My macOS App List

Apps

Note: This list was refreshed in August 2026 to match my current setup. Entries marked with ⚡ replaced an app from the old 2021 list.

Browsers

• Arc My daily browser.
• Google Chrome (+ Canary) For web dev and cross-browser testing.
• Firefox Developer Edition Secondary browser for development.

Dev

• VS Code (+ Insiders) Code editor.
• Cursor AI code editor.
• Xcode For iOS/macOS development.
• Android Studio For Android development.
• Ghostty ⚡ Terminal (replaced iTerm2).
• Neovim Terminal editor, used over SSH on remote machines.
• OrbStack ⚡ Fast, light Docker & Linux VMs (replaced Docker Desktop — see my Multipass post for the older approach).
• Lens Kubernetes IDE.
• MQTTX MQTT client, great for IoT/Home Assistant debugging.
• Wireshark Network protocol analyzer.
• Dataflare Database GUI client.

AI

• ChatGPT Desktop app.
• Claude Desktop app.
• Wispr Flow Dictation with AI.
• superwhisper Offline speech-to-text for writing.

Design & Creative

• Figma UI design tool.
• Adobe Creative Cloud After Effects, Lightroom, Media Encoder.
• Photomator Photo editing.
• Final Cut Pro Video editing.
• DaVinci Resolve Color grading and video editing.

Tools

• Raycast ⚡ Launcher, clipboard history, snippets (replaced Alfred).
• AltTab Windows-style window switching.
• BetterTouchTool Customize various input devices.
• Karabiner-Elements Powerful keyboard customizer.
• Stats Menu-bar system monitor.
• MonitorControl External display brightness and volume.
• Mos Smooth scrolling for third-party mice.
• Input Source Pro Auto-switch input method per app.
• SwitchResX Custom display resolutions.
• Keka File archiver.
• AppCleaner Thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
• CleanMyMac System cleanup.
• iMazing iPhone/iPad backup and transfer.
• Syncthing Continuous file sync between devices.
• balenaEtcher Flash OS images to SD cards/USB.
• Google Drive / MEGA Cloud storage.

QuickLook Plugins

• QLMarkdown, QLStephen, QLVideo, QuickLook CSV/Video, Syntax Highlight, PictureView — see my QuickLook plugins post.

Communication & Email

• Slack / Discord Team and community chat.
• LINE / Telegram Messaging.
• Canary Mail ⚡ Email client (replaced Spark).
• Thunderbird Backup email client.

Remote & VM

• Parallels Desktop Windows VM.
• Moonlight Game streaming client.

VPN & Network

• Tailscale ⚡ Zero-config mesh VPN (replaced manual WireGuard/OpenVPN setups).
• WireGuard Fast modern VPN.
• OpenVPN Connect OpenVPN client.
• Cloudflare WARP Secure DNS/proxy.
• WiFiman UniFi network scanning.

PDF

• PDF Expert Fast, robust PDF editor.

3D & Printing

• Blender 3D creation suite.
• FreeCAD Parametric 3D CAD.
• Shapr3D iPad-first CAD on the Mac.
• UltiMaker Cura 3D printing slicer.
• OrcaSlicer / Bambu Studio Modern slicers.

Music

• VOX Music player.
• Logic Pro DAW.
• Serato DJ Pro / rekordbox DJ software.
• BlackHole Virtual audio driver for routing audio between apps.

Media

• IINA / VLC Media players.
• OBS Streaming and recording.
• Spotify Music streaming.

latest update: 2026/08/27