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thedaviddias / Mac-OS-Setup-Applications

👾 All I need to setup a new Mac and the applications I use everyday as a Web Developper

Home Page:https://www.producthunt.com/posts/my-mac-os-setup-and-applications

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My Mac OS setup and applications

3 logos: command line, apple and application

My Mac OS setup and the best applications I use as a Web Developer

My Mac OS setup and applications - All the tools and apps any Web Developer should use on a Mac | Product Hunt

Table of content

Disclaimer

I have been always passionate about tools. I always loved experimenting until I can find the right tool for the right task. Being a Front-End Developer requires to know the tools that exist and choose the one that will perform the task faster and better.

Based on hours of research and testing, I'm sharing all the applications I believe suits the best my work and daily workflow. It's a living MacOS configuration that, I hope, will also save you time for you to enjoy life more!

Usage

  • I tried to keep the right order you should also follow to install packages and applications on your Mac (particularly the setup shell part)
  • Some tools are free and some are not. I'm lucky to have the ability to pay for licences and subscriptions. But if you are not in that situation, 1) You will find free alternatives in the "Alternatives" section of most of the tools, 2) you don't need a paid tool to do an amazing work. Just choose the best tool that suits you and your situation.

Where to find the right tool?

  • Product Hunt - By far the best and well-know website where you can find almost everything you need. You will sometimes find a badge Upvote on Product Hunt that redirects to the Product Hunt page. Show some ❤️ to the makers!
  • AlternativeTo - I regularly use AlternativeTo but find it limited and not always accurate. The "ups" are most of the time not relevant or doesn't reflect what people prefer the most. It's a great place to start if you are looking for a list of alternatives though.
  • Slant and stackshare - Slant and Stackshare are kind of similar but Stackshare is more developer tools focused. It's a nice source of information to compare apps / web apps.

My Hardware

Personal Keyboards:

Mouses:

Accessories:

Setup shell

Xcode 11

  • Xcode is required for some applications to run. So having Xcode updated just remove the issue of not being able to install some apps.
xcode-select --install

Homebrew - The Missing Package Manager for macOS

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

With Homebrew comes brew-cask which will allow to install applications with the command line.

Useful commands for Homebrew
brew update                         # Fetch latest version of homebrew and formula.
brew search {app name}              # Searches all known Casks for a partial or exact match.
brew install {package name}         # Install a package
brew info --cask {app name}           # Displays information about a given Cask
brew install --cask {app name}        # Install the given cask.
brew cleanup
Cakebrew (optional) - A GUI for Cask
brew install --cask cakebrew

ZSH - An alternative shell to Bash

brew install zsh

Add this to my ~/.zshrc

export HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS="--appdir=/Applications"

Oh My Zsh - Framework for managing your Zsh configuration

Verify that ZSH is correctly installed

zsh --version

Additionally, Zsh should be set as the default shell. Run echo $SHELL from a new terminal to confirm. Expected result: /usr/bin/zsh or similar

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Check if Oh My Zsh was correctly installed.

Command Line Apps

⚠️ Some of the following packages are not essential but highly recommended. Some applications may depend on the installation of these packages.

GNU Coreutils - An essential package with basic tools such as ls, rm...

brew install coreutils

Wget - To download data from the web and ftp, easier than curl

brew install wget

Tree - To create beautiful indented listing of files

brew install tree

tree -L 1 # to output only the root directories and files

Nmap - A powerful command line network discovery utility

brew install nmap

The Silver Searcher - Really fast code searching tool

brew install the_silver_searcher

jq - Lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor

brew install jq

Youtube-dl - A command line alternative to Airy

brew install youtube-dl

youtube-dl -f best 'link-of-your-own-youtube-video'

