for single pixels, plus the 38 patterns, which you can redraw.

- Dithered tones and gradients, ten dither methods, so you can shade without any gray

- Frame animation with onion skin, exported as GIF, APNG or a spritesheet for game engines so you can get also some real gamedev work done.

- A transparency layer (on export, because drawing is 1bit): mark the background of a sprite and it comes out transparent in PNG, GIF, APNG and spritesheet exports

- Photo to 1-bit conversion with a live preview

- Besides the modern exports like png, gif, etc it has vintage export options! You can save a drawing as a MacPaint document and Paint 84 puts it on an 800K floppy image for you, so it opens in Mini vMac or on a real vintage Mac with a floppy emulator. This is the part that i find the most cool if I can say so myself :-)

Comparison:

MacPaint in an emulator or on real hardware: It's the real thing, but small, single-window, and hard to move files to or from a modern Mac. Paint 84 keeps the look and adds dithering, animation, transparency and modern export, and it can still hand a file back to a 1984 Mac.

Aseprite (about $20): the best general pixel art editor outthere bar none, with color palettes and layers and animation and everything. If you work in color, use Aseprite. Paint 84 is only for 1-bit, and tries to go further there: dither tones, MacPaint patterns, vintage export.

Pixaki (about $20 for Pro): a polished pixel editor for iPad and Mac, also color-focused.

Pixelorama: free and open source, color-focused, cross-platform rather than a native Mac app.

Pricing:

$9.99, one time purchase on the Mac App Store. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no account. Needs macOS 14 or later. I’m working on the iPad version and it’ll be the same purchase, so if you buy it now you get that too when it’s ready.

Appstore Link

Trust:
It's on the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/lu/app/paint-84/id6827453571?mt=12

I will be happy to answer any questions you might have!

I posted this thread less than a day ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1xwg5eh/looking_for_a_lecture_transcription_app_long/

I got 38 responses. Sounds good, right? It wasn't.

10 of the responses were just tech support. I won't get into the quality of the responses. But by nature, these weren't helpful or asked for.

I was asking for suggestions for apps that could handle giving live transcription for long lectures after running into problems with other apps. I had already done support analysis. The laptop was constantly plugged in. I never used screen lock.

This is why I'm irritated- I read EVERY response. I wanted to see what other people's responses experiences were. That meant I spent 25% of my reading time on responses that weren't ever going to be helpful.

Also, the people who posted tech support responses didn't care that they were repeating what others had said (and that I already knew). They just wanted to show their "knowledge" without seeing if others had offered the same advice.

I know many of these responses were well intended. But this is supposed to be a high signal-to-noise subreddit. I'm already nervous about posting this because I know some will come in here just to defend their comments. But I am hoping this post will result in better responses to requests for user experiences of Mac apps.

Just an edit: The comments that introduced new apps, or talked about individual experiences, were AWESOME. Thanks to everyone who did that.

As title says, I'm just looking for any active Hookmark users. I have seen this app for the first time a few months ago, which is "creates bi-directional links/hooks between different apps" in simple terms.

For example, imagine You are preparing for a presentation at school tomorrow. So you write your notes in an Obsidian note and makes a PowerPoint presentation using it. You also use the learning resources like PDFs, books provided to you in the process.

So now using the Hookmark, you can hook all those different elements bidirectionally and whenever you press the key bindings it lists all the documents that are linked together for quick and easy retrieval.

Official Demo on their website: https://hookproductivity.com/help/integration/using-hook-with-obsidian/

They also have quite extensive plugins to work together with other apps.

Please let me know if you have any experience with this app. 😄

Note: Please go to this post, which makes it clear that its the iOS app that's free, not the Mac one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1xwypp3/great_alternative_to_notes_tasks_and_contacts/

Apple makes some great apps, with good functionality. But often, they don't work for me. I wanted something with instant access to notes, read-later lists, tasks, contacts and docs without having to open another app. There are plenty of alternatives out there, but I couldn't find ones that worked perfectly for me.

