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Five Great Apps for Your Mac - February 2018. Make sure to also check out our January list, which covered apps like Unclutter, Dropzone 3, Bartender 3, and Magnet. Tags: Mac App Store. Dec 26, 2017 Just get your hands on a new Mac? Looking for new apps to spice up your computing? Here are ten apps that will make your machine work some magic. 10 Mac apps you need to download right now! Just get your hands on a new Mac? Here are ten apps that will make your machine work some magic. As you start to add apps and utilities. Apr 12, 2020 Bartender 3 is an app made for when you’re utilizing too many apps. Put simply, it lets you choose which apps appear in the menu bar and rearrange their position to your liking.
I've owned a lot of Macs in my day, and I've gotten into a pretty comfortable rhythm when it comes to setting up new ones. When I got my new 21-inch Retina iMac, however, I decided to step outside my familiar box and ask my iMore and Mobile Nations colleagues what they consider must-have software on their computers.
Unsurprisingly, our lists overlapped quite a bit, but I also came away with a few exciting new apps to try. Here are our 10 favorite apps that every Mac user should own.
Dropbox
If you want to back up your files, share them with friends, collaborate with them, and access files across all your devices, Dropbox is an absolute no-brainer. Setting up a Dropbox account is simple: Once you install the app and sign up for the service, it creates a private Dropbox folder for you and your files. Anything you put in that folder gets automatically uploaded to Dropbox's encrypted servers when there's an internet connection; work on a file inside your Dropbox, and it will save changes automatically. You'll get 2GB of online storage space free, and can upgrade your space to a whopping 1TB for $10/month. Best of all, your Dropbox folder also saves locally to your Mac, so when you're offline, you can still access and change those files and it will re-sync with the server when you return online.
Your Twitter client of choice
Twitter may be weathering some rough seas at present, but it's still a must-have app for myself and my co-workers at Mobile Nations. It's the fastest way to keep in touch with our friends and colleagues, track news stories, respond to readers, and share the latest adorable BB-8 option.
For me, there's only one option for Twitter on the desktop: Tweetbot, Tapbots's fanastically quirky Twitter app. Tapbots also offers an iOS version of Tweetbot, and both versions sync with each other, so you can browse on your iPhone or iPad and switch to your Mac without losing a beat. Twitterrific's Mac client is also pretty great, and offers a slightly different style for your tweet viewing experience. If you don't have the cash to spend on a Twitter app, there's also always Twitter's official Mac client, but it's not nearly as full-featured as Tweetbot or Twitterrific.
3. Google Chrome
I have a very fond spot in my heart for Apple's web browser, Safari, but it never hurts to have alternative options on your plate. And when it comes to alternatives, Google Chrome tops the list. The Alphabet company's browser syncs with your Google account and offers access to a number of different plugins, and it's traditionally run Google Hangouts far better for me than Safari.
And, as an added bonus: It comes with a local Flash install, so you never have to sully Safari with Flash if you don't want to.
4. Fantastical 2
The default Calendar app isn't bad, but if you need to take charge of your calendaring on your Mac you want the best in the business. Fantastical has pretty much everything you'd want in a high-powered calendar client: A shortcut to your calendar in your toolbar, a beautiful, easy-to-read layout, support for reminders, natural language support, time and geofenced-based alerts, time zone support, and customized calendar views. Of all Fantastical's great features, it's the last one that I use the most — this lets me group all my work calendars and my personal calendars on separate views, so I don't have to see 10 events per day.
Best of all, Fantastical offers a 21-day free trial, so you can give it a test-drive to see if it fits for your workflow.
5. 1Password
You need a password manager on your Mac. You do. The days of remembering all your passwords or using one password for everything are gone: It's simply not smart or safe to do these things, and you put your financial and personal security at risk. Luckily, encrypted programs like 1Password exist to store all your hard-to-remember passwords in one place. You need only remember one master password to unlock your vault; inside your vault, you can keep passwords for sites, credit card information, passport numbers, and more. Add a simple extension to Safari or Chrome, and you can auto-fill those passwords right into your web browser when you come across the appropriate site.