FFMPEG - To convert videos in multiple formats

brew install tesseract-lang && brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-fdk-aac --with-librsvg --with-libsoxr --with-libssh --with-tesseract --with-libvidstab --with-opencore-amr --with-openh264 --with-openjpeg --with-openssl --with-rubberband --with-webp --with-zeromq --with-zimg --with-srt --with-libvmaf --with-libxml2 --with-game-music-emu --with-libbluray --with-libbs2b --with-libcaca --with-libgsm --with-libmodplug --with-openssl@1.1 --with-rtmpdump --with-speex --with-two-lame --with-wavpack --with-xvid

More details here

blueutil - CLI for bluetooth on OSX

brew install blueutil

Speedtest-cli - The command line version of Speedtest.net

brew install speedtest-cli

Imagemagick - You can do almost everything to edit/convert images and pdfs

brew install imagemagick

DisplayPlacer - Programmatically reorganize your screens layout

brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer

Fonts - Installing some fonts

brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts

brew install --cask \
    font-fira-code \
    font-source-code-pro font-source-code-pro-for-powerline \
    font-source-sans-pro

MAS - Install App Store apps from the command line

brew install mas

mas search {app name} # To search for an app

Ruby (rbenv) - To manage multiple versions of Ruby

brew install rbenv ruby-build rbenv-default-gems rbenv-gemset
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc # Apply changes
    
rbenv install {version}

nvm - Easily manage your node versions

⚠️ (never use brew to install nvm)

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bash

Add these lines in the $HOME/.zshrc file:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

And these lines to automatically switch your node version based on the nvmrc file.

# place this after nvm initialization!
autoload -U add-zsh-hook
load-nvmrc() {
  local node_version="$(nvm version)"
  local nvmrc_path="$(nvm_find_nvmrc)"

  if [ -n "$nvmrc_path" ]; then
    local nvmrc_node_version=$(nvm version "$(cat "${nvmrc_path}")")

    if [ "$nvmrc_node_version" = "N/A" ]; then
      nvm install
    elif [ "$nvmrc_node_version" != "$node_version" ]; then
      nvm use
    fi
  elif [ "$node_version" != "$(nvm version default)" ]; then
    echo "Reverting to nvm default version"
    nvm use default
  fi
}
add-zsh-hook chpwd load-nvmrc
load-nvmrc

To default a specific node version: nvm alias default {version}

yarn - Fast, reliable, and secure dependency management.

brew install yarn

Act - Run Github Actions Locally

brew install nektos/tap/act

Git standup - Recall what you did on the last working day

brew install git-standup

Github CLI - Github on the command line

brew install github/gh/gh

Quick Look plugins

brew install --cask \
	qlcolorcode qlmarkdown qlprettypatch qlstephen \
	qlimagesize \
	quicklook-csv quicklook-json epubquicklook

Node packages to install globally

List all NPM package installed globally: npm list -g --depth 0

  • Netlify CLI - npm install netlify-cli -g
  • Gatsby CLI - npm install -g gatsby-cli
  • NPM-check - npm install -g npm-check
  • Yarn-check - npm install -g yarn-check
  • AWS Amplify CLI - npm install -g @aws-amplify/cli
  • Vercel CLI - npm i -g vercel
  • Create React App - npx create-react-app my-app
  • dotenv-cli - npm install -g dotenv-cli
  • Gitmoji - npm i -g gitmoji-cli
  • Release-it - npm install --global release-it
  • Plop - npm i -g plop

Applications

This is a complete list of all the applications I have on my personal and professional Mac (some apps are only on my personal computer).

🎁 Some applications can be bought individually or you can subscribe Setapp for a 7-day free trial to test multiple applications and decide the one you want to use!

Bare minimum

This is the list of the most essentials apps I would install if I was limited in the number of apps to have.

