👾 My Mac OS setup and applications

My Mac OS setup and the best applications I use as a Web Developer. This is a living document. I regularly update it with new tools and applications that I find useful. If you want to know more, I share more on my blog and my newsletter.

Table of content

Disclaimer
Usage
- Where to find the right tool?
My Hardware
Setup shell
Command Line Apps
Applications
Mac preferences
- Dock
Web Applications
Inspiration
Icons and images

Important

Disclaimer: I have been always passionate about tools. I always loved experimenting until I can find the right tool for the right task. Being a Front-End Developer requires to know the tools that exist and choose the one that will perform the task faster and better. Based on hours of research and testing, I'm sharing all the applications I believe suits the best my work and daily workflow. It's a living MacOS configuration that, I hope, will also save you time for you to enjoy life more!This is a living document. I regularly update it with new tools and applications that I find useful.

Usage

I tried to keep the right order you should also follow to install packages and applications on your Mac (particularly the setup shell part)
Some tools are free and some are not. I'm lucky to have the ability to pay for licences and subscriptions. But if you are not in that situation, 1) You will find free alternatives in the "Alternatives" section of most of the tools, 2) you don't need a paid tool to do an amazing work. Just choose the best tool that suits you and your situation.

Where to find the right tool?

Product Hunt - By far the best and well-know website where you can find almost everything you need. You will sometimes find a badge that redirects to the Product Hunt page. Show some ❤️ to the makers!
AlternativeTo - I regularly use AlternativeTo but find it limited and not always accurate. The "ups" are most of the time not relevant or doesn't reflect what people prefer the most. It's a great place to start if you are looking for a list of alternatives though.
Slant and stackshare - Slant and Stackshare are kind of similar but Stackshare is more developer tools focused. It's a nice source of information to compare apps / web apps.

My Hardware

I regularly update all my hardware on a dedicated page on kit.co. Feel free to check it out!

Setup shell

Xcode 16

Xcode is required for some applications to run. So having Xcode updated just remove the issue of not being able to install some apps.

xcode-select --install

Homebrew - The Missing Package Manager for macOS

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

With Homebrew comes brew-cask which will allow to install applications with the command line.

Useful commands for Homebrew

brew update                         # Fetch latest version of homebrew and formula.
brew search {app name}              # Searches all known Casks for a partial or exact match.
brew install {package name}         # Install a package
brew info --cask {app name}           # Displays information about a given Cask
brew install --cask {app name}        # Install the given cask.
brew cleanup

Cakebrew (optional) - A GUI for Cask

brew install --cask cakebrew

ZSH - An alternative shell to Bash

brew install zsh

Add this to my ~/.zshrc

export HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS="--appdir=/Applications"

Oh My Zsh - Framework for managing your Zsh configuration

Verify that ZSH is correctly installed

zsh --version

Additionally, Zsh should be set as the default shell. Run echo $SHELL from a new terminal to confirm. Expected result: /usr/bin/zsh or similar

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Check if Oh My Zsh was correctly installed.

Command Line Apps

⚠️ Some of the following packages are not essential but highly recommended. Some applications may depend on the installation of these packages.

GNU Coreutils - An essential package with basic tools such as ls, rm...

brew install coreutils

Wget - To download data from the web and ftp, easier than curl

brew install wget

Tree - To create beautiful indented listing of files

brew install tree

tree -L 1 # to output only the root directories and files

Nmap - A powerful command line network discovery utility

brew install nmap

The Silver Searcher - Really fast code searching tool

brew install the_silver_searcher

jq - Lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor

brew install jq

Youtube-dl - A command line alternative to Airy

brew install youtube-dl

youtube-dl -f best 'link-of-your-own-youtube-video'

