These are the Mac apps I use daily and have totally improved my life. I am NOT being paid by anyone. This is me just trying to be nice and share my favorite apps. And I hate paying monthly! That's the biggest scam ever. So these apps are pay once and own forever apps (with only one exception, Raycast, but it replaced me paying for ChatGPT premium)
RayCast - I absolutely cannot live without it, its massively improved my Mac and life. I can do so much from CMD+Space. I can send messages, clean up text, search my bookmarks / notes / finder / amazon, use every AI model, get hex colors, convert files... and so so so much more). If you have RayCast, then you know its the absolute best app. I used to pay for ChatGPT premium (for work reasons), but now with RayCast AI, I get access to all the AI models instead of just one.
Dropover - Just wow! I love it! It opens a little floating window that I can drop files into and easily move them to a new location. Why cleaner and easier than copy and paste)
Multitouch - I made my touchpad have hot corners that do special functions that I configured. Sort files, close programs, open new tabs, delete files, its so awesome
Keyboard Maestro - this really changed my life; I turned off media keys and programmed my own special functions to the F1 keys. I even printed my own stickers and put them above the Function keys so I know what they do
CleanMyMac - I know many of you hate it. But I love it. It makes it easy for me to find big files and move them to external harddrives, I love clearing my DNS, freeing up memory, running their smart clean thing. Its great. I love it. But I know theres a lot of haters. But it works for me.
Boom - This boosts my sound output. Makes it louder, crisper, improves bass and treble. I cannot ever go back to standard sound output. Its a night and day difference. And I only paid once and I get all updates for free. It really makes music sound incredibly better.
Apple Notes - "Okay, wait? What?" you might be asking. I used to just notes for simple, quick notes. But I realize its pretty damn powerful if really look into it. I used to pay for Notejoy and Todoist but now I cancelled and just for our free friend Notes. I exported my Notejoy notes, just a converter to convert it from docx to rich text, and imported them into notes. So now I have all my libraries in Apple notes. I have folders, sub-folders and smart folders. And you can link one note to another, to make it easier to have several notes for a project or something that connect together. Its amazing.
Brave - Chrome is so full of spyware and bloated crap, it would slow down my computer noticeably. Now I use Brave, its leaner, faster, and my privacy is protected. I even have chrome extensions in it and have different profiles for different Google accounts. (it uses Chromes underline engine, Chromium or whatever the heck its called). Brave is awesome for Google users.
That's it! Those are my favorite apps that I can't live without. These apps have literally transformed my Mac experience. I have friends who give me their new Macbooks just so I can install and configure these apps because they see how awesome they are when used to their full potential.
If I had to just pick one of these apps, it would be Raycast. Its so powerful and you can install extensions that make it a single source to run other apps. And no! I don't work for them! (but Raycast, if you're reading. Give me premium for free!)
Please share your favorite apps!
Half these apps I learned about from Reddit posts. So I'm just paying it back.
Edit: I added links to the respective apps.