I resisted 1Password for a long time, and last year, I finally took the plunge. I'm so glad I did: It got me off my stubborn 'I can remember 40 different 8-character passwords' high horse, and it saved my bacon when I had my passport card stolen and had to find the ID number to report it missing.
6. DaisyDisk
When you're setting up a new Mac, you almost never worry about disk space: A brand new hard drive feels like an opportunity for neverending file storage. But as time goes on, preference files and backups can fill your drive before you know it. DaisyDisk helps track down disk eating offenders and purge them from your Mac without a second thought. I've been using the app for four years since I stumbled upon it back in my Macworld days, and it's the easiest app I've ever used for eliminating unnecessary files. I love the way DaisyDisk color-codes your files for easier viewing, and you can easily view the offending files directly with a single mouse click.
7. Bartender
As you start to add apps and utilities to your Mac, you may notice an ever-increasing amount of tiny icons popping up in your right-side menu bar. While these can be super-useful shortcuts (as with Fantastical), too many of them can make your toolbar cluttered and hard to read. Enter Bartender: The utility lets you rearrange menu bar icons in the order that most suits you, and lets you hide any unnecessary icons within Bartender's More button. The app is a life-saver on my 11-inch MacBook Air: Without it, I'd have enough icons to run into my left-side menu bar.
8. Photo-editing software
When it comes to photo editing, everyone has their preferences and their favorites. Adobe Photoshop was king of my Mac's image mountain for a very long time before I switched to Pixelmator; others at Mobile Nations have a fond spot for Acorn.
Which app appeals to you will largely depend on what you require of your image editing software. Photoshop is one of the largest, most full-featured, and best image-editors out there — but it can be overkill if you're just trying to repair some dark spots or edit your brightness; Acorn is great if you need something like Photoshop without the full power of Photoshop. I like Pixelmator for its easy-to-use Repair brush, color correction tools, and Handoff support between iOS and Mac.
9. TextWrangler
Your Mac offers two great text editors for rich text: TextEdit, and iWork's Pages. But if you ever want to write in plain text (no bold or italics) or code, Bare Bones Software's TextWrangler will keep you comfy. TextWrangler is, in some ways, BBEdit Lite: It lets you edit plain text easily, but doesn't offer many of the advanced features BBEdit boasts. If you're a pro, BBEdit's what you want; for everyone else, TextWrangler is a great free accessory to have in your app arsenal.
10. Augment with your honorable mentions
I can't do any top ten list without mentioning some apps that almost made my list.
- If you need an excellent calculator app beyond what the standard Calculator app can offer you, you should check out PCalc ($9.99).
- If you need to record audio, you can't go wrong with Rogue Amoeba's Piezo ($19).
- Like to do a lot of cooking? Paprika ($19.99) is the recipe manager of your dreams.
- If you want to make copies of DVDs you own — or burn something on your computer to a disk — Handbrake (free) is the best app in the business.
- Own a Sonos speaker or two? Make sure you pick up the Sonos Controller (free) app for your Mac to upload your iTunes library and control your queue.
What are your must-install Mac apps, iMore readers? Let me know below — I'd love to discover a great new app or two.
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❤️ healthA story about me, two Apple Watches, and five lost years
Apps Like Bartender Machine
So I bought another Apple Watch. Here’s the story!
Hands-On
By William Gallagher
Friday, March 09, 2018, 08:58 am PT (11:58 am ET)
Bartender, by Surtees Studios, can make your Mac Menubar work harder for you in with a cleaner presentation —but not all apps play nice.Friday, March 09, 2018, 08:58 am PT (11:58 am ET)
Unless it's some strange point of pride that you've got 20 items in your Mac's menubar, you need Bartender 3. It's a simple app that hides away menubar icons until you need them and so both saves space and stops distractions. Plus Bartender 3 does this so well that you'll never want to go back. Unfortunately it can't handle every menubar app without a little workaround.