FFMPEG - To convert videos in multiple formats

brew install tesseract-lang && brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-fdk-aac --with-librsvg --with-libsoxr --with-libssh --with-tesseract --with-libvidstab --with-opencore-amr --with-openh264 --with-openjpeg --with-openssl --with-rubberband --with-webp --with-zeromq --with-zimg --with-srt --with-libvmaf --with-libxml2 --with-game-music-emu --with-libbluray --with-libbs2b --with-libcaca --with-libgsm --with-libmodplug [email protected] --with-rtmpdump --with-speex --with-two-lame --with-wavpack --with-xvid

More details here

blueutil - CLI for bluetooth on OSX

brew install blueutil

Speedtest-cli - The command line version of Speedtest.net

brew install speedtest-cli

Imagemagick - You can do almost everything to edit/convert images and pdfs

brew install imagemagick

DisplayPlacer - Programmatically reorganize your screens layout

brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer

Fonts - Installing some fonts

brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts

brew install --cask \
    font-fira-code \
    font-source-code-pro font-source-code-pro-for-powerline \
    font-source-sans-pro

MAS - Install App Store apps from the command line

brew install mas

mas search {app name} # To search for an app

Ruby (rbenv) - To manage multiple versions of Ruby

brew install rbenv ruby-build rbenv-default-gems rbenv-gemset
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc # Apply changes

rbenv install {version}

nvm - Easily manage your node versions

⚠️ (never use brew to install nvm)

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bash

Add these lines in the $HOME/.zshrc file:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

And these lines to automatically switch your node version based on the nvmrc file.

# place this after nvm initialization!
autoload -U add-zsh-hook
load-nvmrc() {
  local node_version="$(nvm version)"
  local nvmrc_path="$(nvm_find_nvmrc)"

  if [ -n "$nvmrc_path" ]; then
    local nvmrc_node_version=$(nvm version "$(cat "${nvmrc_path}")")

    if [ "$nvmrc_node_version" = "N/A" ]; then
      nvm install
    elif [ "$nvmrc_node_version" != "$node_version" ]; then
      nvm use
    fi
  elif [ "$node_version" != "$(nvm version default)" ]; then
    echo "Reverting to nvm default version"
    nvm use default
  fi
}
add-zsh-hook chpwd load-nvmrc
load-nvmrc

To default a specific node version: nvm alias default {version}

yarn - Fast, reliable, and secure dependency management.

brew install yarn

Act - Run Github Actions Locally

brew install nektos/tap/act

Git standup - Recall what you did on the last working day

brew install git-standup

Github CLI - Github on the command line

brew install github/gh/gh

Quick Look plugins

brew install --cask \
	qlcolorcode qlmarkdown qlprettypatch qlstephen \
	qlimagesize \
	quicklook-csv quicklook-json epubquicklook

Node packages to install globally

List all NPM package installed globally: npm list -g --depth 0

Netlify CLI - npm install netlify-cli -g
Gatsby CLI - npm install -g gatsby-cli
NPM-check - npm install -g npm-check
Yarn-check - npm install -g yarn-check
AWS Amplify CLI - npm install -g @aws-amplify/cli
Vercel CLI - npm i -g vercel
Create React App - npx create-react-app my-app
dotenv-cli - npm install -g dotenv-cli
Gitmoji - npm i -g gitmoji-cli
Release-it - npm install --global release-it
Plop - npm i -g plop

Applications

This is a complete list of all the applications I have on my personal and professional Mac (some apps are only on my personal computer).

🎁 Some applications can be bought individually or you can subscribe Setapp for a 7-day free trial to test multiple applications and decide the one you want to use!

Bare minimum

This is the list of the most essentials apps I would install if I was limited in the number of apps to have.

Little Snitch - Control incoming/outgoing network traffic

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Little Snitch is perfect to block outgoing or incoming connections.
When I'm on the go and using my mobile data, I usually block some heavy connections so I limit the amount of data spent.

What I ❤️

Easy to use and clean UI

What I 👎

I wish the confirmation window could save "my preferences", so I would not have to select "forever" every time.