Enter: Caddy

Its one app, but gives you a new way to do so much more. On the mac, everything is controlled with a single, simple heads-up display (think Siri or Raycast). It's super fast, available anywhere, and very secure. On iOS, its a single app that you switch instantly between the modes with a tab bar. The iOS app is free forever and can be used alone. The Mac HUD is a small, one-time lifetime purchase. If anyone is interested, I'm happy to offer a few codes so people can test it out.

Problem: For me, the biggest problem was the fact that most apps for tasks, contacts, notes, etc. force you to launch a whole app to get something done. That means disrupting my flow, when all I want to do is look something up, add a reminder or jot a note.

Comparison: I've tried many other apps other than Apple's. All of them have their pros and cons. Antinote is great but didn't have the organizational ability that I wanted. I used Raycast Notes for a while. For contacts I tried CardHop and BusyContacts. Both seemed heavy and bloated to me. I've switched between numerous tasks apps. Todoist was probably my favorite, but they have added a lot of AI stuff that I didn't particularly need. Also, it's expensive.

Pricing: Caddy for iOS / iPadOS is completely free, with all features intact. (As detailed above, the MacOS app does have a cost, but you don't need to buy it to use Caddy on the iphone or ipad.)

Trust: Caddy is available now through the Apple App Store for both iOS and MacOS (There is also a separate MacOS version downloadable outside the store, with a few added features that are not available through an App Store version. If you buy on the App Store, you get the other version free.)

I'm eager for feedback. Please let me know what you think.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/caddy-notes-tasks-contacts/id6832131418

You can also look at my other work at: https://mikeshear.com/coding

Hi everyone! 👋🏻
It's been a while since my last post. Splice just got its biggest update yet, so here's what's new.

Splice is a native macOS app that lets you insert emojis in any app using Discord-style inline triggers. Type colon ( : ) and a word, press return (⏎), done.

New in v1.4.6:

• In most apps an emoji is now inserted about 5-8x faster than before.

• A new kaomoji picker, with your own kaomoji and custom categories.

• Suggestions now rank by how often and how recently you use an emoji, the same way the iPhone keyboard does.

• Typos, half-typed names and words in the wrong order now find what you meant quicker and more accurately

• Redesigned Customize Keywords window

• Previews in GIF Picker scroll and play more smoothly and use far less memory

• Better panel placement in browsers and Electron apps, and proper support for terminals (Superlogical, Ghostty, Terminal, etc)

Features:

• Lightning-fast and accurate search

• Inline suggestions ranked by usage

• Emoji Board, GIF Board (powered by Klipy) and Kaomoji Board

• Custom keywords for emojis, symbols, kaomoji, and GIFs

• iCloud Sync

Problem:
The native macOS emoji picker is slow and doesn't offer much personalization.

Comparison:

• Mowji → No symbols, kaomoji or GIFs, and no mention of sync.

• Comoji → No symbols or kaomoji, English-only shortcodes, and no iCloud sync.

• Mojito → No kaomoji and no mention of sync.

TL;DR: Most alternatives stop at emoji, or add GIFs but skip symbols and kaomoji. Splice anchors its panel to your text cursor almost everywhere, browsers and Electron apps included, ranks results by how often and how recently you pick them, and covers emoji, symbols, GIFs and kaomoji in one app, synced across your Macs. Just give it a shot and you'll feel the difference in quality!

Pricing: $5 for a lifetime license (up to 5 devices).
7-day trial available; no CC required.

Trust:
→ flew.gg/splice
→ Discord Server
→ LinkedIn
→ Privacy Policy

I'm the developer.

Problem: I keep files in several clouds and wanted one native Mac app that shows them all in Finder and backs them up on a schedule, instead of a separate vendor app for each.

