Mac Tools

Having a tool to reliably and securely store a lot of passwords is essential for almost everyone nowadays. 1Password does that and keeps them synced across devices. This is my top pick because if I were to loose this tool it would take me a long time to recover, both the access and the peace of mind.

Spotlight used to be great, but now it struggles to show the most relevant results. And, it's so slow at times that the results will change just when you are getting ready to choose something. Also, I'm a terrible speller and Raycast has a spelling plugin.

Things is a well thought out and beautifully designed app to keep track of todo items. Many people use OmniFocus, which also seems to be a great tool, but I don't need the extra power. Life is already complicated, I don't need my todo app to be that way too. Things gives the right amount of features, specifically relating to classification, for my needs. It also syncs across my devices.

All Mac users need a browser that isn't Safari. Don't get me wrong, I like Safari, but it's amazing how frequently I still find sites which break on Safari (though I sometimes blame the new IE, Chrome). I seriously started using Firefox when it first came out, then I used Chrome for a while, but now I'm back on Firefox.

Update: Now I just use the built-in terminal command caffeinate, but I activate it through Alfred.

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.