AppAddict

Tailscale: The Best Free App Most Mac Power Users Aren’t Using

Someone asked me to name the best free app available to Mac users in 2026. I didn’t hesitate before choosing Tailscale. Tailscale is a VPN, but not in the usual sense. It’s a private, encrypted, identity-based network where your devices recognize each other no matter where they are. It uses WireGuard technology and is often described as a mesh network. The terminology isn’t important. This isn’t the kind of VPN that simply masks your home IP address or anonymizes web traffic. Tailscale lets you treat a collection of devices in different geographic locations as if they were all in the...

January 15th, 2026 Mac Apps

Droppy - A Notch App with a Lot to Like

I've tried a variety of notch apps, and I haven't been truly happy with any of them. I'm not sure whether the novelty of the interface is the problem, or if it's the design of the apps I've used that bothers me. I recently installed Droppy, a free and open-source app built entirely with Swift for speed and stability, and I like it more than the other notch apps I've used. It isn't overloaded with superfluous features, and the features it does have can be toggled on and off easily. It also seems very stable--I haven't encountered any bugs so...

January 14th, 2026 Mac Apps

Image Workflow with Cleanshot X, Clop, Clotski, NameQuick and Hazel

Apps gain new capabilities through updates. Our preferences change, task requirements shift, and workflows evolve right along with them. It pays to periodically reevaluate the tools and methods we rely on. As a writer and blogger, I go through a surprising number of images every day. My goal is simple: images should be optimized for file size, renamed intelligently, and land exactly where I need them for current projects. After 24 hours, they should be archived--still accessible, but no longer cluttering my active workspace. Start with DownloadsClotski is a menu bar utility for browsing, tagging, renaming, and editing metadata for...

January 11th, 2026 Mac Apps

Smart Ways to Pay Less for Mac Software

You don't need wads of disposable income to enjoy new software on a regular basis, and you don't have to rely exclusively on freeware to get useful work done on your Mac. You're the only one who knows what your budget can support. I've been buying independently developed software since before people called them apps--back when you dialed into a local BBS to download shareware from the computer eccentric you met at the last user group meeting. My hometown even had a store in the '90s where you could rent commercial software. This was before Little Snitch mattered, because most...

January 6th, 2026 Mac Apps

Some Useful Single Purpose Apps

Complex, multi-purpose apps with a zillion functions can be fun to learn, even if you never quite feel like you've mastered them. Every time I tinker with my Raycast setup or my collection of Keyboard Maestro macros, I get the nagging feeling that I'm not making the best use of those apps. To remedy that feeling, it's refreshing to discover a few simple apps that do one thing well--and that's all. Here are a few I've been tinkering with lately. • Clean Links (Free) -- Although there's a useful Raycast extension to strip tracking info from links on your clipboard,...

January 4th, 2026 Mac Apps

A Mostly Free and Open Source App Collection for Image Workflows

Rather than trying to consolidate all the image tools I use into one giant app with hundreds of features, I prefer to use smaller, specialized apps that are single-purpose or that have a small feature set. They are easier to learn, faster to launch, and often maintained by a very experienced developer with years of experience. Here's a collection of such apps that you might find useful. Toyviewer, My Default App for Opening & Viewing ImagesDating back to the 90s, Toyviewer (free) can open just about any image format you throw at it, including ones that Preview won't touch. You...

January 3rd, 2026 Mac Apps

ExtraBar is the App of My Dreams

ExtraBar is a new app from the developers at AppItStudio. That's the same team behind ExtraDock and DockFlow, two useful additions to my toolbox in 2025. ExtraBar is one of those apps that solves a problem I didn't realize I had. My Mac's menu bar is cluttered with icons from (don't hate) 40 different apps. Traditionally, the way to tame that was by using Bartender, Ice, or some other menu bar manager. Apple, in an attempt to Sherlock those apps, introduced a few menu bar management tools in macOS 26. In doing so, it changed the back end for utility...

