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Tool Sharing

Useful Tools for Mac

Sharing useful Mac tools. The selection criteria is simple: if it gives me that 'I wish someone had told me about this tool earlier' feeling, it makes the list. Including desktop system tools, programming development tools, and various practical software to boost productivity.

(Old blog post, written: 2022-08-26)

Useful Mac Tools (Updated irregularly!)

As a Mac laptop user, today I want to share some small tools or software I commonly use. These are tools frequently used whether I’m programming or in daily life. If it gives me that “I wish someone had told me about this tool earlier” feeling, it will appear in the list. This also serves as a reminder for myself when I need to switch laptops in the future (though I probably won’t have money to upgrade 🤧). If you’re interested, feel free to install and try them out. Some tools can save you a lot of time! This article won’t focus too much on operation methods and installation, it’s mainly about sharing. Here’s the table of contents.

Desktop & System Related (Daily Life)

Programming & Computer Related (CS Students Might Use)

Other (Miscellaneous Stuff)

  • Some settings (corner screen off, dock hide)

Alfred (Spotlight Upgrade)

Alfred

Is it called Alfred? Because like Batman’s butler, it helps you manage everything from software to files perfectly. Just press command + space(space bar) to call it out. You can almost achieve expert-level operations without using mouse and trackpad. Whatever you want to call, just call it, allowing your hands to basically stick to the keyboard!

Initially, you need to make some settings in Preferences and go to System Preferences to change Mac’s built-in Spotlight to Alfred to use it (of course, you can keep Spotlight at the same time or don’t want to use command + space bar).

Basic usage: command + space bar -> brings up search bar, here are my commonly used search keywords:

Search bar looks like this, you can also customize your preferred style

  • open + file -> open file
  • find + file -> find file location from finder
  • directly type software name -> open software
  • directly type search content -> open search results with browser

The only small drawback of Alfred is that it requires payment. I heard it can also call contacts and music, etc., but I only need basic functions, so the free version meets my needs. Advanced gameplay is left for everyone to try.

Official website link: https://www.alfredapp.com/


Rectangle (Window Adjustment Tool)

Have you ever had this experience: open software and find its window position is weird, or you want to use two windows at the same time (reading data while typing), so you spend some time adjusting the window size and position, but just can’t perfectly split into two left-right windows? Let Rectangle help you solve it! Free stuff is awesome~

Click the icon on the menu bar to see all function shortcuts. Mainly controlled through control + alt(option) + some key to control the current window position and size. Let me share some of my most commonly used shortcuts!

Icon looks like this

  • control + alt(option) + enter -> maximize window
  • control + alt(option) + left/right arrow -> left half/right half
  • control + alt(option) + B -> near maximize (sometimes this feels quite comfortable)
  • control + alt(option) + C -> center window
  • control + alt(option) + + / - -> enlarge/shrink window

The result will look like this:

Rectangle Demo

Official website link: https://rectangleapp.com/


Bartender (Menu Bar Management Tool)

Because I often install some small tools on Mac, it was fine at first, but when there are more and more things on the Menu bar (the one in the upper right corner of the screen), the situation starts to get out of control. Some icons even disappear. Mac surprisingly doesn’t have a built-in management tool, ridiculous! So I found this highly praised Bartender. Now my upper right corner looks much neater! (As shown below, mouse moves up to show all icons)

bartender auto

Of course, you can also customize your preferred style, like hidden icons, or even create groups, etc. It seems to have advanced gameplay with shortcut keys to call out, I’ll leave this for readers to try out!

The only small drawback is: it costs money QQ. If you really want to experience it, there are many free (pirated) versions available for download online, but if you have the chance, please support the author! It’s a one-time purchase, currently US$16.80.

Official website link: https://www.macbartender.com/


Itsycal (Calendar Widget)

Itsycal is a calendar software on the Menu bar. Sometimes when you see some events are on a certain date next month, and you want to know what day of the week it is but don’t want to open the calendar, just click the Itsycal icon in the upper right corner to see the calendar. If you use Mac’s built-in calendar, it can even help you arrange events directly in the Menu bar, no need to open another app.

Effect demonstration

It can also customize icons, there’s a set of syntax, not too difficult. I don’t use it because Mac already has built-in date display, so I use a cute emoji instead ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶, just go to Preference to set it up!

Free stuff is good, official website link


Stats (Free Open Source System Resource Monitoring Software)

We Mac users probably don’t shut down our computers too often (or is it just me XD). Sometimes when the computer starts to lag, and I don’t know which process is causing it, and I don’t want to open the “Activity Monitor” app to check, I can use Stats to observe running processes’ RAM usage, and even GPU, CPU, network, fan, etc. operating status. The key point is, you can see it all by clicking the icon in the upper right corner, super convenient! I previously felt the computer was laggy, looked at Stats and immediately knew it was because I forgot to close the virtual machine, or I opened some strange process again XD.

Effect demonstration

Homebrew install command: brew install --cask stats Official Github link Download dmg installation file link


Gifski (Super Useful Video to GIF Converter)

Gifski is a Mac video conversion tool. After conversion is complete, you can directly copy the video to clipboard, then paste it to places like HackMD, very convenient. You can find it on the App Store, it’s free. Most of the GIFs in this article were made with it!

Drag video in to convert, operation is simple and clear

App Store link


Homebrew (God-level Package Management Tool)

Homebrew is like the Mac version of apt (package management tool on Linux), you can install packages, software, etc. with commands in the terminal. Imagine Windows users are still unzipping while you just need to type a few words, this is why Homebrew is so god-like orz.

Installation method:

  1. Open terminal.
  2. Enter the following command in terminal, then press Enter.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Share some Homebrew basic commands:

brew install [package name] // install package

brew uninstall [package name] // uninstall

brew update // update brew to latest version

brew upgrade [package name] // update specified package

brew list // view existing packages and Casks

brew search [keyword] // search for packages
  • Homebrew Cask is for installing GUI software, usage is the same as above, just add --cask after brew

iTerm2 (Better Terminal)

iTerm2 is a good choice to replace Mac’s native terminal. Don’t believe me? Look:

Isn’t it beautiful? Usually iTerm2 is used with oh my zsh framework. Actually, there are already many great tutorials online. I think I probably can’t teach better than them (and I forgot XD). Please Google search yourself. (Keywords: oh my zsh, iTerm2 tutorial)

iTerm2 official website Homebrew install: brew install --cask iterm2


Fig (Terminal Auto-completion)

Believe it or not? Terminal can actually auto-complete commands like an IDE. With Fig, you don’t have to keep pressing tab key. Up and down arrow keys can select commands. You’ll discover a new world after installation (demo below), and it’s free!

Fig official website link


Cloudflare WARP VPN (Free and Convenient VPN)

If you’re a student at National Cheng Kung University and recently researching cryptocurrency investment, you might need to use “Binance” exchange, right? But the school network actually blocks it QQ (school networks always block many things). If you happen to not use VPN services, Warp VPN can help you a lot! It’s a free VPN service provided by Cloudflare company, no need to worry about privacy issues, just click the cloud icon on the Menu bar to use!

Simple and powerful usage

Official website: https://1.1.1.1/

Clipy

Mac clipboard history function, press command + shift + v to call out history, you can set the number of records, very convenient!

Official website link

Bob

OCR text recognition tool, can convert text on images into text files, very suitable for quickly recording text during online meetings, really used it so many times! The key point is it’s free!

Usage: option + s to call it out, then select the area you want to recognize, just like Mac’s command + shift + 4 screenshot

https://github.com/ripperhe/Bob

Some Settings (Corner Screen Off, Dock Hide)

(To be continued)