Little Snitch - Control incoming/outgoing network traffic

Licence ~$30 Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Little Snitch is perfect to block outgoing or incoming connections.
  • When I'm on the go and using my mobile data, I usually block some heavy connections so I limit the amount of data spent.
What I ❤️
  • Easy to use and clean UI
What I 👎
  • I wish the confirmation window could save "my preferences", so I would not have to select "forever" every time.
CLI installation
brew install --cask little-snitch

1Password - Password manager

Yearly subscription High usage Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Generate all of my passwords with it and keep everything in a secured and encrypted vault kept secure by my one master password.
  • No longer need to remember passwords and I now have a unique password for every website activating two factor authentication wherever possible.
  • All my applications licences are saved in 1Password
What I ❤️
  • 1Password is a native MacOS app and it's probably one of the reason I choose to move away from LastPass in 2019.
  • Fast
  • I can save not just passwords but secure notes, bank accounts, licences...
  • Have a shared vault with my wife and being able to send her by Airdrop a new entry.
What I 👎
  • I loved that LastPass could recognize a form and automatically filled the inputs on a Website. 1Password requires you to 1) Click on the browser extension, 2) Click on "autofill"
  • Not sure if it will be one day possible, but unlocking 1Password with the Apple Watch would be awesome.
Extensions / plugins

CLI installation
brew install --cask 1password

mas install 1333542190

Alfred 4 - Application Launcher, the best alternative for Spolight

Free Licence ~$30 Backup Dropbox High usage Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Open or switch quickly to any application
  • Text expansions: previously using TextExpander, I switched in using the snippet feature in Alfred.
What I ❤️
  • Unlimited possibilities to develop any workflows
  • Integration with 1Password
  • Price
  • Tons of options
What I 👎
  • I wish some features like "Snippets", would be more advanced to compete with tools like TextExpander or Typinator
List of workflows I use

This is the list of the workflows I used the most (files saved in Dropbox):

CLI installation
brew install --cask alfred

iTerm2 - The replacement for terminal

Free Usage high Backup Dropbox Show your support Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Because the native MacOS terminal is ugly and limited in terms of personalization and functionalities.
What I ❤️
  • The number of options
  • The possibility to create multiple profiles
  • Password manager
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣
CLI installation
brew install --cask iterm2

Browsers

Free

Google Chrome

Proprietary backup

Multiple profiles

  • Professional user
  • Personal user
  • Accessibility user
Chrome extensions
  • Feedly Mini - Easily save the RSS feed of the current website
  • Adblock Plus - Because I prefer to limit ads
  • 1Password - 1Password companion
  • Tabs Mania - Extension I built to manage tabs
  • Toolbar Spacer 1 - I prefer to separate my extensions visually
  • Clip to DEVONthink - Clip the URL, text or screenshot the page and save it in DEVONthink
  • Save to Notion - Save a page, text or anything else to Notion
  • Add to Things 3 - Add the current URL to Things
  • Eagle - Save images to Eagle (love the drag and drop functionality that works with any image)
  • What Runs - Discover what runs a website
  • React Developer Tools - The required tool that help to inspect any React component
  • Grammarly - The life saving tool that help to fix writing errors
  • CSS Scan
  • Session Budy -
  • Keepa - Amazon price tracker: know when to buy and when to wait
  • VisBug - Open source web design debug tool for designers (and developers)
  • JSONView - To view JSON documents in your browser
  • Momentum - The classic and beautiful tab replacement
CLI installation
brew install --cask google-chrome

Google Chrome Canary

CLI installation
brew install --cask google-chrome-canary

Firefox

CLI installation
brew install --caskfirefox

Firefox Nightly

CLI installation
brew install --cask firefox-nightly

Microsoft Edge - The browser from Microsoft

CLI installation
brew install --cask microsoft-edge

Utilities

Bartender 3 - Organize menu bar icons

Licence ~$20 High usage

Screenshots

  • Pro

    • Show view

    • Hide view

  • Personal

    • Show view

    bartender-show-personal

    (Trailer, Mouseless, SnippetsLabs, PopClip, Magnet, Timing)

    • Hide view

    bartender-hide-personal

    (f.lux, Hammerspoon, Dropbox, Google Backup, Airplay, Wifi)

  