December 31st, 2025

If You're Itching to Spend that Christmas Cash on Some Software, Here's the Second Megalist and some Free Advice

Paid Mac Apps – Power User IndexIf you got some cash or gift cards for Christmas and want to try out some new software, you can try a few of these apps. I've installed and tested them all at some point. The links will take you to a short review with download information. If you find a broken link or an app is no longer viable, let me know and I'll make a quick edit. If you're a developer, drop me a DM and I will be glad to check out your work and possibly feature you on AppAddict if...

December 28th, 2025 Mac Apps

Getting the Most from Ebooks, A Mostly Free Workflow

One of my passions over the past few months has been growing and curating my collection of ebooks. I've loved reading longer than I've loved computers, but now I love both and this is how I married the two together. As a Mac and iOS user who also has a self-hosted server, I've tried a lot of different apps in an ongoing effort to craft the best workflow. BackgroundI was an Amazon customer for a long time, but in February of 2025, the company decided it would no longer allow customers to download their books as user-maintained files and limited...

December 27th, 2025 Universal Apps

A Mega-Collection of Free Apps I've Installed and Tested

If you're running short on cash after Christmas, but you still want to try out some new software, you can try a few of these apps. I've installed and tested them all at some point. The links will take you to a short review with download information. If you find a broken link or an app is no longer free, let me know and I';ll make a quick edit. If you're a developer with a free app, drop me a DM and I will be glad to check out your work and possibly feature you on AppAddict if it has...

December 26th, 2025 Mac Apps

The My Applications App Might Be the Best 99 Cents I Ever Spent

For the avid app collector there are a few tools available to help catalog and curate the assortment of programs that accumulate over time. You can use Apple's built in system report to get comprehensive information but it's rather dense and not illustrated. You can use an app like Apparency, but then you are limited to a single app at the time. My Applications, available in the app store for 99 cents, serves as both a database and a launcher for your computer. One feature I love is a snapshot of my app usage for the past 24 hours. Typically,...

December 23rd, 2025 Mac Apps

Getting a New Mac for Christmas? A Few Apps to Help Migrate Your Setup

Macs and Mac applications offer so many customizations that it's impossible to remember them all. Quite frankly, it can be easy to forget what's native and what's the result of a setting you've changed in a background utility. Just fine-tuning which apps open specific file types can be challenging if you have to do it from scratch. Migration AssistantI've typically used one of Apple's most powerful and functional apps to migrate my setup from one computer to another - Migration Assistant. These days I use Time Machine on an SSD as my source, and it runs incredibly fast. The drawback...

December 23rd, 2025 Mac Apps

Question for Developers About Updates

Why do some apps not cooperate with updater apps that use Sparkle or Homebrew? Does it cost extra money, or is it more difficult to implement than I am aware of? I've heard that you can't use Homebrew unless your app has a GitHub page with more than 50 stars. Is that true? Why do so many apps that have an option within their built-in updaters to "Automatically update in the future" still insist on asking me if I want to update them? For me, the holy grail is an app that can be set to stay up to date...

December 22nd, 2025 Mac Apps

Revisiting Options for Text Expansion

I've recently been on a mission to reassess some of the software I use to ensure I'm employing it in instances where it can accomplish tasks more quickly than the manual methods I sometimes revert to. I've been using text expansion tools (snippets) for quite some time, yet I often feel that I could leverage them more effectively. My Use Cases• Autocorrecting words that I will likely never type correctly due to ingrained muscle memory - available, because, bitcoin, Vietnam, download, etc. • Email addresses, home address, phone number • Auto-expanding date and time snippets in my preferred format -...

December 21st, 2025 Mac Apps

How to Use Topgrade Silently and Automatically for Multiple Update Protocols (Free)

In a recent thread on the effectiveness of available macOS app updaters, several people lamented that the FOSS command line tool Topgrade requires too much user intervention to be run with cron or launchd. In its default state, it can repeatedly prompt for the admin password, and in the event of an error with one of your services, it throws Quit or Retry queries that are showstoppers for unattended usage. Topgrade checks all of your Homebrew and Mac App Store apps for updates, and if there are any available, it installs them. It also checks for updates for a long...

December 20th, 2025 Mac Apps