CLI installation

brew install --cask little-snitch

1Password - Password manager

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Generate all of my passwords with it and keep everything in a secured and encrypted vault kept secure by my one master password.
No longer need to remember passwords and I now have a unique password for every website activating two factor authentication wherever possible.
All my applications licences are saved in 1Password

What I ❤️

1Password is a native MacOS app and it's probably one of the reason I choose to move away from LastPass in 2019.
Fast
I can save not just passwords but secure notes, bank accounts, licences...
Have a shared vault with my wife and being able to send her by Airdrop a new entry.

What I 👎

I loved that LastPass could recognize a form and automatically filled the inputs on a Website. 1Password requires you to 1) Click on the browser extension, 2) Click on "autofill"
Not sure if it will be one day possible, but unlocking 1Password with the Apple Watch would be awesome.

Extensions / plugins

Chrome extension - Update settings and set the shortcut to ⌃⇧P
Setting 1Password 1Click Bookmarks in Alfred

CLI installation

brew install --cask 1password

mas install 1333542190

Alfred 4 - Application Launcher, the best alternative for Spolight

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Open or switch quickly to any application
Text expansions: previously using TextExpander, I switched in using the snippet feature in Alfred.

What I ❤️

Unlimited possibilities to develop any workflows
Integration with 1Password
Price
Tons of options

What I 👎

I wish some features like "Snippets", would be more advanced to compete with tools like TextExpander or Typinator

List of workflows I use

This is the list of the workflows I used the most (files saved in Dropbox):

caniuse
DEVONThink Search - To search on my DEVONThink databases
F.lux - Change the settings of F.lux
Lorem Ipsum - To generate random Lorem Ipsum text
MDN Search - One of the best documentation
Snippets Lab - Search code snippets
Spotify Mini Player - Play, Pause, Next, the missing remote for Spotify
Things - Access my tasks from Alfred
Alfred Maestro - Search on Keyboard Maestro using Alfred
Terminal Finder - Type a command in Alfred and append it directly in the terminal
Copy URL - Copy the current browser tab URL and deliver it in the markdown format

CLI installation

brew install --cask alfred

iTerm2 - The replacement for terminal

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Because the native MacOS terminal is ugly and limited in terms of personalization and functionalities.

What I ❤️

The number of options
The possibility to create multiple profiles
Password manager

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --cask iterm2

Browsers

Google Chrome

Multiple profiles

Professional user
Personal user
Accessibility user

Chrome extensions

Feedly Mini - Easily save the RSS feed of the current website
Adblock Plus - Because I prefer to limit ads
1Password - 1Password companion
Tabs Mania - Extension I built to manage tabs
Toolbar Spacer 1 - I prefer to separate my extensions visually
Clip to DEVONthink - Clip the URL, text or screenshot the page and save it in DEVONthink
Save to Notion - Save a page, text or anything else to Notion
Add to Things 3 - Add the current URL to Things
Eagle - Save images to Eagle (love the drag and drop functionality that works with any image)
What Runs - Discover what runs a website
React Developer Tools - The required tool that help to inspect any React component
Grammarly - The life saving tool that help to fix writing errors
CSS Scan
Session Budy -
Keepa - Amazon price tracker: know when to buy and when to wait
VisBug - Open source web design debug tool for designers (and developers)
JSONView - To view JSON documents in your browser
Momentum - The classic and beautiful tab replacement

CLI installation

brew install --cask google-chrome

Google Chrome Canary

CLI installation

brew install --cask google-chrome-canary

Firefox

CLI installation

brew install --caskfirefox

Firefox Nightly

CLI installation

brew install --cask firefox-nightly

Microsoft Edge - The browser from Microsoft

CLI installation

brew install --cask microsoft-edge

Utilities

Bartender 3 - Organize menu bar icons

Screenshots

Pro
- Show view
- Hide view
Personal
- Show view
(Trailer, Mouseless, SnippetsLabs, PopClip, Magnet, Timing)
- Hide view
(f.lux, Hammerspoon, Dropbox, Google Backup, Airplay, Wifi)

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Keep your bar icons organize
Hide some non-essentials icons but make them still available

What I ❤️

Simple to use
Do the job

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --cask bartender

f.lux - Reduce eyes fatigue

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Makes it easy for my eyes

What I ❤️

Free
It works! Can stay longer front of my screen without tiredness or headaches.

