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Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

84 points by phn1x ↗ HN
Just purchased my first macbook and I'm already digging it. When it comes to Windows and Linux I have a standard set of apps for both programming and security auditing that I load up. I know what's available and where to get it.

With this new mac I've already loaded up some stuff but what else is available? What are some free, and even low cost "essential" mac apps I should look into?

142 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] thread
karl11
textmate
raquo
Coda
crad
To back up raquo here, Coda (http://www.panic.com/coda/) is my current editor of choice for most things. It's got great collaborative editing, a very nice UI, good syntax highlighting and plugin support.
arupchak
Coda is expensive ($99) but the convenience of working on remote files via SFTP within the program is unmatched. If your session gets disconnected in the midst of editing a file, nothing to worry about, Coda will automatically log back in for you and update the file you were working on when you save.
zeeone
VIM does the same for free. $99 saved is $99 earned.
jhancock
agreed. but many will use more than $99 worth of their time to figure out how to use it. If you've already paid the price for learning VIM, its an easy choice.
arupchak
You're right, but then I could also argue that any of these programs can be replaced by installing a linux port via fink and a combination of shell scripts.

My point was mainly comparing Coda to other GUI text editors for the mac. It has other useful features such as one-window editing, integrated terminal, ability to preview CSS/HTML changes side by side with code, etc.

HalcyonMuse
Thanks! I was looking for a free alternative to Coda that did editing over sftp just yesterday!
jroes
emacs with TRAMP does too
pavel_lishin
I just mount everything via sshfs, and keep trucking with textmate.
access_denied
BBedit is the best editor on the mac, by far. (ok, I am a cheapo and use emacs)
benofsky
Nothing compares to textmate, fantastic price, unbelievably awesome editor.
lallysingh
BBEdit. But the two hit different crowds, it seems.
gregk
TextWrangler (free text editor), Gimp and Inkscape (free graphics) or Photoshop Elements ($90), OpenOffice (free) or iWork (office like from Apple $90), or MS Office ($150) depending on what you know and who you communicate with, Firefox browser (free), Xcode for Mac or iPhone development (free), Skype (free), Tweetie, no virus scanner needed for now, and an external hard Disk so you can use TimeMachine for backups are what I have added in the first 2 months with my first intel mac.
randallsquared
I like Smultron over TextWrangler (and I say this as someone who paid for TextWrangler years ago, before they made it free). Also, Adium is very nice if you use any IM other than Skype.
swombat
QuickSilver: http://quicksilver.en.softonic.com/mac - app launcher. Essential to a smooth OS X experience.

Adium: http://adium.im/ - general-purpose chat client

Cog: http://cogx.org/ - For those of us who don't like iTunes, or want to play FLACs.

WriteRoom or Scrivener: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom | http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html - if you like to write (those are not for code)

Textmate: http://macromates.com/ - if you're a coder.

Transmission: http://www.transmissionbt.com/ - for your torrenting needs.

phn1x
one of the guys I follow on twitter just recommended this:

http://osx.iusethis.com/

durdn
I was about to suggest that as well. It is tied to a very cool app called AppFresh. Recommended.
boundlessdreamz
I'm recommending only free software here.

1. Adium for chat. It is just awesome.http://www.adiumx.com/

2. Quicksilver. if you just want an app launcher spotlight is already good at that. http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/downloads/list [edit: updated link to point to the recent versions]

3. Caffeine is small program which puts an icon on menu bar on which you can click to prevent your Mac from going to sleep,dimming the screen etc. Very useful when watching long flash movies. http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

4. MPlayer This is a video player which plays almost anything you can offer. Also comes with excellent keyboard shortcuts support making it the best video player on any platform. Most people prefer VLC though http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

5. Flip4Mac For those videos that MPlayer plays poorly, typically WMVs Flip4Mac provides a fee codec which integrates with your quicktime player. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcompo...

