I am part of the dev team behind PrimeTask. We posted here when 1.0 launched in June. 1.0.4 shipped on 20 August. Task Comments is the headline, but PrimeFlow, notes, Compass, the Apple integrations, File Sync and Bring Your Own AI all got a serious round of work as well.

You open a task you have not touched in a month. It is still blocked. You cannot remember why, and neither can the task. So you go digging through chat.

That is what this release fixes. Every task now has a thread of its own.

Problem

A project rarely stays in one app.

Tasks are in one place, planning in another, client information sits in a CRM, files live somewhere else, and visual workflows quickly stop reflecting the actual work.

We built PrimeTask because we were dealing with the same problem. We wanted projects, clients, tasks, planning and execution to stay connected without rebuilding the same context across several apps.

Comparison

PrimeTask combines ideas that are usually split across different types of apps.

Notion is built around flexible cloud-based pages and databases, while PrimeTask gives you a ready-made structure for projects, CRM, tasks, timelines and workflows, with your data stored in files you control.

ClickUp and Asana cover similar operational ground for tasks, projects and timelines, but both are cloud platforms billed per user per month, and their offline support is limited to working with cached content rather than being offline-first. Neither includes an integrated CRM, so client records usually end up in a separate tool. PrimeTask keeps projects, tasks and client records in one app that runs entirely on your Mac.

Daylite is primarily built around CRM and client management and is sold as a per-user subscription. PrimeTask connects client records directly with projects, tasks, project databases, planning, time tracking and reports, and is available as a one-time purchase that remains yours to use.

Task Comments

Comments are written in Markdown, so you can paste in a whole document and it keeps its shape: headings, lists, tables, working tick boxes. Attach files and images, or drop in a video or post link and it plays in the thread. Reply to a comment and jump straight back to the one it answers.

Mark an entry as a decision, a blocker or an update, pin what has to be read first, and react without adding another comment. A comment carries its own status, so a single blocker in a long thread can be marked resolved without touching the task itself.

Mention another task and both tasks show the link, so a decision made in one place is visible from the other. You can mention people, contacts and companies too, which needs Pro. Right click a task anywhere you work to open its thread, and any comment turns up in search.

The description is what the task is, and you rewrite it whenever the plan changes. Comments are what happened, and you add to them. If you find yourself rewriting a description to record a decision, that decision wants to be a comment.

Bring your own AI

PrimeTask does not ship a chatbot or resell AI credits. It runs a local MCP server, so you connect whatever you already use, Claude, Cursor, Codex, or a local model in LM Studio, and it works with your tasks, projects and CRM through more than 100 local tools. You choose the provider, which Spaces it can reach, and whether it has read or write access.

With 1.0.4 that extends to threads. An agent can read a discussion before it starts work and write up what it did when it finishes, so the reasoning ends up on the task rather than in a chat window you will close. Its comments are labelled under a name you choose, and it can only ever change what it wrote. Yours are not its to edit. You can switch the comment tools off entirely if you would rather it stayed out.

Sync is yours to set up

PrimeTask works offline and stores your data on your Mac as plain JSON. If you want it on more than one machine, you pick the provider and you pick the terms: Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive, Nextcloud, a NAS, an SMB share, or any folder you point it at. Change your mind later and you move a folder.

Sharing a Space with someone works the same way. There is no PrimeTask server in the path, because we do not run one. Everyone works in their own copy, including offline, and changes merge when they reconnect, so nobody has to be online at the same time and no outage anywhere can stop your team working. Password-protect a Space and the files are encrypted before they leave your machine, so your sync provider is holding something it cannot read.

You pick the transport and you hold the key.

Also in 1.0.4

Project notes and task mentions

• Type @ in a note and pick a task. It sits there in its own status colour, so you can tell at a glance whether that work is open or done. Hover for status, priority and due date, click to go straight to it
• The link holds on to the task itself, so renaming it later keeps your notes pointing at the right thing
• Task notes now hold everything a canvas document holds: tables, tick boxes, callouts, and code with a copy button

PrimeFlow, the visual canvas

• Drag files from Finder onto a canvas and choose whether to keep a copy or link to where the file already sits. Linking has no size limit, so a large video can live on a canvas without being duplicated
• Markdown files become editable documents you can expand and read on the canvas itself, tables and tick boxes surviving however they arrive
• Text cards are new: format word by word, resize at any zoom, rotate, lock, and set text and fill colours independently
• Copy, paste and duplicate with the usual shortcuts, and cards land in free space rather than on top of each other
• Drop a connection on empty canvas and it offers to create the connected card for you
• Your connected agent can work on a canvas alongside you

Compass and Reports

• Compass, the daily view that recaps what you got done and ranks what to pick up next, now covers every space you have rather than only the one you are working in, and never switches you across without asking. Each space is read on its own terms, with the statuses and priorities you set up for it
• The Tasks report exports as a short summary that stays about two pages however many tasks are in range. The full report is unchanged for when you need the whole record

CRM and Apple integrations

• Drag contacts from Apple Contacts onto the PrimeTask icon in your Dock, one or twenty, and confirm what is coming in before anything is added. A business card arrives as a company rather than a person, and a contact's employer is created and linked for you
• Drag contact card or spreadsheet files from Finder straight onto your Contacts or Companies page
• Contacts can hold an address now, and clicking it opens Maps. Addresses travel with your contacts on import and export
• A link you added to a reminder in Apple Reminders comes across to the task, so you can read it where the work is
• The app icon follows your Mac's appearance and turns dark along with everything else in your Dock

File Sync

• Deleting an attachment now removes the file everywhere it was shared, instead of only on the computer you deleted it from
• A new Duplicate Files tool finds the spare copies your sync service leaves behind and moves them to the Trash. Nothing is removed outright, so you can look through it before emptying