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Keep your bar icons organize
  • Hide some non-essentials icons but make them still available
What I ❤️
  • Simple to use
  • Do the job
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣
CLI installation
brew install --cask bartender

f.lux - Reduce eyes fatigue

Free Usage high Show your support Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Makes it easy for my eyes
What I ❤️
  • Free
  • It works! Can stay longer front of my screen without tiredness or headaches.
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣

CLI installation
brew install --cask flux

PopClip - Giving more power to my mouse

Licence ~$10 Usage high Backup Dropbox for the extensions Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Gives more power to your mouse and save you few clicks.
What I ❤️
  • Most of the apps I use in a daily basis have their extension
  • I can send any text I highlight in a page to DevonThink or Things
What I 👎
  • I wish I could disable it on some websites
CLI installation
brew install --cask popclip

Contexts - Window switcher

Licence ~$10 Usage high

  • Shortcut used: ctrl + space
CLI installation
brew install --cask contexts

CleanShot X - Capture your Mac’s screen like a pro.

Licence ~$30 Usage high Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Doing screenshots and quickly send it to my colleagues
What I ❤️
  • All the options you can imagine to have in a screenshot application.
  • Can easily rename a file before saving it
  • Scrolling capture
  • Ability to save as a GIF or a video format
  • The Quick Access that keeps the last screenshots as an overlay
  • The option to enable "Do Not Disturb" while recording
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣
CLI installation
brew install --cask cleanshot

Alternatives

TextSniper - Extract text from images and videos

Licence ~$10 Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

MeetingBar - Never miss a meeting again

Free Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Show you your next meeting in your icon bar
What I ❤️
  • Free
  • Don't need to open an app or click anywhere to see my next meeting
  • Direct access to open Google meet, Zoom and most chat providers
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣

Moom - Move and zoom windows

Licence ~$10 Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

CleanMyMac X - To maintain my Mac as he was new

Licence ~$50 Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Keep your Mac clean, up-to-date and find any big file (and much more)
What I ❤️
  • Uninstall properly applications, if you remove an app from the Application folder, it automatically suggest to remove app's dependency files
  • Many file management tools in one application
  • Space lens
  • Give me access to login items
  • Easily update apps
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣

CLI installation
brew install --cask cleanmymac

Muzzle - Silence embarrassing notifications

Free Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

Lungo - Prevent your Mac from going to sleep

Free Usage low Show your support Upvote on Product Hunt

Stream Deck - Defining actions on buttons

Free Usage medium Backup iCloud Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --cask elgato-stream-deck

Noizio - I love birds

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I use to play different ambients when coding or working in general.
  • I also use Portal and Thunderspace on my iPhone.

CLI installation
brew install --casknoizio

mas install 928871589

Mouseless - Practice and learn new keyboard's shortcuts

Licence ~$20 Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • To learn new shortcuts and use less my mouse
What I ❤️
  • Automatically suggest shortcuts based on the current app
What I 👎
  • I wish I could easily add my shortcuts
  • Personalize some shortcuts to work with my keyboard

TeamViewer - Remote control

Free Usage low

I only use TeamViewer when I need to debug my Mom's computer (which is located in France).

Cardhop - Contacts lists management

Licence ~$30 Backup iCloud Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I use Cardhop occasionally to ensure my contact list is up to date or to easily add missing information or missing birthday dates.
  • I synchronise my list of Contacts on iCloud and Gmail Contacts to avoid duplicates.

Automation

Keyboard Maestro - The most powerful option to automate EVERYTHING on Mac

Licence ~$30 Usage high Backup Dropbox Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Automate your Mac
What I ❤️
  • Unlimited possibilities and automations
  • One of the reason I own Macs since few years
What I 👎
  • Not enough updates
  • You can find examples on Keyboard Maestro forum, but I wish to have more examples and content within the app.
Extensions
CLI installation
brew install --cask keyboard-maestro

Hazel - Automate repetitive tasks in a few clicks

Licence ~$30 Usage high Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Watch folders and create triggers to launch a specified action
What I ❤️
  • Simpler and faster than Keyboard Maestro to configure
  • Hability to import / export rules
What I 👎
  • Delay when I cancel a task. Hazel continue running even I disabled one of the rules. Need to "hard cancel" Hazel sometimes.
CLI installation
brew install --cask hazel