6. HandBrake For ripping your DVDs to MPEG4, there is no better tool. http://handbrake.fr/

7. Tweetie. if you use twitter, tweetie is the best mac twitter client by far. http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

8. Virtualbox This virtualization product from Sun Microsystems totally eliminates the need for parallels or Vmware if you plan to use the VM sparingly. http://www.virtualbox.org/

9. Evernote http://evernote.com/

10. Eigenclock. I find the OS X, menu calendar extremely limted. Eigenclock is a good replacement http://www.twistedtheorysoftware.com/eigenclock/

11. Onyx for system tweaking http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

12. Transmission - bittorrent client http://www.transmissionbt.com/

KirinDave
Why does anyone recommend Quickisilver? It's suffering from massive bitrot these days. Most users report frequent crashes, hangs, problems waking from sleep, and general slowness compared to Spotlight and LaunchBar?

I really wish it wasn't the case, but Quicksilver seems to have had its run and no one is stepping up to the plate to preserve it.

Most everything else you list is awesome though (although I think Evernote is far from essential and I'm not sure "free" is the right word for it ;)

Oompa
I don't know about LaunchBar, but Spotlight doesn't offer the same things that Quicksilver does. Sure it does application launching, but Quicksilver does more, not to mention Quicksilver's recommendation algorithm is, in my opinion, better.
swombat
QuickSilver is quicker than Spotlight. I don't want to have to wait a few seconds for Spotlight to find stuff... QuickSilver is usually instantaneous or very near it. Also, it doesn't depend on the spotlight indexing, so this means I can disable the spotlight indexing jobs which have a nasty habit of using up 100% of my CPU at random times while I'm doing something.

Also, I haven't had any problems with crashes or anything like that... works great here.

KirinDave
Spotlight is, generally, only slow the first time you search.

Usually it's as fast as LaunchBar except for the very first time it is used. It has a reputation of being slow from 10.4 that is no longer justified.

swombat
I've found that it is consistently a few seconds slower. It's not slow as such, just slower than QuickSilver. And when it come to app launching, these few seconds kill, imho.
tortilla
Quicksilver crashes on me a couple of times a week. But when it's working, it's glorious and wonderful. I think people stick with QS due to momentum and familiarity (muscle memory). I tried LaunchBar 5 for a few days and it's pretty good, very close to QS in terms of functionality, but there are slight differences in usage and plugins (social bookmarking plugin - access delicious links and tags) which keep me sticking with QS.
crad
I'm a fairly recent Quicksilver convert (6 mos or so) and love it. I don't suffer from any of the problems you've listed and it's great for my needs.
rabidsnail
Quicksilver doesn't crash for me but it does leak memory (currently using 103.30 MB).
albemuth
I'm surprised people can speak ill of Quicksilver, it is one of the things I just can't be without, I'm running an out of the box QS with just a couple plugins installed and have no complaints at all.
symptomatic
Why, Dave Fayram (http://www.google.com/profiles/dfayram), does anyone use Windows anymore? "It's suffering from massive bitrot these days. Most users report frequent crashes, hangs, problems waking from sleep, and general slowness."

Hmm. Sounds familiar. Or it would if I were still eating your company's dog food.

elai
I would use uTorrent for a bitorrent client now. I find it's just more effective as a BT client. NetNewsWire is a good RSS client. And I would use VMWare Fusion as a virutalization software vs. Parallels.
njharman
> 1. Adium

Doesn't do IRC. In fact I've been unable to find any osX chat client that does IRC and IM.

Anyone found a solution?

zimbabwe
Mibbit. If you need a desktop solution, then use Fluid to turn it into an SSB.
ankhmoop
We're forced to regularly ban Mibbit users on Freenode technical channels due to abuse masked by Mibbit's proxying, and for that reason I must say I'm not a fan.
zimbabwe
That's the double edge that comes from any ease of access. Mibbit makes IRC very simple and very easy, and so more people use it, and with people come trolls.