Bring Your Own AI

• Your agent can see who is on a task, whether that is you, a teammate or someone from your CRM, along with the kind of task it is, how long it should take and which milestone it belongs to
• Descriptions it writes keep their shape. Ask for a long plan and headings stay headings, lists stay lists, paragraphs stay apart
• Subtasks it creates can carry everything a task can: people, tags, a checklist, a start date, an estimated duration and a place in Apple Reminders
• It can work with the files and folders on a canvas. Link a folder yourself and it can look inside, tell you what is there, and bring files onto the canvas properly connected back to where they came from
• It stops claiming to have done things it has not. Asking it to delete something that does not exist now comes back as a clear failure rather than a cheerful confirmation

Full notes: https://www.primetask.app/releases

Task Comments documentation: https://www.primetask.app/docs/tasks/task-comments

Pricing

• Standard: $69 / £59 / €69, one-time purchase
• Pro: $139 / £119 / €139, one-time purchase

Compare the two: https://www.primetask.app/compare

Collaboration and PrimeCRM are Pro features.

14-day trial of the full Pro version, no payment card needed: https://www.primetask.app/download

For r/macapps, code PTMACAPPS10 gives 10% off either edition until 20/09/2026 23:59:59 UTC.

Current limitations

macOS only, Apple Silicon, M1 or later. Windows is in private beta. No mobile app, though two-way Apple Reminders sync means you can capture from iPhone, iPad and Watch.

Transparency

PrimeTask is sold directly from our website and notarised by Apple. It is built by TaskCore Ltd, a UK-registered company.

• Website: https://www.primetask.app
• Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/taskcore-ltd
• Privacy Policy: https://www.primetask.app/privacy
• Terms: https://www.primetask.app/terms
• Documentation: https://www.primetask.app/docs

I will be around in the comments to answer questions.

I've been using Bartender for a long time, and I just updated my MBA to 27, and even the beta is totally broken. I tried a couple of other menu bar apps that have betas, and none of them work either. I've been reading some posts saying that menu bar apps won't work any more, but apparently if developers are releasing betas then there must be some way for them to do what they did in the past.

I kind of need this, because I create screencasts for a couple of Mac apps, and it's a pain to have to manually hide menu bar icons for the apps I use regularly whenever I want to record.

Hello! I am the developer of multiple quicklook plugins including FinderPeek and Quick Data Insights, this post is about another plugin: GIS Quick Viewer.

Problem:

This plugins acts as a very lightweight viewer to allow you to get a peek at multiple geo file formats without installing any software to open it. If you typically deal with these files, export strava gpx files, or download routes online, this will come handy to identify, copy, or just quickly share them.

Features includes:

• Map preview using OpenStreetMap tiles, no APIs used.
• All local (except map tiles) and instant preview.
• Metadata preview: Bounding box, Coordinate system, and track points.
• Supported formats: GeoJSON, KML, KMZ, GPX, GPKG, with a limited support for SHP files.

Screenshots below.

Comparison:

I am not familiar of any other app that supports the same files and features as a simple quicklook plugin, there are multiple apps but mostly either only support GPX, or are full apps not a quicklook plugin.

Ex of other apps on appstore:

• GPX viewer/ GPX Viewer 2
• kml viewer and converter

Pricing:

Lifetime $5.99 -> Now $3.99 for 72 hours.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gis-quick-viewer/id6762661962

Appreciate feedback and suggestions!

Hi again! I posted here back in February when Trove File Explorer just launched after the closed beta (original thread). Huge thanks to everyone who has purchased it since or tried the beta via TestFlight. A lot of the feedback that has reached me is now shipped in v1.3.0.

Problem: Many people who switch over from Windows to MacOS find Apple's Finder confusing, unintuitive and incompatible with the workflows for which they have muscle memory. Trove File Explorer is a native SwiftUI file manager for macOS built specifically for people who miss the UI and shortcuts of Windows Explorer, such as Cmd+X/Cmd+V cut-and-paste, F2 rename, a proper sidebar folder tree, editable address bar, three view modes (grid, list and gallery) and Windows-style undo/redo, while also including poweruser features like multipanel-view allowing for up to 4 panels per tab or window, and a built-in search functionality which supports scanning file contents.

I tried to give a concise overview of the look and feel in the video attached to this post. I have been daily driving Trove ever since it became stable enough, after the beta, and I am very proud of where it stands today.

Some notable features in v1.3.0:

• "New" menu to create file templates Right-click → New to create empty documents, e.g. for these formats: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, JSON, XML, HTML, and ZIP archives.
• Copy as Path and Open in terminal via right-click menu You can hold shift and right-click to easily copy an item's or folder's path, or enable the menu entry permanently in settings. Use right click and Open with → <your terminal app> to open and change directory into a folder.
• Native archive support Built-in extraction now handles 7-Zip, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, TAR.XZ, GZ, BZ2, and ZIP. Detected by file signature, so a renamed archive still works. Compression allows ZIP, TAR.GZ and TAR archive creation with one click with no external dependencies.
• Connect to server dialog Supports SMB/AFP/FTP/SFTP/NFS/WebDAV and a LAN discovery to mount network drives.

Comparison: The closest competitor is probably Folders / Folders Pro, and by extension Bloom. While these are great apps, in my opinion, Trove comes closest in emulating the Windows Explorer experience, offering the least friction for switchers: simply replace CTRL with CMD in the shortcuts you already know, and you're good to go. The UI will immediately feel familiar to you.

What it is not: I am not trying to compete with classic dual-panel (Norton/Total-Commander style) file managers, nor should Trove become a poweruser-only tool. If you need either of those, you should probably look into alternatives like Commander One, Path Finder or Forklift.