Raycast - Control tools with few keystrokes

Free Usage medium

CLI installation
brew install --cask raycast

Karabiner - Remapping my keyboards

Free Usage medium Backup Github Show your support Upvote on Product Hunt

BetterTouch Tool - Customize multiple devices on the Mac

Licence ~$30 Usage medium Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskbettertouchtool

Hammerspoon - OSX automation using Lua

Free Usage lowBackup Github Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskhammerspoon

Tasks & time management

Fantastical - Calendar management

Free with limits High usage Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I use Fantastical to manage personal and professional events.
  • I always view my events from Week view. And shows 5 days with 16h shown for all days. This lets me have a perspective over what I have to do now.
What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • An better alternative to the native calendar
What I ❤️
  • Integration with Reminders and Meetup
  • Lightweight
  • Easy to use
  • Lot of personalization options
What I 👎
  • I usually understand and don't bother too much with subscriptions, but $52 a year is too much in comparison with other apps I used. Around $35 would make more sense to me. I'm using the free version and it's enough for my needs.
  • It's clearly a "trap": when I access the premium details in the preferences, my only option is to click on "Start trial" or Force quit the app... I'm not fan of that.
CLI installation
brew install --caskfantastical

Things - Task manager

Licence ~$30 High usage Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I used Todoist for few years but decided to try Things, and even I miss some options from Todoist, I'm loving using Things.
What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Organize my todos and projects
What I ❤️
  • The UI
  • The integration with Shortcuts (iPad OS and iOS)
  • Integration with Reminders and a lot of other apps
  • Organize by area and projects
What I 👎
  • Would be awesome to integrate things with other apps through Zapier
CLI installation
brew install --caskthings

mas install 904280696

Timing - To record everything I do without manual action

Yearly subscription High usage Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --casktiming

Storage & backup management

I've used Google One many years, but decide to use Dropbox instead. The two main reasons are: integration with most of the apps I used and the offline mode out of the box.

Dropbox - Online Cloud Backup

Monthly subscription Usage high

I've used Google Drive storage few years but use now mainly Dropbox because of the integration with a lot of Mac OS, iOs and iPad OS apps.

To DO after install
  • Select Apps and Screenshots folders to sync
What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Backup storage
What I ❤️
  • Integration with a lot of apps
  • Offline / online possibility
  • Faster then Google Drive for the synchronization
What I 👎
  • I wish I could access the "Selective Sync" with fewer clicks
CLI installation
brew install --caskdropbox

Google Backup Up & Sync

Free Usage high

To DO after install
  • Choose folders to sync

ForkLift - Dual pane file manager and file transfer client for macOS

Licence ~$30 Backup Dropbox Usage medium

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Copy-paste with queue and access remote folders
What I ❤️
  • The copy-paste queue that allow me to pause or resume
  • Access remote folders (FTP, Dropbox, S3, Backblaze B2)
What I 👎
  • Sometime crashes or keep "copying" but is actually blocked.
To DO after install
  • Sync favorites with Dropbox

CLI installation
brew install --caskforklift

mas install 412448059

The Unarchiver - The missing RAR and Zip unarchiver

Free Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

unarchiver-options

CLI installation
brew install --caskthe-unarchiver

mas install 425424353

Hard Disk Manager - Maintain and manage my external hard drives

Licence ~$65 Usage low

Sometimes, some external hard drives can gave me tough times. Hard Disk Manager saved me multiple times and it's always good to check the health of your hard drives time to time.