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --cask flux

PopClip - Giving more power to my mouse

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Gives more power to your mouse and save you few clicks.

What I ❤️

Most of the apps I use in a daily basis have their extension
I can send any text I highlight in a page to DevonThink or Things

What I 👎

I wish I could disable it on some websites

List of the extensions I use (files saved on Dropbox)
- Past and Match Style
- Alfred
- Things 3
- DEVONthink 3
- Highlight
- SnippetLab
- Slack
- Bitly
- Terminal
- Fantastical 3
Excluded apps

CLI installation

brew install --cask popclip

Contexts - Window switcher

Shortcut used: ctrl + space

CLI installation

brew install --cask contexts

CleanShot X - Capture your Mac’s screen like a pro.

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Doing screenshots and quickly send it to my colleagues

What I ❤️

All the options you can imagine to have in a screenshot application.
Can easily rename a file before saving it
Scrolling capture
Ability to save as a GIF or a video format
The Quick Access that keeps the last screenshots as an overlay
The option to enable "Do Not Disturb" while recording

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --cask cleanshot

Alternatives

Mac (free): Kap
Windows (paid): Snagit

TextSniper - Extract text from images and videos

MeetingBar - Never miss a meeting again

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Show you your next meeting in your icon bar

What I ❤️

Free
Don't need to open an app or click anywhere to see my next meeting
Direct access to open Google meet, Zoom and most chat providers

What I 👎

0️⃣

Moom - Move and zoom windows

CleanMyMac X - To maintain my Mac as he was new

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Keep your Mac clean, up-to-date and find any big file (and much more)

What I ❤️

Uninstall properly applications, if you remove an app from the Application folder, it automatically suggest to remove app's dependency files
Many file management tools in one application
Space lens
Give me access to login items
Easily update apps

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --cask cleanmymac

Muzzle - Silence embarrassing notifications

Lungo - Prevent your Mac from going to sleep

Stream Deck - Defining actions on buttons

I have few profiles

CLI installation

brew install --cask elgato-stream-deck

Noizio - I love birds

I use to play different ambients when coding or working in general.
I also use Portal and Thunderspace on my iPhone.

CLI installation

brew install --casknoizio

mas install 928871589

Mouseless - Practice and learn new keyboard's shortcuts

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

To learn new shortcuts and use less my mouse

What I ❤️

Automatically suggest shortcuts based on the current app

What I 👎

I wish I could easily add my shortcuts
Personalize some shortcuts to work with my keyboard

TeamViewer - Remote control

I only use TeamViewer when I need to debug my Mom's computer (which is located in France).

Cardhop - Contacts lists management

I use Cardhop occasionally to ensure my contact list is up to date or to easily add missing information or missing birthday dates.
I synchronise my list of Contacts on iCloud and Gmail Contacts to avoid duplicates.

Automation

Keyboard Maestro - The most powerful option to automate EVERYTHING on Mac

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Automate your Mac

What I ❤️

Unlimited possibilities and automations
One of the reason I own Macs since few years

What I 👎

Not enough updates
You can find examples on Keyboard Maestro forum, but I wish to have more examples and content within the app.

Extensions

Alfred Maestro - Search on Keyboard Maestro using Alfred

CLI installation

brew install --cask keyboard-maestro

Hazel - Automate repetitive tasks in a few clicks

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Watch folders and create triggers to launch a specified action

What I ❤️

Simpler and faster than Keyboard Maestro to configure
Hability to import / export rules

What I 👎

Delay when I cancel a task. Hazel continue running even I disabled one of the rules. Need to "hard cancel" Hazel sometimes.