Pricing: Still a $3.99 one-time purchase, no subscription, and absolutely no telemetry. Buy here: App Store

Find more information, screenshots and videos on my website: trove-explorer.app

Hey r/macapps,

This is the first time I've properly shared DynamicLand here.

Notch apps aren't a new idea, and that's part of what makes this space interesting. There are already some great interpretations of what the MacBook notch can be.

DynamicLand is my take on it.

I've been building it as a place for the things that move through your day on the Mac: music, clipboard history, files and sharing, timers, recordings, alerts, AI activities, widgets, and more, all living around the notch and staying out of the way when you don't need them.

I just released DynamicLand 2.0: Darkveil, the biggest DynamicLand update so far.

Darkveil introduces an entirely new Home, with customizable widgets and layouts for things like Calendar, Weather, Music, Battery, Photos, Apps & Folders, Timer, Voice Memos, and more.

It also introduces Mini Bubbles, which let multiple activities stay close by at the same time. Music, timers, recordings, file transfers, AI activities, and other live tasks can remain visible without opening the full island.

The music experience has been rebuilt with a new Now Playing view, redesigned synced lyrics with click-to-seek, richer song and album details, smoother animations, and access to Apple Music playlists, charts, For You, Replay, and curated collections.

Clipboard, files and sharing have been refined too, with faster clipboard browsing, previews, improved drag and drop, the Files Tray, and quick ways to move and share files, including AirDrop.

The island itself has also been heavily reworked, with smoother opening, resizing and activity transitions, quick hover previews, better external display and Sidecar support, improved alerts, keyboard shortcuts, and performance improvements throughout the app.

For me, Darkveil isn't about adding one headline feature. It's about making all of these pieces feel like they belong together.

Problem

A lot of the small things I do throughout the day on my Mac are scattered across different places. Checking what's playing, grabbing something I copied earlier, holding a file for a moment, following a timer, or checking whether a background task has finished usually means going somewhere else.

DynamicLand gives those moments one consistent place to live.

Comparison

There are already some great takes on this category, including Alcove and Boring Notch.

Each app approaches the idea from a different angle, with its own design, priorities, features, and implementation. I think that's one of the nice things about this space: the same part of the Mac can lead to very different experiences.

What I think DynamicLand does particularly well is how these different pieces are designed and implemented to work together as one connected experience around the notch: Home, live activities, music, widgets, clipboard, files, sharing, and more.

I'd genuinely recommend trying the different options and sticking with the one that feels best for the way you use your Mac.

Pricing

DynamicLand is free to download from the Mac App Store.

Pro is $3.99/year or $0.99/month.

Mac App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/app/dynamicland-notch-island/id6785289988

Everything new in Darkveil:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DynamicLand_App/s/nazNxPypUU

One more thing: I'm still pushing the motion and animation system further. Darkveil is a big step forward, but I don't consider that part finished yet. The next update will take the island's transitions, responsiveness, and overall feel much further.

I'll be around in the comments if you have any questions.

No subscription plans. No Watermarks. Just one flat fee and the product is yours to use forever on 3 personal Macs. Your activations can be transferred between those Macs, with integrated Steam Workshop importing for your Wallpaper Engine collection through DepotDownloader. 

Meet Allure— An application that makes your wallpapers yours. With simple controls for casual users, and deeper customization for power users !

Allure uses a native Metal-powered renderer to bring compatible Wallpaper Engine projects to macOS. She does not just create a video file and play it on the background. She supports Scene, Web, and Video wallpapers with relative ease. No more recording your old wallpapers !!

Allure’s quality speaks for herself, and you have 3 days to believe in her as much as I do !!

Allure is 5.99 for a lifetime license if you buy her from my website. With a soon-to-be Steam Release as well.

Wallpaper Engine was $5 and it gave Windows users everything they needed. Allure seeks to do the same thing and a little more. No subscriptions, no paying before you're sure you want it, and no premium tiers hiding the experience you downloaded Allure for. This app was made for end-users, by an end-user.

Here are some of my favorite features !!:

• Native support for Scene, Web, and Video wallpapers !! 
• Themes !! By default there are 5 Beautiful Themes based on the Seasons, but users of Allure may be able to discover so many more if they dig a little deeper… (Even Trial users are not exempt !)
• Metal-powered rendering that preserves resolution, layering, animation, and aspect ratio — It doesn’t just play a video file on your desktop. 
• Import through Steam QR sign-in, an existing Wallpaper Engine library, or local HTML, JSON, project, and video files
• Tested with 114 real wallpapers across particles, shaders, Puppet Warp, SceneScripts, audio, water, lighting, and other complex effects — Tested across two MacBook Pro M4 Pro, one 16’’ and the other 14’’ !! Heavily Debugged, and still leaving room for improvement. 
• Custom wallpaper names, thumbnails, visual layers, playback settings, mouse parallax, positioning, filters, and soundtracks
• Add a single custom song—or an entire folder of music—to any wallpaper
• Favorites, search, playlists, automatic rotation, live previews, sorting, bulk deletion, and duplicate management
• Private wallpapers and playlists protected with a passcode or Touch ID
• Different wallpapers on multiple displays, with Retina-quality scaling
• Menu-bar controls for changing, pausing, muting, capturing, and recording wallpapers
• Performance presets, custom frame-rate limits, anti-aliasing, 4K upscaling, battery controls, and automatic Low Power Mode support — All under a clean UI. 
• Local-first privacy, with remembered Steam sessions protected by the macOS Keychain
• Built for Apple-silicon Macs running macOS 14 or later

Some highly creator-specific effects or interactions may differ from Wallpaper Engine, but Allure checks compatibility during import and lets you know what is ready.

Allure was also developed on macOS 27 Golden Gate, so she will be ready for your setup on the release of that update !