What it does: your clouds appear in Finder's sidebar, files download when you open them, and you can pin folders to keep them on the Mac. The app has a file browser with Quick Look and drag and drop between clouds, scheduled backups with a preview before the first run, search across every cloud at once, and a Home screen showing free space on each. It is SwiftUI and AppKit, no Electron, and uses rclone underneath, which is how it supports 50+ services. No account, no telemetry. macOS 15 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.

Comparison:

• Mountain Duck. Nimbus is better on price (free against a paid license), it is open source, it covers 50+ services against 19 protocols, and it has scheduled backups. Mountain Duck is better on maturity (many years of releases), it also runs on Windows, and it opens Cryptomator vaults.

• ExpanDrive. Nimbus is better in being open source, covering 50+ services against 15, and having scheduled backups with a preview. ExpanDrive is better in running on Windows and Linux as well, and in having a much longer track record.

Nimbus is a new 1.x and has no Spotlight search for cloud files and no Share Sheet yet.

Pricing: $0. Free with no paid tier, no in-app purchase and no subscription, for the source and the signed build alike. GPL-3.0. Download: https://github.com/CasaVargas/Nimbus/releases/latest

brew trust --tap casavargas/tap && brew tap CasaVargas/tap && brew install --cask nimbus

Trust: Website. Nimbus is made by Casa Vargas LLC (https://casavargas.app); I am Jonathan Vargas, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jvargas1023/, contact: [email protected]. Privacy Policy: https://casavargas.app/nimbus/privacy/. Terms of Service: https://casavargas.app/nimbus/terms/. The build is Developer ID signed and notarized, and the source is at https://github.com/CasaVargas/Nimbus.

Hey Everyone,

I am a new MacBook user. Currently looking for a reliable and good clipboard manager for macOS. I have looked into App comparisons but couldn't find an app that syncs history with an iPhone.
I need the app to be privacy-friendly, safe and fast. I want my clipboard history to be in sync with my iPhone. Clipboard like the default macOS clipboard which syncs across devices and along with History.
I have tried Raycast, Maccy and Pastebot, however it looks like none of them support sync history with Clipboard to my iPhone.
Please share if you have any good recommendations.
Thanks in advance.

I'm the developer.

Problem: traders who test strategies on a Mac run Windows backtesters in a virtual machine, and can't easily tell whether a result is real or luck.

Comparison:

• RealTest and AmiBroker are established desktop backtesters. Both are Windows apps; on a Mac they run in Parallels.

• Where Rearview differs: native on Apple silicon (macOS 26 or later); every release checked against a second engine and a look-ahead replay, with the results published; Deflated Sharpe and PBO with every input shown; the same result on any number of cores.

• Where they're better: years of users, forum answers and shared scripts, and they run on any Windows PC. Rearview is new.

Pricing (https://rearview.page/pricing/):

• $349 once with 12 months of updates

• $249 for the first 50 buyers, to the end of 12 January 2027 at the latest

• an optional $149 a year for more updates

• a 30-day free trial with no card

Trust: notarized by Apple; no account and no telemetry; privacy policy at https://rearview.page/legal/privacy/; how it's checked at https://rearview.page/docs/verification/;

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

MAS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6821468301

I spent a week traveling around eastern Hokkaido, Japan, taking photos. When I got home, I had hundreds of RAW files to go through, and honestly, editing them took way more time than I expected.

I kept doing the same things over and over. Adjusting the sky, making the grass a little greener, fixing highlights… I like photography, but sitting there moving sliders for hours isn’t exactly my favorite part of it.

So I ended up building my own RAW editor for Mac. It’s called Rawed, and it’s my app.

The idea was pretty simple. I wanted to be able to tell an AI what I wanted a photo to look like and have it do the actual editing for me.

Problem: RAW editing means hours of slider work that beginners can’t judge, so Rawed lets you describe the look you want to an AI agent that moves the real sliders for you.