GoodSync - Backup/sync and file organization

Licence ~$30

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Synchronize files between local and remote storage
What I ❤️
  • Can sync between various remote storage (ex Drive <> Dropbox)
What I 👎
  • Crashed some times
  • Can take ages depending on how many files and where these are located (not really what I dislike, I just wishes things could be faster 😅)

Visual Studio Code - My preferred code editor

Free Usage high Backup Github

The best code editor (for my usage)

CLI installation
brew install --caskvisual-studio-code

Tower - GUI Git client

Yearly subscription Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Manage Git projects
What I ❤️
  • Tower gives me a more visual representation of all my Github repo. When I'm not using Tower, I use some aliases enabled in ZSH to speedup Git commands.
What I 👎
  • The last versions forced me to sometimes force quit the app, or had to face some crashes. This seems solved by now.

CLI installation
brew install --casktower

Diffmerge - Compare and merge files

Free Usage low

CLI installation
brew install --caskdiffmerge

SnippetsLabs - Code snippets manager

Licence ~$10 Usage high Backup iCloud Backup Github

  • I store all my code snippets
What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Manage code snippets
What I ❤️
  • No subscription, price
  • Works with Alfred extension and Poplip extension
  • Bar icon access
  • iCloud synchronization
What I 👎
  • No recent updates
  • Doesn't support syntax highlighting (huge issue for me)

Other options

Extensions / plugins
Possible alternatives (to be tested)
CLI installation
mas install 1006087419

Trailer - Github Notifications

Free Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

Proxyman - Best Web Debugging Proxy for MacOS

Free Usage medium Upvote on Product Hunt

I found Proxyman when struggling making Charles working on my Mac. Proxyman make it really easy to replace any file by a local version. Useful sometimes to debug production.

Paw - Beautiful HTTP client for Mac

Backup Dropbox Usage medium Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

https://paw.cloud/extensions/

CLI installation
brew install --caskpaw

TablePlus - The best GUI for relational databases

Licence ~$50 Usage high

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • To manage relational databases
What I ❤️
  • The number of databases supported
  • The clean UI interface
  • Support for MongoDB (more coming soon)
  • Support for Mac and Windows
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣
CLI installation
brew install --casktableplus

Postman - A free alternative to Paw

Free Usage medium Proprietary backup

Mockoon - Has never been so easy to create a mock server

Free Usage medium Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskmockoon

Docker - Containerize everything!

Free Usage high

CLI installation
brew install docker

brew install --caskdocker-toolbox

Altair GraphQL Client - Beautiful GraphQL Client

Free Usage low Show your support

CLI installation
brew install --caskaltair-graphql-client

Screaming Frog SEO Spider - Website crawler to test SEO issues

Free Usage low

Poedit - Translations made easy

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskpoedit

SwitchHosts! - Hosts management & switching

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskswitchhosts

Core Shell - Full featured terminal with OpenSSH support

Free Usage low

VirtualBox - In case I need to debug on Windows

Free Usage low

Smart JSON Editor - JSON data manipulation for Mac

Free Licence ~$10

Free alternative Jayson

CLI installation
mas install 1268962404

Carbonize - Generate beautiful code snippets

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

CodeKit - Gulp, Grunt, Pug are on a boat

Licence ~$34 Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

  • CodeKit was one of the best and first software that would convert Sass to CSS. A lot of improvements were made since then. I use it when I'm lazy and don't want to configure Gulp, ParcelJS or Webpack.

Haskell - Haskell for Mac IDE

Licence ~$30 Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
mas install Haskell

Reading & Writing

Reeder - To stay informed

Licence ~$13 Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I use Feedly to store all my RSS feeds and synchronize with Reeder.
  • I like to activate the Bionic Reading setting, which speed up my reading.
  • DEVONthink 3 and Things are activated in the "Actions and Sharing" settings.

CLI installation
mas install 880001334

Scapple - Brain, ideas and connections

Licence ~$20 Usage medium Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

  • When I want to brainstorm without any structure, Scapple is the first tool I use in my workflow.
  • It allows me to put all words / ideas I can think of and then start establishing relationships.
  • When I have a better vision or want to be more organize, I usually switch in using MindNode.