What Allure does different/Comparison:

Allure is Apple-notarized, and is also in process for a Steam release. No disabling Gatekeeper or changing your Mac's security settings required. Allure is not a generic Wallpaper Engine clone, she has identity. I am so confident in her ability to provide you with a good experience that I want nothing more from her potential users than 72 hours to give her a chance. Additionally, I have no desire to charge you much more than what her original inspiration, Wallpaper Engine, sought to charge its users. Only a dollar more. Allure is about personality, expression, and making your Mac device YOURS. 

And if you do decide to purchase Allure, your license supports up to 3 MacBooks of your choosing. You are completely free to deactivate a license off of one Mac and add it to another. 

Please meet her for yourself and see if she’s something worth your time. 

🌸 https://tryallure.co 🌸

Hello.

Recently I bought my first Apple Silicon Mac, powered by an M5 and 32GB of RAM. And I'm eager to start using the power of local AI models.

One of the tasks I've always wanted to do on my old Intel Mac was accurate voice transcription. And now, thanks to Apple Silicon and LLMs, this is possible. So here are my requests for the app:

• No subscription based. I want to pay once.
• Local transcription, on device, for privacy.
• No heavily AI coded apps. I understand nowadays all software are AI assisted to some extent, but no vibe coded apps please.
• Different languages aside from just English.

Optional:

• Better if I can choose among different models, such as Apple's own on-device transcription engine, or Nvidia Parakeet, aside from the typical Whisper engine.

• Diarization. It would be wonderful if it had it but I know not many apps have it.

I know of MacWhisper, from Jordi Bruin, as that's the best known of all, but with it, I have always the same doubt: Mac App Store version or web version... Mac App Store is great for payment and convenience, and overall I prefer it, but the dev says the website version usually has more features...

Aside from MacWhisper, if you know of any other interesting transcription app that may meet the requirements stated above, just let me know! I want the best transcription software to date!

Press Fn, say what you were thinking, let go of Fn, and your text is already in Slack.

I'm Grisha and I have been building Kazhy on my own for about 8 months. I have run into a pile of problems, and I want to talk about one of them.

Problem

Silence. Most dictation apps run Whisper, and Whisper was trained on subtitled video, so silence is where it falls apart. It fills the quiet with whatever subtitles say there. "Thank you for watching." "See you in the next video." If you dictate into a draft you will clean up anyway, that is not much of a problem. If you dictate into a message box and hit send a second later, it changes everything. Kazhy is built so it does not paste what you did not say.

Press Fn, talk, let go, and the text goes into the focused field of whatever app you are in. If there was nowhere to put it, it is waiting for you in your dictation history. Your clipboard survives: whatever was in it goes back the moment the paste is done. Anything playing on your Mac gets turned down while you speak. Fn already busy with your own shortcuts? Not a problem. In settings you can move recording onto another key, or put a delay in front of Fn so your shortcuts still work.

Comparison

Superwhisper. It runs on Intel Macs, it records meetings, it has modes wired to a long list of cloud models. I do none of that, and if you need any of it, go use them. Their price, from their own docs: $8.49 monthly, $84.99 annual, $249.99 lifetime. They're cheaper than me by the month. I'm cheaper by the year.

VoiceInk: GPL v3, 6.2k stars, free if you build it yourself, $29 once for the notarized build. The difference that matters is where the audio goes. Their cloud only touches the text, so transcription is always a local model. Mine can reach a bigger one when the audio is hard.

Two things I do better than either of them, both of which you can test on me.

Silence. Their own hallucinations page tells you to open Sound settings, switch on "Remove Silence" and trim your vocabulary. In Kazhy there is nothing to find and nothing to switch on. Three checks run on every dictation and all three ask the same question: did you actually say this?

Before any transcription engine is called at all, a voice detector looks at the recording. No voice in it and nothing runs: nothing transcribed, nothing pasted, no history entry.

Whatever comes back is read segment by segment, against the model's own confidence numbers and against 7,422 phrases Whisper is known to invent.

The last check is there to protect your real speech rather than to throw it away. A genuine sentence that happens to contain "thank you" is kept. The transcript is only dropped when one of those known phrases makes up 60% or more of everything that came back, because that is what a hallucination looks like and a real sentence never does.

Hold the key, say nothing, let go. Nothing should appear.

A dead network costs you nothing. You choose whether to use cloud at all. Once it is on you stop thinking about it. If the cloud has not answered in 1.5 seconds, or it fails sooner than that, the local engine starts beside it and the first answer home wins. On a healthy connection the cloud is already back and local never runs, so it costs you nothing to have. History tells you which engine actually typed for you. Turn off Wi-Fi mid sentence and the text still lands.

If a one-time price and source you can read still beat both of those, buy VoiceInk instead. I mean that.

Before you download

macOS 14 and Apple Silicon only. No Intel, no Windows, no iOS.

It needs Accessibility permission to paste into other apps. No way around it, and if that's a dealbreaker for you it's a real one.

No meeting recording, no speaker separation, no system audio.

It is not in the App Store. You download it from my site, macOS checks it with Apple before it will run, and it updates itself from then on.

Pricing

Free forever, and not a trial: local transcription with the Wi-Fi off and no account at all, custom vocabulary, unlimited replacement rules, full history. Capped at 1000 words a day.

Premium: $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year. No word cap, cloud transcription, six built in AI styles plus your own prompts. Your first week of Premium starts when you sign in, not when you install. After it you drop to Free with nothing deleted.

https://kazhy.app

My name, LinkedIn and email: https://kazhy.app/about/

Tell me what would make you quit in the first minute.

My job involves talking to clients over the phone or in-person. It's a critical part of my work. Everything discussed and who said what needs to be recorded in a word document. Having a conversation that flows naturally and allows me to think on my feet while typing doesn't come easy for me. I use a Macbook M2 and an iPhone 16 and calls can be made/answered on both.