CLI installation

brew install --cask hazel

Raycast - Control tools with few keystrokes

CLI installation

brew install --cask raycast

Karabiner - Remapping my keyboards

BetterTouch Tool - Customize multiple devices on the Mac

CLI installation

brew install --caskbettertouchtool

Hammerspoon - OSX automation using Lua

CLI installation

brew install --caskhammerspoon

Tasks & time management

Fantastical - Calendar management

I use Fantastical to manage personal and professional events.
I always view my events from Week view. And shows 5 days with 16h shown for all days. This lets me have a perspective over what I have to do now.

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

An better alternative to the native calendar

What I ❤️

Integration with Reminders and Meetup
Lightweight
Easy to use
Lot of personalization options

What I 👎

I usually understand and don't bother too much with subscriptions, but $52 a year is too much in comparison with other apps I used. Around $35 would make more sense to me. I'm using the free version and it's enough for my needs.
It's clearly a "trap": when I access the premium details in the preferences, my only option is to click on "Start trial" or Force quit the app... I'm not fan of that.

CLI installation

brew install --caskfantastical

Things - Task manager

I used Todoist for few years but decided to try Things, and even I miss some options from Todoist, I'm loving using Things.

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Organize my todos and projects

What I ❤️

The UI
The integration with Shortcuts (iPad OS and iOS)
Integration with Reminders and a lot of other apps
Organize by area and projects

What I 👎

Would be awesome to integrate things with other apps through Zapier

CLI installation

brew install --caskthings

mas install 904280696

Timing - To record everything I do without manual action

CLI installation

brew install --casktiming

Storage & backup management

I've used Google One many years, but decide to use Dropbox instead. The two main reasons are: integration with most of the apps I used and the offline mode out of the box.

Dropbox - Online Cloud Backup

I've used Google Drive storage few years but use now mainly Dropbox because of the integration with a lot of Mac OS, iOs and iPad OS apps.

To DO after install

Select Apps and Screenshots folders to sync

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Backup storage

What I ❤️

Integration with a lot of apps
Offline / online possibility
Faster then Google Drive for the synchronization

What I 👎

I wish I could access the "Selective Sync" with fewer clicks

CLI installation

brew install --caskdropbox

Google Backup Up & Sync

To DO after install

Choose folders to sync

ForkLift - Dual pane file manager and file transfer client for macOS

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Copy-paste with queue and access remote folders

What I ❤️

The copy-paste queue that allow me to pause or resume
Access remote folders (FTP, Dropbox, S3, Backblaze B2)

What I 👎

Sometime crashes or keep "copying" but is actually blocked.

To DO after install

Sync favorites with Dropbox

CLI installation

brew install --caskforklift

mas install 412448059

The Unarchiver - The missing RAR and Zip unarchiver

CLI installation

brew install --caskthe-unarchiver

mas install 425424353

Hard Disk Manager - Maintain and manage my external hard drives

Sometimes, some external hard drives can gave me tough times. Hard Disk Manager saved me multiple times and it's always good to check the health of your hard drives time to time.

GoodSync - Backup/sync and file organization

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Synchronize files between local and remote storage

What I ❤️

Can sync between various remote storage (ex Drive <> Dropbox)

What I 👎

Crashed some times
Can take ages depending on how many files and where these are located (not really what I dislike, I just wishes things could be faster 😅)

Visual Studio Code - My preferred code editor

The best code editor (for my usage)

CLI installation

brew install --caskvisual-studio-code

Tower - GUI Git client

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Manage Git projects

What I ❤️

Tower gives me a more visual representation of all my Github repo. When I'm not using Tower, I use some aliases enabled in ZSH to speedup Git commands.

What I 👎

The last versions forced me to sometimes force quit the app, or had to face some crashes. This seems solved by now.