That said, if you're looking to access IRC easily, that's the way to go.

Zev
It would be quite easy for axod to pass along user's IP to the server instead of masking it through Mibbit. Having the user's IP as their realname isn't a real fix..
alnayyir
No offense, but mibbit is for idiots.

Use irssi or xchat.

zimbabwe
Give me a fucking break. It's a method of connecting to IRC. To the best of my knowledge, the various programs don't bestow special powers on people. They let you type lines of text and post them to a live room. Occasionally they let you format messages.

How is Mibbit for idiots? It lets me give URLs to people who want to join chat rooms, so if I want to invite somebody to a channel I don't have to say "Download this, then fill out this and this and this in the boxes," I can just link them and they click it and they're in. I can style it to my heart's desire. It's customizable as anything. It supports tabs for multiple rooms at once.

ruby_roo
I use mibbit all the time when I'm behind a firewall that blocks IRC traffic. I don't consider myself an idiot. It's probably also a great option for thin clients.

I do use Colloquy or irssi when at home, though.

simonista
I believe the adium team is hard at work on IRC for either the 1.4 or 1.5 release. Not helpful right now, but just a heads up.
Skeuomorph
This list is great. Here's some more "FREE" software (some would appreciate a donation/purchase but are not crippled):

1. This may be obvious but as of the latest version, you don't gain much from a corporate email program like Entourage. I use Apple Mail, with IMAP and Google Apps for Your Domain. One account has 3.8GB of email and another has 4.1GB, according to Google. It scales fine and stays in sync across devices. Plus Address Book links to Google Contacts, and iCal links to Google Calendar.

2. I prefer MagiCal (http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/magical) rather than Eigenclock as it includes options to put "yyyy-mm-dd [day] hh:mm:ss" by the Spotlight icon, with [day] clickable for the calendar.

3. I like SpeakTime (http://www.mecanisme.net/software/speaktime/) for putting a row of glance-able analog clocks at the lower left of my screen (semi-transparent so they look like part of the background) to be aware of alternate time zones.

4. I use Skitch (http://www.skitch.com) for screengrabs with annotations to share with colleagues/clients.

5. I use Serverskine (http://www.serverskine.com/) to keep track of server logins.

6. I use Foxmarks (http://www.foxmarks.com/) to keep bookmarks in sync across all browsers and computers.

I don't use QuickSilver, Spotlight gets the job done.

I'd also recommend the following paid apps depending on your needs:

1. iWork '09 (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) for all office apps needs with MS Office 03-07 compatibility. It's worth the $79 for the polish and usability. The "free" alternative will cost more in the long run.

2. OmniGraffle Pro for diagramming with Visio (even Visio binary file) compatibility.

3. OmniPlan for MS Project compatibility.

4. Coda for text based web development. (Yes, TextMate is in my dock. But so is Coda.)

5. 1Password for credentials management across browsers and computers

6. Things for "GTD" methodology (or OmniFocus for more features)

Oompa
I find GrabUp (http://grabup.com/) better than Skitch, mainly because I never use the extra features that Skitch gives on top of just taking a screenshot and uploading it.
simonista
If all you're looking for is screen capture:

Apple-Shift-3 captures the entire screen.

Apple-Shift-4 lets you select an area to capture.

Apple-Shift-4 then Space captures a window that you select.

I don't personally use GrabUp or Skitch, so I can't comment on what they add.

Skeuomorph
> comment on what they add.

Skitch adds annotations and sharing with almost the same simplicity as the built-in keystrokes. I typically use "⌘-Shift-4, Space" as well, when using the screens in my own work, but not when annotating or sharing.

For quick annotations, pointing things out, highlighting things, and instantly pasting someone a viewable image URL (with one click to capture, and one click to share), Skitch is tough to beat.

derefr
I find a combination of the native key shortcuts with Dropbox works for me (you can also get a viewable image URL if you drop it in your Public folder.)
lallysingh
OmniGraffle Pro + Keynote is a force to be reckoned with on the presentation front.