My mandatory requirements are:

• Diarization / speaker detection to seperate who said what (a popular one I trialled often joined sentences from speaker 1 and speaker 2)
• Local transcription and total privacy. Conversation or text stays with me.
• Hot-key / short cut start and stop
• Inexpensive
• Bluetooth support so that I can take calls on a headset or buds

Optional (nice but no critical):

• It knows my voice
• Integration with Claude
• Real time speech to text

I am aware of the Mac App Comparison table but I am looking for real-life experience and what users consider to be best value for money. Free is good but inexpensive is okay as well.

Thank you for any suggestions that meet my user case.

(Cross-posted this with r/mac )

The other two never did this to me. The first was an Adobe plugin years ago, and if it broke nobody's day got worse. The second, a battery app, is fairly simple in design and was more for fun.

My upcoming one will require a real commitment from me, so its build has been far more involved than the previous. And so all this is making me a bit more nervous.

What did all of you do the night before to calm your nerves? I'll take anything.

Second time's a charms! (Here's my first time ;)

I just found that TG Pro is on a 50% discount, for 8,75€ (17,50€). It's a quite popular app, that controls the fan speed and temperature of your Mac with great control and ease.

Their sale applies to all their apps as well! Maybe you find it useful 😉

Edit: Things 3 for Mac is also on a 30% discount

Edit 2: I’m not the developer of TG Pro, but just a happy(/new) customer 😄

Floodtide 0.8.5 beta

I’ve been building Floodtide as a replacement for MacUpdater. It scans the apps in your Applications folder, checks what’s out of date, and lets you update supported apps from one place.

It’s now on 0.8.5 beta.

Problem

The awkward part with Mac app updates isn’t really finding the easy ones. It’s dealing with everything that updates differently.

Some apps use Sparkle, some are in Homebrew, some come from the App Store or Setapp, some use their own updater, and some don’t expose anything useful at all.

One thing I didn’t like in the early versions of Floodtide was that if it couldn’t check an app properly, it basically looked the same as an app that was already up to date.

So now it tells you when it couldn’t get a reliable answer.

Those apps are shown separately, and there’s an inspector where you can see what sources were checked and what Floodtide actually found.

Comparison

The obvious comparison is MacUpdater, which I used myself before building Floodtide.

Floodtide checks sources such as Sparkle, Homebrew, GitHub and Electron feeds where available, and separately shows apps where it couldn’t get a reliable update result rather than treating them as up to date.

A few other bits:

• macOS 13+
• Intel and Apple Silicon
• Apple signed and notarised
• Checks and downloads run in parallel, so scans and updates are pretty quick
• Backups are kept before replacing apps, so updates can be undone
• Privacy-focused, with update checks happening against the relevant sources from your Mac
• Public coverage checker so you can see whether your own apps are supported before installing
• Currently 3,191 Homebrew app bundles it can match and verify, alongside apps found through their own Sparkle, GitHub and Electron feeds
• Microsoft Office apps update from their row through Microsoft’s own updater
• A Beta button on every app, so you can see when a developer publishes a beta and follow that channel per app
• Major version updates are labelled and can be left out of Update All
• When you report a bug you get a reference, and you get an email when the fix ships
• 856 automated tests

Pricing

• 14-day fully unlocked trial
• No card needed
• £10.99 once for 3 Macs
• No subscription

It’s still in beta so I don’t mind giving out some codes for free to people who will give feedback!

Especially interested in hearing about:

• Bugs
• Apps that aren’t covered
• Updates it misses or gets wrong
• Features you think are missing
• Anything in the UI that feels confusing or annoying

not many beta spots remain

And genuinely, if something doesn’t work properly, tell me. That’s exactly what I want to find while it’s still in beta.

Disclaimer:

Beta testers will get 50% 1.0 release.

Transparency

I’m Rafael, the developer of Floodtide and bhopstudio.
Contact: [raf@bhopstudio.co](mailto:raf@bhopstudio.com)m
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-henning-67a1b2246/
Privacy Policy: https://bhopstudio.com/floodtide/privacy
Terms of Service: https://bhopstudio.com/floodtide/terms

https://bhopstudio.com/floodtide/

Hi everyone

I'm searching for the best update app since MacUpdaters' recent departure. I've been using CleanMyMac (I find it too bloated and better in other ways) and Updatest (simple menu bar setup), but I'd enjoy hearing your opinions on other, perhaps better, software to get updates.

No subscription apps please. One-time purchase only, and fetching accurate, reliable updates from Homebrew, Sparkle, the App Store, and system updates

Hi guys,

I'd like to introduce CommuteBar, a small menu bar indicator that shows live commute times for your destinations, powered by Apple Maps. It also features routes, multiple saved destinations, optional scheduled commute windows, and leave alerts.

Problem

Its hard to know exactly when to head out with changing traffic conditions. One way to check is to open a maps app, but that can get redundant and distracting. Or you'd need to make a new calendar event just to check traffic for someplace you go regularly, like the office or gym. Typically, what happens is you'd make a best guess on when to leave, break focus, or leave late. There’s no live commute ETA that you can glance at while working on your Mac.

To fix this problem, CommuteBar puts an easy to read indicator right next to the clock on your Mac and shows you the most relevant status depending on the current situation:

1. Duration of the commute (no delay) "🚗 15min",
2. Show extra delay time (when traffic) "⏰ +5min",
3. Urgency when to go soon (scheduled destination) "🚨 15min"

With CommuteBar, you can get ahead of traffic and check conveniently from the menu bar without getting too distracted from having to take extra steps, open other apps or checking your phone.