CLI installation
brew install --caskscapple

mas install 568020055

MindNode - Interactive Mind Mapping

Licence ~$30 Backup iCloud High medium Upvote on Product Hunt

What for?
  • To help organization thoughts and ideas
What I ❤️
  • Easy to use
  • Nice UI and integration with MacOS / iOS
What I 👎
  • The mobile application cost
  • No enough inovations

CLI installation
brew install --caskmindnode-pro

mas install 1289197285

Notion - Notes, docs, knowledge base and more, in one place

Yearly subscription Proprietary backup High usage Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --casknotion

DEVONthink - To collect, organize and edit all my documents and articles

Licence ~200 Usage high Backup iCloud

  • I used Evernote for years, but the lack of new features I decided to use DEVONthink and have no regrets.

Extensions / plugins
CLI installation
brew install --caskdevonthink

DEVONagent Pro - Search the web and filter the results

Licence ~$50 High medium

  • I use DEVONagent Pro every-time I need to do research to prepare a presentation, write an article or produce some sort of content.

MWeb - A powerful Markdown Editor

Licence ~$20 Backup iCloud Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Markdown Editor
What I ❤️
  • The dual panel with Markdown in one side and the preview in the other
  • Beautiful themes
What I 👎
  • No recent updates
  • The scroll for the Editor and preview panel is usually not synchronized
  • No possibility to deactivate the synchronized scroll

Possible alternatives
CLI installation
mas install 1403919533

Scrivener - One day I want to be a writer

Licence ~$50 Usage low Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

  • Scrivener is the perfect tool to write any book.
  • I've used Scrivener in the past to work on the outline for a video course.
  • I'm planning in using it more and maybe start writing small non-fictional ebooks soon.

CLI installation
brew install --caskscrivener

mas install 1310686187

Apple Keynote - A better alternative to Powerpoint

Free Backup iCloud Upvote on Product Hunt

Communication

Slack - Work chat and more

Free Usage high Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

Workspaces
brew install cask slack

mas install 803453959

Airmail - My favorite email client

Free Yearly subscription Backup iCloud Usage high Upvote on Product Hunt

  • I've been using Airmail since I fully work on MacOS.
  • I tried Spark for few days but I didn't feel it was a big win in comparison to Airmail.
  • Like many people, I approach my emails tasks in GTD style, trying to always be close to zero emails in my inbox.
Filters and triage

I used "filters" on Gmail to organize most of my emails (especially newsletters, bills, recurring emails...). I wish Gmail would have an easiest way to create these filters. gmail-filters

CLI installation
brew install --caskairmail

mas install 918858936

Social Media

I have a strict rule in regards to social apps on my professional Mac. I usually don't have any social / communication app that is not directly related to work (only Slack). These apps are mostly on my personal MacBook.

Signal - Signal on Mac

Free Usage low

Messenger - Facebook Messenger but on Mac

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

WhatsApp - WhatsApp on Mac

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

Discord - Popular chat platform amount developers and companies

Free Usage low

I use mostly Discord to talk with HTMLHint contributors and other platforms.

Skype

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

  • Skype was my to-go chat app for years, but since Google Meet, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, I only use with 2-3 people that are not on these platforms.
CLI installation
brew install --caskskype

Design & Web Design

I'm not a Web Designer / Designer, but I love studying Photography, UI and UX. I try to practice as much as I can using the following applications.

Eagle - Organize my design library

Yearly subscription Usage high Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • To manage all my media files (images, PSD, sketch files...)
What I ❤️
  • Backup on Dropbox
  • Recent updates
  • Chrome extension which save any image with a simple drag and drop
  • Fast
  • Lot of options
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣
Extensions / plugins

Rightfont 5 - The best font manager for Mac

Licence ~$35 Usage medium Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

  • By far, the best font manager that supports my library of more than 80 000 font files.

