5 Mac apps to maximize your productivity

These under-the-radar tools revolutionized my workflow

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In this post, I will share the 5 Mac apps I use to maximize my productivity, save time, and reduce clutter.

Since switching from PC to Mac a decade ago, I found that MacBooks are great for makers and entrepreneurs. I enjoy the stability, simplicity, and high-quality software. My Mac makes me more productive, and I can spend more time building my products and business.

While Macs are pretty great out-of-the-box, with the right apps, you can turn your Mac into a lean and mean productivity machine.

Over the years, I have found a few tools that help me maximize my productivity and accomplish more in less time.

Here are the 5 Mac apps that I use to boost my productivity, I suggest you give them a try:

1. Commander One

Commander One is a file manager for Mac.

While Mac’s built-in Finder is fairly capable, it’s not easy to navigate with the keyboard, and things get even more messy when you have to open multiple Finder windows to move files around.

Commander One has a two-panel display (left and right), which lets you easily move files around. The user interface is inspired by the Norton Commander that was used in the 90’s and by Total Commander for Windows that came later on.

Some of my favorite features of Commander One include:

• Two-panel display, each pane can display a different folder and be customized

• Phenomenal keyboard navigation with configurable hotkeys to copy or move files, open a file in my favorite text editor, and more.

• Bookmarking folders you visit frequently for quick access

• The detailed display, which includes each file’s name, extension, size, and date

• Configurable theme: I set mine to have a nice dark mode, and I use the Menlo monospace font

• You can easily open a Terminal window in any folder

I use Command One daily to access my downloads, documents, and files, and it’s an essential part of my GTD Weekly Review, helping me organize the files that I pile up.

2. Bartender

I like the Mac’s menu bar. Unfortunately, many applications nowadays have a menu bar icon, making the right area of your menu bar crowded, and making it hard to find the few apps you use frequently.

Bartender for Mac allows you to hide some menu bar icons and keep others. You can always access all of your icons with a click or a hover.

It’s highly customizable. For example, I set it to hide the Battery icon when my Mac is connected to a power source, but to show it when it’s battery-powered. I also set it to hide the Time Machine icon, unless it’s currently running a backup.

Using Bartender declutters your menu bar, hiding unnecessary distractions and allowing you to focus on the apps that you actively use.

3. Moom

One thing that is severely lacking on Macs is proper window management.
It takes too much effort to place a couple of windows right next to each other, or align multiple windows in a certain way.

With Moom, you can move windows around with a keyboard shortcut or mouse click.

The best part is that you can set up custom window sizes and positions and assign them a keyboard shortcut.

I set up several custom layouts, so with a single keyboard shortcut, I can:

• Move and resize a window to fill the right half of the screen

• Move and resize a window to fill the left half of the screen

• Move a window to the top center, next to my webcam - I use this for Zoom

• Center a window onscreen and make it medium-width - optimal for reading

With Moom, I use keyboard shortcuts to resize and move windows around all day, and it’s so much easier than dragging and resizing windows with the mouse.

4. Raycast

Raycast is a launcher for Mac that helps you quickly launch and control applications, find files, and perform everyday tasks.

It aims to be a more powerful and flexible alternative to Mac’s Spotlight (Cmd+Space).

Previously, I tried to use Alfred and it didn’t stick, but with the amount of hype around Raycast, I had to check it out. I started using Raycast recently, and I love it so far.

Here are my favorite features:

• Quickly search and launch applications, files, and folders on your Mac

• 1,000+ extensions: Raycast has a store with many extensions that augment it with additional functionality. Here are some of my favorite ones:

  • ChatGPT - ask GPT anything with a few keystrokes (requires API key)

  • Spotify Player - quickly search, play, and control music

  • Google Translate - translate between languages quickly

  • Notion - search and navigate to my Notion pages with ease

  • There are extensions for many common work tools, including Gmail, Google Drive, GitHub, Visual Studio, Jura, etc.

• Clipboard history - so you never lose things you had in your clipboard

• Great emoji search and picker

• Quick built-in calculator

• Convenient keyboard navigation: just hit Enter to paste an emoji or a calculation result, hit Esc to navigate back to the previous screen

The more Raycast extensions I install, the more I use it to perform simple tasks without losing focus!

5. CleanShot X

I have a small confession: I take screenshots on a daily basis. I use screenshots for product, marketing, and design work, record-keeping, and collaboration.

I’ve tried several screenshot tools over the years, such as Skitch and Shottr. As of today, CleanShot is my favorite screenshot tool for Mac, since it packs some pretty powerful features:

• Easily annotate your screenshots with text, arrows, lines, and rectangles

• Retract sensitive data with a blur / pixelated / blackout effect

• Capture scrollable pages and do video screen recording

• Add a beautiful background to your screenshots, which is great for sharing on your social media or blog.

• Each one of the above features is fairly customizable

While there are many good screenshot tools, I found CleanShotX to be the most powerful, while still offering an intuitive user interface.

What about you? Which apps do you use to boost your productivity?
Please comment below and let me know!

Until next time,
- Lior

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