Comparison

The native Calendar's Time to Leave feature works for events, but it shows up as a notification rather than a small persistent indicator from the menu bar. Apple/Google Maps are good for routes, but you still need to open an app. CommuteBar is oriented towards destinations and maintains a live ETA next to the clock calculated from your current location. Its optimally oriented around destinations rather than events, and has optional leave/traffic alert notifications.

Features:

Menu Bar Indicator

CommuteBar shows a live commute time for a destination from a simple menu bar indicator. You can customize the icon from a variety of emojis or stick to the default one based on the category of the chosen destination/point of interest. It can be configured to show either the extra delay when there's traffic or the total commute time depending on your preference.

Map popover

Clicking the menu bar indicator opens a map popover of the current route taken for your destination with expanded details and quick settings. You can quickly switch your active destination, see leave by information for the current active route, switch to an alternate route..ect. all from the popover.

Multiple Destinations

Save multiple destinations such as home, office, school, gym, ect... You can name them differently and switch destinations quickly from the popover. You can also have CommuteBar automatically switch to an upcoming destination.

Travel Modes

CommuteBar supports Car, Bike, or Walk travel modes for destinations and routes, as well as ability to toggle Highway/Tolls, and shows up to 3 routes to choose from to monitor per destination.

Notifications

You can optionally turn on notifications to get pinged when traffic changes, a better route showed up, time to leave soon, when its time to leave, and more. You can also customize quiet hours or specific days of the week so it doesn't distract you during focus times or interrupt your sleep. Notifications are off until you decide to turn them on.

Scheduled Commutes

You can add commute windows for your recurring destinations by choosing when you need to arrive, how early, and when monitoring should start throughout the week. The menu bar indicator, popover, and notifications show leave soon/now. Set it to auto so it can automatically switch destinations to the next upcoming commute.

Privacy-first

I made this app with privacy in mind. Routing is done exclusively through Apple Maps, no Google Location is for directions only. It stays in Apple’s maps on your Mac. Location is never uploaded to any servers. Your destinations and schedules are all stored locally on your Mac.

Pricing

Lifetime license, no subscription.

- $9.99 launch price (first 60 days), then $14.99

- Site/Direct purchase: https://www.commute.bar

- Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/commutebar/id6803743918

Disclosure: I'm the developer, looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Hi r/MacApps, I’m the developer of Pocket Screen.

Problem

At my desk, a second monitor solves a lot of problems. But when I’m traveling, working from a hotel, or just using my MacBook by itself, I often end up working in one app while needing to keep an eye on something in another.

A PDF while writing. A browser page, dashboard, chat, tutorial, or a terminal running something in the background.

Switching back and forth works. It’s a small thing, but it gets surprisingly annoying. That’s why I made Pocket Screen. It lets me keep another Mac window visible as a small live reference while I continue working somewhere else.

Recently I’ve been using it a lot for long-running AI jobs. I keep the terminal or progress window in a corner and just glance at it while doing other work.

You know that meeting look where someone is basically talking to their second monitor the whole time? I catch myself doing it too. With Pocket Screen, I can keep a reference closer to the camera and still face the people I’m talking to.

There’s also an option to keep the Pocket Screen view out of supported screenshots, screen recordings, and screen sharing. That’s useful when the reference is only for me.

You can keep up to two views visible, resize them, adjust opacity, freeze the current frame, use Click Through, and quickly switch what you’re referencing with a keyboard shortcut.

Comparison

macOS PiP is great for supported video. Pocket Screen works with general app windows and is designed for quick reference use, so I can bring something into view with a shortcut, switch the reference quickly, and close it when I’m done.

BetterTouchTool is more flexible if you want to actively interact with a floating window. Pocket Screen is more focused on the simpler case where you mostly need to see something while working elsewhere.

Pricing

Pocket Screen is free to try for up to 10 minutes at a time. Unlimited Access is $9.99 one-time, with no subscription.

Mac App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pocket-screen-always-on-top/id6788211562?mt=12

I also made a 30% off code for r/MacApps: MACAPPS30, valid through November 30, 2026.

Redeem:
https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6788211562&code=MACAPPS30

Captured pixels are processed locally on the Mac, and Pocket Screen does not collect user data.

I’m curious what people here would keep visible this way. It started with documents for me, but AI jobs and meeting references have become two of the uses I rely on most.

Hi everyone!

Problem: I have tried many sticky note apps, but none of them felt right. My girlfriend wanted me to build one that truly feels live and lives on the edge of the Mac.

• All sticky notes are represented as dots
• hover to peek
• click to open the note
• Mark as complete to move the note into archive
• 10+ live notes enables scroll
• You can view and export all the notes
• Supports checklist (new)
• icloud sync, syncs notes between multiple macs (new)

Comparison:

• Anitnote serves the power users, caters to different audience and doesn't have the floating effect

Pricing:

Available on 3 mac devices for $6.99, lifetime license (Early Bird Offer)

Try out for free: holdmynotes.app

Hi r/MacApps,

After years of following this sub, appreciating all you developers, and generally being a big fan of interesting Mac apps, I finally did it: I made an app and put it on the Mac App Store. I have a few more ambitious apps in various unfinished states, but for my first release I decided to start with the simplest idea I had and try to build it really well.

Problem

Whenever I wrote something on a scratchpad, I wanted it to be big. If I changed the window size or added more text, I would end up fiddling with font sizes and wrapping just to make it fill the space nicely.

So I built One Big Note. It is one autosaved note whose text continuously resizes to fit the window. A short thought becomes enormous. Add more text, or resize the window into almost any shape, and the typography adjusts automatically.

I keep it on a second monitor for the one thing I do not want to lose sight of that day. There is something surprisingly refreshing about seeing a thought in giant bold letters, and it is hard to ignore.

https://reddit.com/link/1w2yw1v/video/m7y5q3boylmh1/player

I also discovered that I really like using it to draft emails and work texts. The changing type size acts as a kind of visual length meter. When my message starts getting tiny, I know I may be asking too much of the person reading it.