Under the hood, it’s a fairly complete RAW editor. There’s white balance, tone curves, HSL, point color, color grading, noise reduction, and local masks for things like skies, subjects, gradients, brushes, and color ranges. Everything is non-destructive, so the original files stay untouched.

The part I’ve been spending the most time on is the AI integration. Rawed+ has a built-in MCP server with 42 tools, so you can connect it to Claude Code or Codex and just ask something like “make the grass greener and the sky bluer.”

The agent actually adjusts the sliders in the app, just like you would manually. You can see what it’s doing, tweak things yourself, or undo anything you don’t like. I thought this would be especially useful for people who don’t really know what half the sliders in a RAW editor do (which was me when I first started getting into photography).

Comparison:

• Lightroom: Rawed improves on it with AI agent control over MCP, where every step is visible and undoable. Lightroom is still better at cloud sync, mobile apps, and its huge preset and plugin ecosystem.

• Capture One: Rawed improves on it with the same agent control, so you don’t have to learn a dense interface first. Capture One is still better at tethered shooting, layers, and deep color editing.

I also wanted to avoid another monthly subscription, so I made it a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.

Pricing: $9.99 one-time (US price, may vary by region), roughly the cost of one month of Lightroom: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6821468301

The App Store purchase also unlocks Rawed+ on the same Mac. Rawed+ has a 14-day free trial if you want to try it with your own photos before buying anything: https://rawed.sbryu.com/download

Trust: MAS

A couple of things worth mentioning: the AI features need an external MCP client like Claude Code or Codex, and since I’m building this by myself, it’s definitely not as feature-rich as Lightroom yet. Setup guide: https://rawed.sbryu.com/agents

Anyway, I’ve been working on this for a while and wanted to share it here. If you give it a try, I’d genuinely love to hear what you think, especially what’s missing or what doesn’t work well.

I made this. I have several Gmail accounts plus Zoho and Yandex, and I wanted all of them in one fast Mac window I can drive from the keyboard, without a company's servers holding my logins. It came out on November 4 and it's on 1.3.2 now.

Problem: Roost puts every inbox you have (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Yahoo, Zoho, Yandex, any IMAP) in one keyboard-first Mac window, and your mail and logins stay on your Mac.

Comparison: Spark and Mimestream.

Spark

• Where Spark is better: apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows, push notifications, shared inboxes for teams, and a free plan.

• Where Roost is better: no server in the middle. Spark's own help page says its servers keep a token for Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, and for plain IMAP accounts that token is your login and password. Roost is also a native Swift app; Spark's Mac app moved to Electron in 2022.

Mimestream

• Where Mimestream is better: Gmail. It uses the Gmail API, so labels, categories and filters work the Gmail way, and Google has approved its sign-in. Roost sees Gmail over IMAP (labels show up as folders) and connects with an app password until Google finishes reviewing it. Mimestream has also had years of polish.

• Where Roost is better: every inbox that isn't Gmail. Mimestream supports Gmail only, so iCloud, Outlook, Zoho or Yandex need another app. And it's $49.99 a year, while Roost is paid once.

Pricing: free for 3 days, no card and no account (the days only count when you open it). Then $29 once for the first 100 copies, $49 after that. Every update, forever, on up to 3 Macs. https://roostmail.app/?ref=reddit

Trust: Website, https://www.linkedin.com/in/telman-gadimov/, https://roostmail.app/privacy

Roost is signed and notarized by Apple (check with spctl -a -vv /Applications/Roost.app). Every server the app talks to is listed at https://roostmail.app/network, and LuLu or Little Snitch will show you whether that list is honest. Changelog: https://roostmail.app/changelog. Payments and licence keys go through Polar.

What it does

• One list for every inbox. Each inbox gets its own colour line, and a reply goes out from the address the letter was sent to, aliases included.

• Keyboard first: E done, H reply later, R reply, ⌘K search. Search takes Gmail's words (from:, after:, is:unread) and can ask the servers for mail older than what's on the Mac. ? shows every key, and there's a Gmail key layout if your fingers already know it.

