Every App I Use From SetApp
At this point, you have most likely heard of SetApp. But not everyone believes the subscription is worth it. In my case, it's an easy sell since there are two or three apps I use constantly that on their own would have cost me more than the SetApp subscription itself. But it's the full spectrum of apps available that make it worth so much more. Just being able to download them to explore them is worth a trial. And to show you how much I get out of it, here's a look at every single app I downloaded from SetApp.
Sometimes I need to get a feel for how long a bigger project will take. And most of the time, I'm bad at it. Aeon Timeline fills a gap in helping me estimate the duration of something bigger by giving me an easy interface for seeing what is a Gantt chart. I don't usually come back to these once I make them. I tend to transfer the dates and such to OmniFocus and such.
It never fails. I have a guest come into the church with an odd file format that needs to be extracted into a usable format. Archiver is now my go-to utility when I need to save the day. So it's not a daily use app, but it's certainly one I keep on my Mac.
This is an all-day everyday app. You must download this one right now. I paid for this one beforehand and was thrilled to see it move to SetApp. All it does is clean up the menu bar and allow me to hide things until I need them. This is an essential one for your Mac.
People love BTT. I am yet to hit a stride with it. The only thing I use it for at the moment is snapping windows into place. I know there is a ton more that can be done but I haven't taken the time to play around with it yet.
Readers of my newsletter know that I recently moved over to BusyCal on my Mac. I'm hesitant to say it's my go-to until I can be 100% certain the sync issues I dealt with in Fantastical don't reappear here. But so far, I'm loving this move.
I downloaded BusyContacts when I realized how much I enjoy BusyCal. I've barely started using it so I can't speak to how it compares to the built-in Contacts app.
This is a must. I run the scan every week as part of my weekly review. And somehow it always manages to find 10 to 20 GB of stuff to get rid of and clean up. You need this one.
Here's another utility I keep around for occasional needs. Give it a link to a YouTube video and you get the video file saved to your computer.
Sometimes I need to share a link to a file or picture. If they're on an Apple device, I tend to just share an iCloud link or just AirDrop it to them. But if not, I use Dropshare to get a link and just text/email it to them.
Regex expressions drive me up a wall and I can never get them quite right. My brain has simply never connected with the process for some reason. So I'm grateful for this little utility that lets me test and learn the process a little better.
I don't know why, but I sometimes end up receiving torrent links from people. And by sometimes, I mean twice that I can recall. Thus, I keep Folx around in case I get another one.
Forecast Bar isn't something I use a ton since I tend to check the weather on my phone. But when I want to check the weather from my Mac, this is how I do it.
When I need to do file transfers between my Mac and an external server, I tend to use ssh from the command line. But sometimes I have a lot of files to move back and forth and will need to do so repeatedly. In those cases, I pull out Forklift. It does a great job at the FTP process.
Here's another piece of my weekly review. I open Gemini and tell it to search for duplicates on my Home folder. It doesn't always find anything, but it's nice to know I haven't screwed up and copied a whole directory somewhere. Not that I ever do that.
Who doesn't want to make gifs? I think I downloaded this one and used it once. But I can't bring myself to delete it because I may still want it someday.
Here's a recent addition I downloaded just to play with. It lets you create webpage animations and then export them to be used on your website. I've never done that, but being a web developer at heart, I can't help but explore these things.
Mind-mapping isn't a huge part of my workflow. But occasionally I need to brainstorm a specific idea and I bring out a digital tool for it. iThoughtsX has been my default answer for that need in the last year. Though I have to admit that I've been using a different tool from SetApp lately. More in a bit.
My long-time followers know that I type on Dvorak. I've tried several mechanisms for testing my typing speed and they all work pretty well. But since KeyKey is on SetApp, I pull it out every month or two to see how I'm progressing, which is a bit silly since I'm over 100+ WPM on Dvorak now. Maybe I do that just to see a high number.
Here's a powerhouse app I'm using right now as I type this article. Brett Terpstra has done a phenomenal job with Marked. It shows me a preview of my markdown files, but it also shows me words I show avoid or change. Combine that with a word count and a visual on how my article will look and it single-handedly makes SetApp worth the expense.
I remember my shock when I saw MindNode on SetApp. I downloaded it immediately. I've used it for my random mind mapping explorations and continue to see the potential in this app. My main complaint with it right now is that I'm used to iThoughtsX so it feels a bit odd. I'm sure I could get over that easily enough.
I downloaded this one only a couple of weeks ago. It gives me quick access to settings from the menu bar. The big switches I use are to show hidden files, connecting my AirPods, and telling my screen to go to sleep.
API work is sometimes a bit tricky to get right. Passing credentials and the right parameters takes a bit of experimentation before you're ready to push it to production. There are a lot of ways to test API calls or to even send one-off calls. But my preference is using Paw. It simply shows me what I need to see and makes it simple for formulating the call exactly how I want.
Another wave of shock went cross my brain when I saw PDFPen on the list. This app does a lot and it does it well. If you work with PDFs at all, you need to download this one.
Remember when I said I get weird file formats from guests at the church? Yep, it happens a lot. Permute has made it pretty easy to convert audio and video files to my standard formats that I know will work in all of our systems.
As a heavy OmniFocus user I see and work with the TaskPaper format pretty regularly. And to be honest, I can do a lot when copy/pasting to and from my OmniFocus document and Sublime Text. But it's amazing to me how helpful it is to have the legitimate TaskPaper app around for making edits to this raw text before putting it back into OmniFocus.
Timing just sits on my Mac and tracks everything I do. I rarely open it unless I've forgotten what I'm working on. And then, it's gold. It makes it easy for me to see where I was spending my time before distraction overtook me.
I'll be honest. I don't know why I have this on my Mac. I haven't opened it since my exploration of the app at Macstock. But I also have a hard time deleting it. So it sits on my Mac in case I want a writing diversion.
This one doesn't get the launches I used to give it. Historically, I would schedule meetings with people all over the world and needed to see what time it was elsewhere. But anymore I don't deal with that. It's still fun to check occasionally, but not a necessity.
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