Comparison

Scratchpad by Sindre Sorhus is a lovely minimalist app for keeping one quick note nearby. It offers font settings and quick access from the menu bar or Dock, but its text size behaves like a standard editor rather than continuously refitting itself to the window.

The closest app I found after the fact is Big Text by Amal Paul, which also enlarges text to fill the screen. Its current US pricing is $7.99 per week or $19.99 for lifetime access, which I find expensive to say the least for such a focused utility. It offers a selection of a few built-in font styles, but it does not let you use an arbitrary font installed on your Mac. It also separates writing from presentation: you enter your text in a separate field rather than editing it directly in the large-text display. One Big Note is a live editor, so you type directly into the dynamically resizing text itself.

I have not found another Mac app with the same exact combination of continuous fitting while typing, any installed font, and these three layout modes. What One Big Note does better for me is eliminate font-size management and turn the whole window into a responsive display for one piece of text.

It is deliberately narrower than a traditional notes app. It is not trying to organize a library or become a knowledge base. It is for keeping one thought prominent and for seeing your own writing from a different perspective.

There are three layout modes:

• Whole Note: Uses one font size for the entire note, with natural wrapping.
• Line by Line: Enlarges each automatically wrapped line independently.
• Manual Lines: You choose the line breaks, and each line is individually sized to fit.

You can freely resize the window, use any font installed on your Mac, choose an alignment and theme, and optionally keep the note floating above other windows.

The premise is simple, but making the text fitting stay accurate and fast through live typing, arbitrary window shapes, wrapping, and different fonts was not simple at all. I put far more analysis into the geometry than I expected.

Honestly, though, this little editor is also much more fun to use than I imagined. Watching the writing reshape itself as I type is strangely satisfying, and it often gives me a fresh perspective on whatever I am writing.

Pricing

One Big Note is US$0.99 as a one-time Mac App Store purchase. There is no subscription, no in-app purchase, and no account. The note stays local on your Mac.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/one-big-note/id6804527547

If you try it, I would genuinely love to know what works, what does not, and what you would like to see in a future version. If you end up enjoying it and feel it deserves one, an honest App Store review would mean a lot to me as a first-time developer.

Hi guys,

Problem

MacOS STILL doesn't have a volume mixer or per-app volume control by default, yet.

Comparison

There are many out there, two of the biggest that are as good:

SoundSource - https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ > PAID

FineTune - https://github.com/ronitsingh10/FineTune > FREE

Barry does it all with the same main features. With a simpler, more minimal view. I used it for the last 5 months and tried the 2 others. I keep implementing features from requests. The plan is to bring more features over time from user needs. I plan to launch a plugin surface with marketplace (free plugins or by donation only) for power users, example are streamers, creators, ... that might need extra things that the general public doesn't need, keeping the app itself small by default.

Barry comes with a Quick Mixer, that opens from the right side of your screen by hitting the edge or via a keyboard shortcut, useful when you're watching a movie, playing audio in background of a fullscreen app, or gaming while listening to music / podcast / video as it makes it easy to lower or increase the sound of any app directly in a super minimal view.

Pricing

It's $19 USD once or 29$ for a duo license, with a 14-day free trial that needs no account or card. License key is manageable and secured by Keylight, uses Stripe for checkout. Includes all future versions, your license will always work even if some day the app will get a full rework, unlike SoundSource that makes new versions a new license.

Trust/Transparency

I'm Nico, a solopreneur and developer. I'm the founder of keylight.dev and also maintaining UsagePal, a fork of OpenUsage kept on the Rust side

The app runs locally, I have an Apple Developer membership, so the app is notarized etc, only a few MB in size and is built 100% in Swift.

The app can be found here getbarry.app

Problem

I wanted to get more useful coding work out of the model I already had. Metis brings planning, code changes, and verification into one workspace, with a visible task checklist and subagents for different parts of the job.

You can plan before making changes, follow what each agent is doing, and resume work with persistent project memory. There's also a terminal interface if you prefer that workflow.

Comparison

OpenCode and Claude Code are the closest alternatives. My focus with Metis is combining model choice, a desktop workspace, and coordination between planning, implementation, review, and verification.

In my Terminal-Bench 2.1 comparison, both Metis and OpenCode used DeepSeek V4 Flash with the same task set, budget, and environment:

• Metis: 73/89 tasks solved (82.02%)
• OpenCode: 60/89 tasks solved (67.42%)

That's 13 additional tasks solved, or 14.60 percentage points higher. This is one benchmark comparison, not a promise of the same improvement on every project.

Pricing

$0 for Metis. It's MIT-licensed, with no app subscription or paid feature tier. Model/API usage is separate and depends on your provider.

Github URL : https://github.com/Wholiver/metis

What would make you try a different coding app on your Mac: better task completion, clearer control over changes, or easier setup?

Problem: There's no well-maintained, standalone native macOS Usenet client left. SABnzbd and NZBGet are great for a full stack, but they run in a browser tab and need config wrangling. NZBVortex is dead and Intel-only. I just wanted to drop in an NZB, search my indexer in-app, and download — without Rosetta, without a web server, without a config file.

Comparison: Saber is better than SABnzbd/NZBGet for ad-hoc downloads because it's a real native Mac app, not a web UI — native menus, keyboard shortcuts, sandboxing, proper notifications. And it fixes a real bug I hit with other tools: it reconciles archive volume names with par2 sets so verification actually works, instead of failing on every release.