However, you can't blame Bartender 3 for other developers either not doing their job in accordance with Apple guidelines, or needing to find unusual ways to use the Mac menubar. The greatest majority of the time, Bartender 3 handles everything. For the rest of the time, it's got options to help you.
We can worry recalcitrant Menubar icons in a minute. First, just look at what a difference Bartender 3 makes to your Mac. This is what will tell you if you want it, or don't need it.
That's one extreme example of what Bartender can do —but it can go farther. It can take away just about every menubar app you've got.
Now, there is of course another way to remove them: you could uninstall the apps. Many apps that use the menubar will also have an preferences option to remove it.
That's fine if you never use the apps but where Bartender 3 comes in is when you do use them and you do want them —but just not all the time.
For example, take wi-fi. That shows up in your menubar but even if you're using a MacBook and going between different WiFi hotspots, you only need that icon when you're wondering why nothing's connected. You only actually use it when you want to change to a different network. Most of the time, it's just an icon taking up space.
Maybe you also have menubar apps for services like Dropbox or OmniPresence: at most you only need to see those when their services are actually doing something. At those few times you do want to be able to glance up at the menubar and see that Dropbox is updating but otherwise it would take you some effort to be able to care less.
Whereas, Bartender 3 can hide away the Dropbox icon and show it again just when for the times when it's updating. It's your choice.
Open Bartender 3 and it lists every menubar app you've got. Go through them all and decide what you want to happen. The icon can stay in the menubar, it can always be hidden —or it can be moved to Bartender's own menu bar.
Bartender 3 moves your lesser-wanted apps to its own menubar and the way it does this is the major change to the latest version. Previously, Bartender's own menubar was really a dropdown that appeared under its own icon and included all the icons for these hidden apps.
Now, Bartender 3 ditched that shelf-like second menubar. Instead, you see your Mac's regular menubar until you press a key or click on a Bartender icon. Then the Mac's menubar shows you all of the previously hidden icons and they stay there until you press or click again.
The company claims this makes Bartender 3 seem more like a Mac app. In retrospect, the older version was a workaround, and this feels right, more Mac-like.
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Just because a menubar app icon is hidden, by the way, it doesn't mean that they're gone or that you necessarily have to go through extra Bartender steps to get to them. If you have menubar apps like the mini 1Password which you open with a keystroke, that keystroke works regardless of whether you can see the icon or not.
Then to complete the idea of absolutely minimizing the number of items in your Mac's menu, Bartender 3 itself is a menubar app and, yes, it can hide itself. By default it's one icon and you can choose other icons but you can also elect have Bartender 3 only be visible when you press a keystroke.
Bartender 3 sets out to remove distractions, to cut down what's on your menubar and to do so in a way that's quick and useful. It sets out to do these things and it does them very well.
We have no real criticisms of Bartender 3 itself except for this: when you've been so used to 20 or more icons in that menubar, you find it truly freaky that they've gone. It takes a good day before it seems normal. This isn't just about saving space when things are cramped on a small display, it's also about being less distracted.
Mind you, we continue to be a bit freaked by its startup image of a bartender with no face. More seriously, there are menubar apps that will not work properly with Bartender 3's way of hiding them and they could be surprising ones. Until its most recent update, for instance, Fantastical wasn't displaying correctly when you had it hidden in Bartender 3.
That's now been fixed, but when any app is working with the menubar it's digging in to the macOS system deeply and you're going to find other apps that haven't been fixed as quickly as Fantastical.
Sometimes Bartender 3 will recognize the problem and advise you to restart the app like this:
Whatever was going on with the contact app Cardhop could be any issue, or any combination of apps on our system. But, it was entirely fixed by relaunching it.
Apps Like Bartender Mac Lyrics
Even when Bartender 3 doesn't recognize a problem, though, and even when a menubar app just won't work while hidden in it, there is a solution. Open Bartender 3's Preferences, select the troublesome app and choose the option to always show it in the menubar. In other words, Bartender can be told to leave it alone.
You might come to resent it sticking out there on your now otherwise pristine menubar after the fix, but it will work.