Useful Mac Utilities

These are some utilities that make life on a mac easier and faster. The first several are stunningly useful, and the latter just plain convenient. Most are free.

Absolutely necessary

Alfred 2 (free, extra features for £17)

An invaluable tool a multitude of things, from launching apps to opening files to modifying files. Like Spotlight, but better.

TextExpander ($44.95)

Fabulous. Save time using frequently typed text snippets or quickly pull up information that you don’t want to remember.

Jumpcut or Flycut (both free)

Expands your clipboard by remembering what you copied.

F.lux (free)

Takes care of changing the color tint of your screen at night and makes the screen much easier on the eyes.

The Unarchiver (free)

Zip. RAR. Tar. Easy decompression.

BetterTouchTool (free)

Fabulous for improving window management, I use it mainly for snapping windows to sides and corners (á la Windows) and creating hotkeys for window management.

Nice to have

Soulver ($11.95)

Quick math, visually.

dupeGuru (free)

Finds duplicate files in a specified folder.

arRsync (free)

A simple GUI for the rsync command line command for fast and easy backups.

Vox (free)

Play audio files.

Teamviewer (free)

Desktop sharing and remote control.

licecap (free)

A small utility to create GIFs from your desktop.

What’s Keeping Me (free)**

Ever wondered why you can’t eject a hard drive? This tool tells you.

CCleaner (free)**

Can clean temporary files, and useful secondary functions.

TogglDesktop (free)

Easy time tracking. Great synergy with Alfred using the command tgl and the Toggl workflow.

Appcleaner (free)**

Uninstalls apps completely.

InsomniaX** (free) or Caffeine (free)

Keep your screen from turning off.

Nocturne (free)

“Night mode” for your computer wich is very easy on the eyes.

Sitesucker (€4.99)

Download a complete website.

coconutBattery (free)

Check your mac battery state.

Keka (free)

Another compression utility, create or unzip 7z, Zip, Tar, Gzip and Bzip2 files or Dmg and Iso volumes.

Boom ($14.99)

Increases the maximum volume of your mac without distortion.