Uses

List of apps & extensions I use on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

🎵 Media Playback & Editing

🌐 Web Browsers

💻 Code Editors, IDEs, Development Utilities

  • ⭐ Plan: Coding agent app built around commenting, worktrees & workflows. PS: I built this, read more
  • Zed: Quick text edits
  • Httpie: API Testing
  • ⭐ DBngin: Local Database Running
  • ⭐ Table pro: Database Management
  • OrbStack: Docker Management

📕 PDF Reading & Note-Taking

  • Uxie: PDF reader webapp with AI features, annotations, collaboration, PS: I built this app. It's free and open-source, read more
  • Zotero: Pdf Annotations with export
  • Highlights: Pdf Annotations with export
  • PDF Expert: Pdf Editing, Annotations
  • Apple Notes: Quick Notes
  • Notion: Long-form Writing

🤖 AI & Productivity

  • LM Studio: Local LLM Running
  • ⭐ Fluid Voice, Spokenly: Local Audio-to-Text
  • ⭐ LLM Proxy: Local endpoint that runs other apps off my claude code subscription. PS: I built this, read more
  • ⭐ Anarlog: AI-powered meeting note-taker, running off LLM Proxy for both speech-to-text & summaries (used Granola before this, really good app but paid)

🛠 System Utilities

  • ⭐ Raycast: Read More
  • ⭐ CleanShotX: Screenshots
  • ⭐ Tab: Window Switching. PS: I built this (used AltTab before it went paid)
    Incase you're interested, my setup:

    • ⌘ + tab shows all the non-minimized apps

    • ⌥ + tab shows everything

    so i just minimize (⌘ + m) whatever i don't want around at the moment, and switching stays dead simple.
  • Thaw: Menu Bar Manager
  • Command X: Cut/Paste Files in Finder
  • ⭐ Peek: Finder File Previews
  • ⭐ Pure Paste: Link Tracking Removal
  • Lookaway: Eye Strain Prevention
  • ⭐ Clop: Drag and Drop File Compression
  • ⭐ Klack: Keyboard Sounds
  • ⭐ Alcove: Dynamic Island-like UI
  • Cling: File fuzzy search
  • ⭐ Mos: Reverse scroll direction & smooth scrolling for mouse

🖼 Design & Editing

🔒 Security & Privacy

📦 Miscellaneous

📱 iPad/iOS Specific

  • ⭐ Videolite: Ad-free (with Adguard DNS) YouTube Client
  • Freenotes: Handwritten notes & PDF Markup

🌐 Browser Extensions

🛠 Package Management

Raycast

Cause it deserves a section of its own and I clearly love yapping about it :)

Raycast is one of those apps I didn’t like at first. I was happy with Alfred, and Raycast's root search wouldn't search files (update: they fixed this in the latest v, soo good), so finding a folder took multiple clicks. I'd uninstall it, hear good things about it on Reddit, give it another shot, get annoyed, & delete it. That cycle repeated a few times before it finally stuck.

What changed was spending time in the extension store. Raycast is much more than a launcher, every small annoyance either already had an extension, or a clean way to build one myself.

You can tell a lot of care went into the details. In the clipboard manager, pressing cmd + k shows extra actions like “Send to AI Chat” or “Save as snippet”. Small thing, but incredibly thoughtful.

Some things I use daily through Raycast:

  • open projects directly in Cursor
  • run bash scripts with keyboard shortcuts
  • AI text workflows with diff and instant insert (was looking for a dedicated app for this, turns out Raycast does it for free (update: they moved this behind the pro plan :/ ) with BYOK)
  • caffeinate instead of amphetamine
  • adding tasks / calendar scheduling
  • color picker
  • search tabs across spaces in Arc
  • snippets & clipboard history
  • emoji picker that’s actually fast (w semantic search)
  • much better dictionary UX
  • notes that hide during screen sharing
  • window management
  • kill process
  • search files
  • confetti 🎊
One of my AI workflows with raycast

& most apps I already used had a Raycast extension, often nicer to use that way. None of these are big features on their own, but together they save a lot of time.

It took a while to grow on me, i bounced off it more than once, but once it clicked, it stuck. Now it's just part of how I use my Mac, & easily the first app I install on a new machine.



⭐: can't live w.o

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