For major presentations, I'd also recommend looking at some of the commercial themes available. E.g. keynotepro

mark_h
There's a new effort to make a native OSX interface for mplayer incidentally; seems fairly active so far, and includes apple remote integration, etc: http://mplayerosx.sttz.ch/
rabidsnail
Perian - All of the codecs supported by vlc made available for use by quicktime (and any apps that use quicktime, like iMovie).
udfalkso
Cyberduck (ftp - http://cyberduck.ch/) Adium (IM - http://adium.im/)
weaksauce
Cyberduck is a great ftp/ftp-over-ssh client.
cmac
I used Cyberduck for several years but some of the later versions became so buggy that I switched to Transmit. Haven't looked back since then. (Don't know if Cyberduck's stability has improved since.)
phn1x
I see a lot of people recommending virtual pc but does anyone have anything to say about vm fusion? A buddy of mine was going to hook me up with a copy. I've used virtual PC on linux quite a bit but I was always frustrated with the lack of ability to bridge the networking.
tortilla
I think it's great (trouble-free for me). No problems with networking and almost seamless. Though, I rarely use it for more than a few minutes each week. Just to test web pages out in IE. Which MultipleIE is great for:

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

crad
Fusion works great for my needs.
zimbabwe
Fusion's good for everything but gaming. I use it for Linux but for Windows I stick to Boot Camp.
chris24
Fusion's really easy to use. I've got Windows 7 installed on it, using the 'Vista' install option, and it's working great. It makes it so easy to get it working on the network, and to create a shared folder between the VM and your Mac (if you ask it to).
cglee
Fusion is awesome, especially their "Unity" feature.
maw
Fusion works, but its full-screen mode is rather unfortunate—this is putting it kindly. While running full-screen, when you drag the mouse to the top of the screen, the Mac menubar appears. There's no way to turn this behavior off (please prove me wrong!). I honestly can't imagine a case where anybody could prefer this, and to have no option at all to disable it is a real disappointment. When my license expires, I'll take another hard look at Parallels.
sirsean
MacFUSE w/ sshfs, and MacVIM.
elai
Or ExpanDrive. It's alot cleaner than MacFuse + sshfs.
rufo
Agreed - sshfs has some squirrely edge-cases that ExpanDrive handles very gracefully.
appl3star
no way. Never had more issues with a software (v1) - Now they tried to charge again for v2. And it was still unreliable :/
tortilla
Others mentioned here are great. In addition, check these out:

http://perian.org/ - adds native support to QuickTime for many video formats

http://www.fluidapp.com/ - Fluid, SSB (site specific browsers)

http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/ - LittleSnitch, Monitor and block outgoing internet connections

http://www.skitch.com/ - Skitch, screen capture and sharing

http://derailer.org/paparazzi/ - Paparazzi, Full screenshots of websites

http://www.sequelpro.com/ - SequelPro, MySQL gui (I like Querious, but that's a paid app)

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html - The Unarchiver, unpacker program handles almost every format

http://freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=7013 - Think, helps you focus on a single app

http://www.heliumfoot.com/mercurymover/ - MercuryMover, resize, move windows with keystrokes (If you're OCD about window sizes like me)

Other honorable mentions: Coda, Transmit, TwoUp, Typinator, UnRarX, CSSEdit

Jakob
Dont’t use Transmit. It’s slow and they haven’t released an update for months (years?).

Yummy FTP ist the fastest and feature-richest FTP-client for the Mac. It’s synchronization feature is really good. (I bought both)

jemmons
Transmit is every bit as fast as Yummy downloading and uploading a 10Mb file (S3 and SFTP), so I'm not sure what your impression is based on.

