Some of my general programs

1. Homebrew (https://brew.sh/)
2. Magnet
3. Shottr
4. Velja
5. Bitwarden
6. Spark
7. Firefox Nightly/Chrome
8. Ferdium
9. Pdf expert (before the subscription junk happened)/ PDF Studio
10. Day progress
11. Horo
12. Obsidian
13. Bartender (testing it)

BetterTouchTool

UTM. The best free VM software that works on all Macs, M1/M2 included. Can even virtualise MacOS instances relatively easily.

App Cleaner!

https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

I like Spectacle for arranging windows on the desktop.

If you're a command line user, give iTerm2 a look.

If you're a developer or power user, you'll probably want Homebrew for package management.

These are the Mac-exclusive apps I use regularly on my MacBook Pro 14" CotEditor Amazing open source text editor just for Mac BetterSnapTool for snapping windows (old school I know) Image2icon is useful for making my dock icons consistent TopNotch because the notch is annoying TG Pro because Macs get hot Keka because sometimes you run across a RAR or 7z file

These are just Mac apps, but I also use a bunch of cross-platform apps

Witch for sane alt(cmd)+tab behaviour

And Alfred mostly for clipboard history

AppCleaner

Check out LinearMouse. Can map buttons and is simple and minimal.

https://github.com/linearmouse/linearmouse

Maccy - clipboard app Alfred - launcher Iterm2 - terminal Firefox BettertouchTool - touchpad gestures Hidden bar - hide menu bar icons Itsycal - menubar calendar IINA - gui for mpv video player Keka - extract archives Espanso - text replacement

BetterTouchTool (which isn't free but is worth every penny) lets you do everything rectangle does. Also lets you configure your mouse buttons to do whatever you want. Also infinite custom hot keys and shortcuts.

Also Raycast as a replacement for Spotlight.

Blockblock and Lulu from https://objective-see.org/

And three finger drag in accessibility options.

Microsoft Remote Desktop

Homebrew

Keka for RAR

App Cleaner (app uninstaller), Wipr (ad blocker), IINA (video player), Subtler (converts mkv to QuickTime readable files), Keka (unarchiver), and LinearMouse (no mouse acceleration and separate scroll directions).

My MBP is largely a glorified SSH client. So, my must-haves are:

• homebrew
• Chrome and Firefox
• iterm2
• oh-my-zsh w/ Powerlevel10k
• Amethyst

I'm going to try out Kitty soon to replace iterm2.

Definitely check out the Contexts app.

It replaces some of the core window management features and can be configured to make Mac window management a bit more like what you're used to on Windows/Linux.

Another +1 for Rectangle.

For me, a semi-recent convert from Windows, a fresh install of macOS includes:

• Dropover, it has a limited free version (3 second wait time) or $5 for a one time ‘Pro’ version. It worked way better for me than Dropzone for copying files around and temporarily grabbing web images for Messages and Discord.

• Top Notch, its free to use and cleanly hides the notch and just provides a clean black space for the menu bar.

• SoundSource, yes its $40 and thats expensive af. However FOSS alternatives like Background Music kept crashing due to my external DAC. It’s a volume mixer, EQ tool, and audio IO selector.

And finally if I need to run Windows tools or applications for some of my hobbies, I have Parallels on an external drive. That way Windows isn’t hogging space and is isolated when I don’t need it.

If you’re looking for window tiling and keyboard shortcuts, Yabai and skhd are absolutely amazing. Add sketchybar to the mix and you can create an awesome and customizable alternative to the native Spaces.