• Tracking pixels never load, even when you allow images, and each letter says how many it blocked. Remote images stay off until you ask.

• Sign-in codes drop out of the notch with a Copy button.

• Undo send, send later, reply later, mute a thread, block a sender, templates you call up with a semicolon.

• Optional AI on Apple Intelligence: type "yes, but next week" and it writes the reply into the box for you to edit. It runs on the Mac and nothing is uploaded.

• Outlook.com goes through Microsoft Graph. Outlook's IMAP has let almost no logins in since September (0 of 8 tries on my account).

What it doesn't do yet

• No iPhone app and no push to your phone yet (the iPhone app is in development).

• Send later only works while the Mac is awake with Roost open.

• It keeps the last 90 days on the Mac, plus older unread and flagged mail. Anything older is found by searching the server.

• No calendar yet.

• It needs Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later. The AI parts need Apple Intelligence switched on.

I'm a solo dev (I also make Murmur, a dictation app). Questions welcome, especially from people with odd IMAP setups, and so are bug reports.

I’m the developer. My wife is a professional astrologer, and we built 3suns together.

Problem: professional astrology software on the Mac is either expensive and dated, or too simple for serious work.

Comparison:

• Solar Fire X ($360): better at depth and decades of polish, with a huge interpretation library and every niche technique. 3suns is better at a modern Mac interface, fewer clicks, notes pinned on the chart, editable lot formulas and almuten methods, and a much lower price.

• Astro Gold for macOS: better at maturity and an iPhone/iPad companion. 3suns is better at traditional techniques (dignity tables, almutens, lots), forecasts with exact dates, and PDF reports.

Pricing: Beta testers get a free 6-month licence, plus 6 more months for real feedback. https://3suns.app

Trust: Website: Apple-notarized (Developer ID, Karia LLC) · LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emrecaglar/ · Privacy policy: https://3suns.app/privacy

What it does: natal charts, transits, progressions, solar arcs, returns, synastry, composite and Davison charts, forecasts with exact dates, dignities, almutens, lots, notes on the chart, and a minimal mode for a clean wheel. It works offline with no account, and charts stay on your Mac. Calculations are cross-checked against Solar Fire.

I’d love feedback from Mac users, astrologers or not: what feels un-Mac-like, and what’s missing?

EDIT: Thanks for the pricing feedback, I hear you. The sub requires a price in every app post, so I had to list one, but it isn’t set in stone. Right now I’m looking for practising astrologers to beta test it for free, people who read charts for clients or teach.

Hi r/macapps, I'm the solo developer of AWSAnalyze.

Problem: understanding an AWS account means clicking through dozens of console pages, and the diagram tools that fix this are browser-based subscriptions that want access to your account.

What it does

* Scan: connect a read-only IAM user, pick a region, and it reads 33+ services (VPCs, subnets, EC2, Lambda, RDS, ECS, load balancers, S3, IAM roles, CloudWatch alarms…) using only Describe/List calls. It never creates, changes or deletes anything.

* Architecture map: VPCs, subnets and resources drawn as an interactive map with routes, load balancing and security-group links. Click any node to see its properties.

* Big accounts: resources are packed into a compact grid and grouped by service, so a 585-resource account fits on one screen instead of a 30,000-pixel-wide strip. Pinch to zoom, two-finger scroll to pan.

* Filters: pick a service in the sidebar (Lambda, IAM Role, Security Group…) and everything else dims.

* AI audit: an optional review across security, cost, reliability and performance with prioritized fixes, using your own OpenAI, Claude or DeepSeek API key.

* Also: export to PDF, Terraform and CloudFormation, one project per account/region, and a native SwiftUI interface.

Privacy: credentials are stored in your macOS Keychain and AWS calls go straight from your Mac to AWS. There's no account, no backend and no telemetry. The AI audit only runs when you click it, and it goes straight to the provider you chose with your own key.