CLI installation

brew install --casktower

Diffmerge - Compare and merge files

CLI installation

brew install --caskdiffmerge

SnippetsLabs - Code snippets manager

I store all my code snippets

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Manage code snippets

What I ❤️

No subscription, price
Works with Alfred extension and Poplip extension
Bar icon access
iCloud synchronization

What I 👎

No recent updates
Doesn't support syntax highlighting (huge issue for me)

Other options

Extensions / plugins

Possible alternatives (to be tested)

Snipper

CLI installation

mas install 1006087419

Trailer - Github Notifications

Proxyman - Best Web Debugging Proxy for MacOS

I found Proxyman when struggling making Charles working on my Mac. Proxyman make it really easy to replace any file by a local version. Useful sometimes to debug production.

Paw - Beautiful HTTP client for Mac

https://paw.cloud/extensions/

CLI installation

brew install --caskpaw

TablePlus - The best GUI for relational databases

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

To manage relational databases

What I ❤️

The number of databases supported
The clean UI interface
Support for MongoDB (more coming soon)
Support for Mac and Windows

What I 👎

0️⃣

CLI installation

brew install --casktableplus

Postman - A free alternative to Paw

Mockoon - Has never been so easy to create a mock server

CLI installation

brew install --caskmockoon

Docker - Containerize everything!

CLI installation

brew install docker

brew install --caskdocker-toolbox

Altair GraphQL Client - Beautiful GraphQL Client

CLI installation

brew install --caskaltair-graphql-client

Screaming Frog SEO Spider - Website crawler to test SEO issues

Poedit - Translations made easy

CLI installation

brew install --caskpoedit

SwitchHosts! - Hosts management & switching

CLI installation

brew install --caskswitchhosts

Core Shell - Full featured terminal with OpenSSH support

VirtualBox - In case I need to debug on Windows

Smart JSON Editor - JSON data manipulation for Mac

Free alternative Jayson

CLI installation

mas install 1268962404

Carbonize - Generate beautiful code snippets

CodeKit - Gulp, Grunt, Pug are on a boat

CodeKit was one of the best and first software that would convert Sass to CSS. A lot of improvements were made since then. I use it when I'm lazy and don't want to configure Gulp, ParcelJS or Webpack.

Haskell - Haskell for Mac IDE

CLI installation

mas install Haskell

Reading & Writing

Reeder - To stay informed

I use Feedly to store all my RSS feeds and synchronize with Reeder.
I like to activate the Bionic Reading setting, which speed up my reading.
DEVONthink 3 and Things are activated in the "Actions and Sharing" settings.

CLI installation

mas install 880001334

Scapple - Brain, ideas and connections

When I want to brainstorm without any structure, Scapple is the first tool I use in my workflow.
It allows me to put all words / ideas I can think of and then start establishing relationships.
When I have a better vision or want to be more organize, I usually switch in using MindNode.

CLI installation

brew install --caskscapple

mas install 568020055

MindNode - Interactive Mind Mapping

What for?

To help organization thoughts and ideas

What I ❤️

Easy to use
Nice UI and integration with MacOS / iOS

What I 👎

The mobile application cost
No enough inovations

CLI installation

brew install --caskmindnode-pro

mas install 1289197285

Notion - Notes, docs, knowledge base and more, in one place

CLI installation

brew install --casknotion

DEVONthink - To collect, organize and edit all my documents and articles

I used Evernote for years, but the lack of new features I decided to use DEVONthink and have no regrets.

Extensions / plugins

CLI installation

brew install --caskdevonthink

DEVONagent Pro - Search the web and filter the results

I use DEVONagent Pro every-time I need to do research to prepare a presentation, write an article or produce some sort of content.

MWeb - A powerful Markdown Editor

I've used Marked 2, Ulysses and Boostnode but MWeb is the one app I've enjoy the most using.