IconJar - Best icon manager

Yearly subscription Usage low Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

  • All my icons are stored on IconJar
  • I could also used Eagle to store these, but I prefer to have a dedicated software to manage all icon's formats.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Monthly subscription Proprietary backup Usage high

  • List of Adobe Softwares I most often use
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • Adobe Illustrator
    • Adobe Premiere Rush
    • Adobe Premiere Pro
    • Adobe Audition
    • Adobe Lightroom Classic
    • Adobe Acrobat
    • ...
CLI installation
brew install --caskadobe-creative-cloud

Figma

Free Usage low Usage medium Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

I'm planning in using more Figma as I don't want to renew Sketch in regards to my real usage.

CLI installation
brew install --caskfigma

Sketch

Yearly subscription Usage medium Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

Still a reference (vs Adobe XD and Figma) but I didn't renew my licence in 2019. Planning in using Figma instead when needed.

CLI installation
brew install --casksketch

Sketchpacks

Free Usage low

To manage plugins for Sketch

Zeplin

Usage medium Proprietary backup Upvote on Product Hunt

Used Zeplin mostly at work. I remember when it first came out. A lot of updates and improvements since.

ColorSnapper2 - Collect, organize and share colors

Licence ~$20 Usage medium

My go-to color-picker.

CLI installation
brew install --caskcolorsnapper
Alternatives
  • I've used Sip in the past but recently switched to ColorSnapper2 because no subscription.
CLI installation
brew install --casksip

ImageOptim - Optimize images

Free Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

CLI installation
brew install --caskimageoptim

Audio & Video production

VLC - A Media player built by my compatriots

Free Usage high Show your support

It's not because it was build by French people that I love this app!

Loopback - Cable-free audio routing for Mac

Licence ~$100 Usage low

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • When you want to combine different audio sources, essential if you do podcasts
What I ❤️
  • Easy to use
  • Works perfectly
What I 👎
  • Price

Audio Hijack - Record any audio

Licence ~$50 Usage low

What for? - What I ❤️ - What I 👎
What for?
  • Record any source audio, I use to record podcasts
What I ❤️
  • With Loopback, Audio Hijack transforms your Mac in a real studio
  • Build-in effects (like Dehum and band EQ)
What I 👎
  • 0️⃣

Ecamm Live - The simplest tool for doing live streaming on Facebook / Youtube

Free Usage medium

Streamlabs OBS - The best (and free) streaming app

Free Usage medium

Screenflow 9 - Screen recording and editing like a pro

Licence ~$100 Usage low Backup Dropbox Upvote on Product Hunt

  • Screenflow doesn't recommend to store files on Dropbox, so I usually store the files on Dropbox but move them to my local hard drive if I want to edit these. No problem until today.

Power Prompter -

Licence ~$50 Usage low

Twitch - The well-known streaming platform

Free Usage medium

Miscellaneous

KeyKey - A minimalist touch typing tutor for Mac

Licence ~$20 Usage low Upvote on Product Hunt

Type Fu - Typing training

Free Usage medium

The only typing program that has a "Code" practice section

Typesy - When I want to compete with my wife

Licence ~$30 Usage low

GPG Suite - Encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify files or messages.

Free Usage high

  • I use this also for signing my commits.

Hue Sync - Sync my lights with audio / video files

Free Usage low

CLI installation
brew install --cask

Mac preferences

Dock

Add spaces to my dock

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock
  • Dock screenshot

dock-perso

Web Applications

  • Invision
  • Namecheap - The best domain registrar
  • StatusCake - To keep an eye on your website uptime
  • Themer.dev - To generate themes (editors, terminals, wallpapers, and more) with ease
  • Netlify
  • codeimg - To easily create social media banners
  • Gradient Magic - Free gallery of CSS Gradients

Inspiration

Heavily inspired by the works from:

Icons and images

All logos and brand/applications names are registered and below to their owners.

Icons made by Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com
Icons made by Flat Icons from www.flaticon.com
Icons made by prettycons from www.flaticon.com

Licence

MIT

About

👾 All I need to setup a new Mac and the applications I use everyday as a Web Developper

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/my-mac-os-setup-and-applications

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License:MIT License