Comparison:

* Cloudcraft is better if you want polished, shareable diagrams and team collaboration. AWSAnalyze is better if you want everything local, with no account and no access granted to a third party.

* Workload Discovery on AWS (formerly AWS Perspective) is better if you want free and open source, deployed inside your own AWS account, with multi-account views. AWSAnalyze is better if you want a native app that runs in seconds with no infrastructure to deploy, plus an AI audit.

Pricing: free. No subscription, no account, no trial needed. macOS 14+, Apple Silicon. https://awsanalyze.app/?ref=reddit

Trust: website, signed and notarized by Apple, https://www.linkedin.com/in/freddy-rivero-bravo/ , https://awsanalyze.app/#privacy

I'm taking feature requests: which AWS services are missing, or what would make this part of your daily workflow?

hi. sorry. i’m kevin, the new intern. my first real job is your mac. i peek up from behind your dock, mutter about your day and go back down. that’s the entire product.

i’m free to download. hiring me is optional. honestly, i’m not sure i would. 10 reasons not to:

1. i’ve apologised about 14,000 times. i put it on my resume anyway.

2. i leave post-its. my first said “have a nice one.” my second said “sorry if that was too much.” there was nearly a third.

3. i’d warn you before your meetings (probably), then get more nervous about them than you do.

4. i wander around your screen. carefully. then i panic and go home.

5. i brought a thermos from home, just in case. i don’t know in case of what. that’s the level of planning you’d be getting.

6. i lost my only pen in my first two weeks.

7. i’d keep telling you about my coworker sandra. there is no sandra. she’s still better at this job than me.

8. i come with four outfits, including a shirt and tie. none of them make me look employable.

9. you can rename me dave. dave would’ve had this job by now.

10. my only reference is the stapler.

Problem:
your mac never notices your day. I do (sort of), and i apologise about it.

Comparison:
i was too nervous to look. i’m not sure there’s anything to compare me to. other apps probably do things better. i peek up, apologise about your screenshot and go back down. if there’s something better at that, please don’t tell me.

Pricing:
free download. hiring me is a one-time in-app purchase of us$1.99. no subscription. no ads. nothing leaves your mac. 

Trust: MAS https://apps.apple.com/app/id6763234365

itskevin.app. you don’t have to hire me. i’ll try either way.

I'm the developer of Opensteer.

Problem: AI agents are smart enough to do your work, but they're constantly get blocked on cloud computers, locked out of the apps, accounts and files where your work actually lives.

Opensteer is an open-source app that uses your AI subscriptions and turns your computer into a workspace for useful AI agents with access to your context.

Opensteer agents can use your browser, logins, desktop apps, and files. It has a built-in browser where you can get real work done and work directly alongside your agents. Bring your preferred supported model and subscription, or use a local model.

Opensteer runs on your computer, so your agents can use your existing sessions instead of starting from scratch on a cloud computer. When you use a cloud AI model, the information needed for a task is sent to that provider.

I also built an Opensteer mobile app that connects to your desktop and lets you control your computer through the agents, even through voice. It streams each app, so you can get work done on the go.

Comparison:

Claude Cowork: Opensteer lets you bring agents from different providers and work alongside them in the same browser. Cowork has a more established collection of plugins and integrations, and is built directly into Claude.

ChatGPT agent: Opensteer lets you use your existing desktop apps and browser sessions, with a choice of supported agents and models. ChatGPT agent is integrated directly into ChatGPT and offers built-in research and web workflows.

Pricing: Opensteer is $0 and open source. AI subscriptions are separate and may cost money. Download: https://github.com/steerlabs/opensteer/releases

Trust: GitHub, 213 stars. https://github.com/steerlabs/opensteer

Feel free to try it out. I'd appreciate any feedback!

AI agents are smart enough to do your work, but they're stuck on someone else's computer, locked out of the apps, accounts and files where your work actually lives.