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Markdown Editor

What I ❤️

The dual panel with Markdown in one side and the preview in the other
Beautiful themes

What I 👎

No recent updates
The scroll for the Editor and preview panel is usually not synchronized
No possibility to deactivate the synchronized scroll

Possible alternatives

CLI installation

mas install 1403919533

Scrivener - One day I want to be a writer

Scrivener is the perfect tool to write any book.
I've used Scrivener in the past to work on the outline for a video course.
I'm planning in using it more and maybe start writing small non-fictional ebooks soon.

CLI installation

brew install --caskscrivener

mas install 1310686187

Apple Keynote - A better alternative to Powerpoint

Communication

Slack - Work chat and more

Workspaces

Dias testing (my own Slack workspace to test apps and webhooks)
Contentful Community
A11y
TorontoJS
FEDs
Civic Tech Toronto

brew install cask slack

mas install 803453959

Airmail - My favorite email client

I've been using Airmail since I fully work on MacOS.
I tried Spark for few days but I didn't feel it was a big win in comparison to Airmail.
Like many people, I approach my emails tasks in GTD style, trying to always be close to zero emails in my inbox.

Filters and triage

I used "filters" on Gmail to organize most of my emails (especially newsletters, bills, recurring emails...). I wish Gmail would have an easiest way to create these filters.

CLI installation

brew install --caskairmail

mas install 918858936

Social Media

I have a strict rule in regards to social apps on my professional Mac. I usually don't have any social / communication app that is not directly related to work (only Slack). These apps are mostly on my personal MacBook.

Signal - Signal on Mac

Messenger - Facebook Messenger but on Mac

WhatsApp - WhatsApp on Mac

Discord - Popular chat platform amount developers and companies

I use mostly Discord to talk with HTMLHint contributors and other platforms.

Skype

Skype was my to-go chat app for years, but since Google Meet, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, I only use with 2-3 people that are not on these platforms.

CLI installation

brew install --caskskype

Design & Web Design

I'm not a Web Designer / Designer, but I love studying Photography, UI and UX. I try to practice as much as I can using the following applications.

Eagle - Organize my design library

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

To manage all my media files (images, PSD, sketch files...)

What I ❤️

Backup on Dropbox
Recent updates
Chrome extension which save any image with a simple drag and drop
Fast
Lot of options

What I 👎

0️⃣

Extensions / plugins

Eagle Chrome extension

Rightfont 5 - The best font manager for Mac

By far, the best font manager that supports my library of more than 80 000 font files.

IconJar - Best icon manager

All my icons are stored on IconJar
I could also used Eagle to store these, but I prefer to have a dedicated software to manage all icon's formats.

Adobe Creative Cloud

List of Adobe Softwares I most often use
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Premiere Rush
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Adobe Audition
- Adobe Lightroom Classic
- Adobe Acrobat
- ...

CLI installation

brew install --caskadobe-creative-cloud

Figma

I'm planning in using more Figma as I don't want to renew Sketch in regards to my real usage.

CLI installation

brew install --caskfigma

Sketch

Still a reference (vs Adobe XD and Figma) but I didn't renew my licence in 2019. Planning in using Figma instead when needed.

CLI installation

brew install --casksketch

Sketchpacks

To manage plugins for Sketch

Zeplin

Used Zeplin mostly at work. I remember when it first came out. A lot of updates and improvements since.

ColorSnapper2 - Collect, organize and share colors

My go-to color-picker.

CLI installation

brew install --caskcolorsnapper

Alternatives

I've used Sip in the past but recently switched to ColorSnapper2 because no subscription.

CLI installation

brew install --casksip

ImageOptim - Optimize images

CLI installation

brew install --caskimageoptim

Audio & Video production

VLC - A Media player built by my compatriots

It's not because it was build by French people that I love this app!

Loopback - Cable-free audio routing for Mac

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

When you want to combine different audio sources, essential if you do podcasts

What I ❤️

Easy to use
Works perfectly

What I 👎

Price

Audio Hijack - Record any audio

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎

What for?