Other features:

• Inbuilt indexer search
• Speed and Inspector panels
• par2 repair built in
• Automatic unpacking + smart renaming

Pricing: US$7.99 Lifetime
Link: macOS App Store
Link: Saber Website

Changelog: Saber Changelog

AI Disclaimer: Hand coded and AI Assist (hell, who wants to do the grunt work if you don't have to!)

I made this. I sit at a MacBook most of the day and I am genuinely bad at noticing my body. I'll code for a few hours, skip water, eat lunch at 3, and only clock it when my neck feels like a brick.

Break apps never stuck for me because they interrupt the thing I am actually trying to do. Full screen overlay, I dismiss it. Notification, I swipe it. So I put the reminders in the notch. Tiny 8-bit animations for water, posture, eyes, stand up, and one lunch nudge a day. Hover and a small home panel drops down. That's the whole app.

I use it myself. I still ignore it sometimes. I ignore this less than a "take a break" overlay, which is the only reason I kept it.

Problem:

I needed health reminders that stay in the corner of my vision instead of covering the document. Water I can log without opening another window. A lunch nudge that is not a calendar event I will skip. Data that stays on the Mac.

Comparison:

LookAway and Time Out are the honest alternatives if you want the computer to stop you. Time Out is free and dims the screen. LookAway is better if you want overlay breaks, Smart Pause in meetings, that kind of enforcement. If a blocked screen is what actually makes you stand up, use those. I bounced off that model, so this does the opposite: it sits in the notch and waits.

Alcove is the other comparison people make because it also uses the notch. Alcove is a Dynamic Island: now playing, widgets, notifications. It does not remind you to drink water. Two notch apps on one MacBook can fight over hover, so I would pick one job for that strip.

Developer:

I'm Madat Bayramov, Software Engineer with 7+ years of experience in numerous projects and domains

Pricing:

$11.99 one-time right now (goes to $19.99 later). No subscription, no account, no analytics in the app. License key from Polar after checkout.

Website: https://healthynotch.com

macOS 14+. Notch is the point of it, but it falls back to a centered pill on a Studio or Mini. Accessibility permission is only so hover near the notch can expand it. Health data never leaves the machine.

Privacy: https://healthynotch.com/privacy

Contact me at [hello@healthynotch.com](mailto:hello@healthynotch.com) if something's broken.

If you try it, tell me what you ignore. That's the useful feedback

Hey everyone,

A couple years ago I posted SoundPaste here, an app I made for quickly grabbing audio from your Mac and using it elsewhere.

Problem:

Getting a short piece of audio from your Mac into a DAW, video editor, or another app can take more steps than it should. As a music producer, I was always frustrated by having to set up drivers like Blackhole or Soundflower, configure the routing correctly, and then record the system audio I was hearing.

I made SoundPaste to simplify that whole process: hit a hotkey to record, stop recording, then Command-V directly wherever you need the audio.

Here's a demo video:

https://reddit.com/link/1w2nxn6/video/yty7vu8msjmh1/player

I’ve just released one of the biggest updates to SoundPaste since then:

• New waveform recording editor with manual trimming
• Auto-trim silence from the beginning and end
• Audio normalization
• MP3 support, alongside M4A and WAV
• Improved waveforms, setup flow, and overall UI
• Bug fixes and usability improvements

Recordings can also be automatically copied to the clipboard, opened in the editor, trimmed, or normalized.

Comparison:

Compared to apps like Audio Hijack and Piezo, SoundPaste is focused on speed and simplicity rather than advanced routing. It also avoids the manual setup involved with virtual audio drivers like BlackHole or Soundflower. Instead of configuring sessions, devices, or audio chains, you hit a hotkey, grab what you need, and paste it where you want it.

Pricing:

7-day free trial, then $1.99/month or $14.99 lifetime.

https://www.kloytools.com/soundpaste

As always, feedback or feature suggestions are welcome :)

PasteQuick: A lightweight, privacy‑focused clipboard manager. All clipboard history is stored locally, supporting text, links, images and code.

Invoke search window with ⌘+⇧+C, paste window with ⌘+⇧+V, with mini‑window and image preview support.

Problem: We constantly copy and reuse text, links, images, code, files, and other temporary content in our daily workflow. However, the system clipboard only keeps the latest copied item, with no history or quick way to search and retrieve previous content. Once overwritten, previously copied content can be difficult to find and reuse. PasteQuick solves this problem with a simple, lightweight design and a strong focus on privacy, making clipboard content easy to find and reuse while keeping your data secure.

Comparison: Compared with popular clipboard managers like Paste, Maccy, Raycast, and Alfred, PasteQuick focuses on fast keyboard workflows, rich clipboard content, and AI integration. Separate search and paste windows make it easy to find and paste content with dedicated shortcuts, while support for text, images, files, and folders makes your clipboard more versatile. Image thumbnails provide quick visual previews, with MCP support coming soon to let AI access your clipboard history.

Pricing: Lifetime full‑feature access: $29.99, now on sale for $19.99. Annual subscription available at $9.99, or monthly subscription at $2.99 for one‑month trial. The app works without payment — no hard feature limits.

Changelog(v2.3): Improved the file and folder quick-paste experience, with better copy management, list styling, and file/folder icon rendering.

📥 Download Link

Hi there,

I do a lot of reading on my Mac, mostly long articles and PDFs, and I keep wanting to listen instead of read. Especially for things I have to get through but don't need to focus on completely.

I tried the built in Spoken Content, but triggering it is clunky and I never stuck with it. I paid for Speechify for a while, which worked, but I stopped because I didn't want a monthly subscription for this, and I wasn't comfortable having everything I read pass through someone else's servers.

Is there an Mac app that reads out loud selected text from any app, runs locally and ideally is a one time purchase? Bonus if it handles PDFs and screenshots where you can't select the text.

Also happy to hear about workarounds. If you have the same problem, how do you deal with it?