The last release was 11/24/08. It's always updated to take advantage of/fix bugs introduced by new OSes. There hasn't been a release in a whopping 5 months (?) because Leopard's been out for a while and there aren't any outstanding bugs.

robin_reala
Thumbs up for Fluid. I use it for Google Reader and BBC iPlayer. Reader in particular works well as Fluid has built in support for it: it tags the Dock icon with the number of unread entries (à la Mail.app).
mwbrooks
+1 Perian

+1 Fluid

+1 Unarchiver

asciilifeform
Home and End Key Fixer. I found my machine to be nearly unusable without it.

Quicksilver, to avoid the terrible GUI as much as humanly possible.

(I have my MacBook because it is the only non-Windows notebook with fully working suspend mode and peripherals. Why did you buy yours?)

crad
boundlessdreamz covered a lot, here's a few more (mostly commercial but still awesome):

1. Things - Awesome task management - http://www.culturedcode.com/

2. Mailplane - If you use GMail this is a must. - http://mailplaneapp.com/

3. AppZapper - Remove everything about an app - http://www.appzapper.com/

4. LittleSnitch - Filters and prompts on outbound ip connections - http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

5. Undercover - Stolen Laptop Recovery app - http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/

6. Fugu - SCP/SFTP App - http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/fugu/

7. On The Job - Time and Expense Tracking - http://stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/

8. Versions - Awesome SVN client - http://versionsapp.com/

citrik
I'll add my vote for Things! I was designing my own app to do this then Things came out. If you've ever been inspired by GTD - Getting Things Done, by David Allen, Things is an indispensable app, My third most used app next to Mail and Safari. It also has great support for syncing with the iPhone so you can take your lists on the road and store your tasks or ideas wherever you are.
elai
Cornerstone is a good alternative SVN client. Cyberduck is a pretty good general purpose SFTP/FTP/S3/etc client. I like billings better than on the job personally.
benofsky
I find cornerstone a lot better than versions. Although moved to Git now and feel like an idiot for buying a subversion client!! :P
tortilla
Mailplane is great, especially if you have multiple gmail and google mail accounts.
mwbrooks
+1 Things: This app has changed my day-to-day to-dos
jemmons
Things' lack of reliable, convenient syncing killed it for me. OmniFocus, while not as sexy and certainly more complicated than Things, has rock solid syncing to your iPhone or Mac via MobileMe or any other webdav server you choose. And its robust configurability means you can set up a very Things-like workflow if that's your bag. And the iPhone version is sweet!

If you want to have todos available in more than one place, Things will bring you nothing but tears.

jhickner
1.) SteerMouse - tweak the mouse acceleration curve. If you're coming from a PC and you feel like your mouse doesn't move right, this will help.

2.) SizeUp - size and and position windows with hotkeys. For example, quickly set two windows to use exactly one-half of the screen each.

3.) Expandrive - mount S3 buckets, ftp sites, sftp sites as network drives. (Works great with textmate)

4.) Miro - excellent video player and torrent client with rss built in. Sort of like a torrent TIVO.

5.) Warp (http://www.ksuther.com/warp/) - adds some new methods for switching spaces. I have mine set to switch if I drag the mouse to a screen border while holding command.

6.) Also, if QuickSilver doesn't suit your tastes, give LaunchBar a try. Getting used to using one of those two apps pays huge dividends.

ropiku
Another +1 for SizeUp, since I bought a display for my MacBook I love it. I also like if for "name your price".
papa
Lots of excellent pointers from others...I'll add a few I haven't seen posted:

- InstantShot: nice little screenshot utility (I use it daily)

- VueScan: swiss-army knife of mac scanning apps if you need to hook up a scanner. Costs a little, but you get lifetime upgrades. Well worth it.

- LittleSnitch: network monitor. tracks what kind of network activity your apps are up to. Costs a little, but also worth it if you value your privacy.

- JollysFastVNC: fast and free VNC client (I've been using it over Chicken of the VNC).

- OmniDiskSweeper: Disk utility shows you which files are hogging up the most hard disk space. Free. I also recommend many of Omni's other products. Omnigraffle (not free) is also excellent for diagramming.