Record any source audio, I use to record podcasts

What I ❤️

With Loopback, Audio Hijack transforms your Mac in a real studio
Build-in effects (like Dehum and band EQ)

What I 👎

0️⃣

Ecamm Live - The simplest tool for doing live streaming on Facebook / Youtube

Streamlabs OBS - The best (and free) streaming app

Screenflow 9 - Screen recording and editing like a pro

Screenflow doesn't recommend to store files on Dropbox, so I usually store the files on Dropbox but move them to my local hard drive if I want to edit these. No problem until today.

Power Prompter -

Twitch - The well-known streaming platform

Miscellaneous

KeyKey - A minimalist touch typing tutor for Mac

Type Fu - Typing training

The only typing program that has a "Code" practice section

Typesy - When I want to compete with my wife

GPG Suite - Encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify files or messages.

I use this also for signing my commits.

Hue Sync - Sync my lights with audio / video files

CLI installation

brew install --cask

Mac preferences

Dock

Add spaces to my dock

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock

Dock screenshot

Web Applications

Invision
Namecheap - The best domain registrar
StatusCake - To keep an eye on your website uptime
Themer.dev - To generate themes (editors, terminals, wallpapers, and more) with ease
Netlify
codeimg - To easily create social media banners
Gradient Magic - Free gallery of CSS Gradients

Inspiration

Heavily inspired by the works from:

Icons and images

All logos and brand/applications names are registered and below to their owners.

Icons made by Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com

Icons made by Flat Icons from www.flaticon.com

Icons made by prettycons from www.flaticon.com

Licence

MIT

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 28 Commits
.github		.github
media		media
.gitignore		.gitignore
.markdownlint.json		.markdownlint.json
.prettierrc		.prettierrc
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
_config.yml		_config.yml
lychee.toml		lychee.toml
package.json		package.json

License

thedaviddias/mac-os-setup-applications

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

👾 My Mac OS setup and applications

Table of content

Usage

Where to find the right tool?

My Hardware

Setup shell

Xcode 16

Homebrew - The Missing Package Manager for macOS

Useful commands for Homebrew

Cakebrew (optional) - A GUI for Cask

ZSH - An alternative shell to Bash

Oh My Zsh - Framework for managing your Zsh configuration

Command Line Apps

GNU Coreutils - An essential package with basic tools such as ls, rm...

Wget - To download data from the web and ftp, easier than curl

Tree - To create beautiful indented listing of files

Nmap - A powerful command line network discovery utility

The Silver Searcher - Really fast code searching tool

jq - Lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor

Youtube-dl - A command line alternative to Airy

FFMPEG - To convert videos in multiple formats

blueutil - CLI for bluetooth on OSX

Speedtest-cli - The command line version of Speedtest.net

Imagemagick - You can do almost everything to edit/convert images and pdfs

DisplayPlacer - Programmatically reorganize your screens layout

Fonts - Installing some fonts

MAS - Install App Store apps from the command line

Ruby (rbenv) - To manage multiple versions of Ruby

nvm - Easily manage your node versions

yarn - Fast, reliable, and secure dependency management.

Act - Run Github Actions Locally

Git standup - Recall what you did on the last working day

Github CLI - Github on the command line

Quick Look plugins

Node packages to install globally

Applications

Bare minimum

Little Snitch - Control incoming/outgoing network traffic

What for?

What I ❤️

What I 👎

CLI installation

1Password - Password manager

What for?

What I ❤️

What I 👎

Extensions / plugins

CLI installation

Alfred 4 - Application Launcher, the best alternative for Spolight

What for?

What I ❤️

What I 👎

List of workflows I use

CLI installation

iTerm2 - The replacement for terminal

What for?

What I ❤️

What I 👎

CLI installation

Browsers

Google Chrome

Chrome extensions

CLI installation

Google Chrome Canary

CLI installation

Firefox

CLI installation

Firefox Nightly

CLI installation

Microsoft Edge - The browser from Microsoft

CLI installation

Utilities

Bartender 3 - Organize menu bar icons

Screenshots