Also, not mac specific, but the sqlite manager plugin for Firefox is also very helpful.

I don't know where others go to find different Mac apps, I usually hit macupdate.com (and sometimes versiontracker) these days, mostly out of habit, but would love to hear other recs for this.

lmoorman
1password. A must that makes your life much easier.
chris24
1Password's nice, but I've found Sxipper [1] to be better if all I need to use is Firefox. Sxipper has a really nice way of handling password changes, multiple accounts, and comment forms.

[1] - http://www.sxipper.com/

hboon
* OmniFocus * CSSEdit
chris24
Here are some of my favs:

1) Quicksilver. (free) http://blacktree.com/?quicksilver

2) VLC Media Player. (free) It plays pretty much every type of video file. http://videolan.org/vlc

3) Skitch. (free) Essential for quick screenshots, and quick annotations of screenshots. http://plasq.com/skitch

4) Tweetie. (free - ad supported - or $20) The best native Mac app for Twitterring. http://atebits.com/tweetie-mac

5) TextMate. (~$54) It's handling of projects, bundles, etc. is excellent. http://macromates.com

6) HTTP Client. (free) http://ditchnet.org/httpclient/

7) OmniGraffle. ($100-$200) Excellent for constructing user flow diagrams. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/

8) The Hit List. ($50) It's one of the best GTD apps for the Mac. http://www.potionfactory.com/thehitlist/

9) TinkerTool. (free) For customizing OS X. http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html

10) Secrets. (free) For easy access to hidden application preferences. http://secrets.blacktree.com/

11) Sequel Pro. (free) For accessing MySQL databases in a nice GUI. http://www.sequelpro.com/

12) Fluid. (free) If you have a commonly accessed site, Fluid is great to create a SSB (site-specific browser) for it. I have a Fluid SSB created for railsapi.com, which allows me to easily launch it with Quicksilver and start searching the Rails docs right away. http://fluidapp.com/

zimbabwe
I'm going to be a fuddy-duddy and say: most of these apps are not essential for the Mac. Lots of them are nice, but you can skip them entirely when you're just getting started.

Here are the ones I consider absolute essentials for my daily work:

MegaZoomer - http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html - lets you full-screen zoom any application. That mixed with TextEdit gives you the best word processor you'll ever need.

Quicksiler - linked all over - this will fill in every hole you have in your computer usage. I use it to fix a lot of shortcomings in iTunes, for instance, and while I don't use it as insanely as some people do, even light usage makes your life a lot easier. It's also a full-featured file browser, which is excellent.

Perian - http://perian.org/ - makes your life a lot easier when you're watching videos or listening to music, without forcing a reliance on the ugly VLC.

GlimmerBlocker - http://glimmerblocker.org/ - Unless you use Firefox, this adds every feature you'll need to every browser you've got. (Firefox is an awful browser that rebuilds a lot of Mac features from the ground up, and so it isn't affected by this.) It blocks ads (selectively, so you can allow the ads you don't mind), blocks entire sites, and adds retroactive functionality to sites. The big one for me is the Youtube downloader.

Growl - http://growl.info/ - This one's really easy to abuse, but if you set it to notify you of all the really important things - FTP file uploads and long processes and so on - then you get a very nice way of keeping yourself informed of all your computer's goings-on.

Those are the ones that I absolutely need for my Mac. Here are the ones that are obscure-ish and rarely recommended and yet are terrific:

Max - http://sbooth.org/Max/ - converts every format but wma, so your library stays neat and organized without any complaints about iTunes.

Freedom - http://macfreedom.com/ - disables the Internet, so you can't procrastinate at all.

FuzzyClock - http://www.objectpark.org/FuzzyClock.html - makes your clock much more humane.

Chax - http://ksuther.com/chax/ - Fixes a few things in iChat to make it an acceptable chat system (I really dislike Adium for a number of reasons).

quizbiz
What about... games? :P