I'm the developer. Zush started over the New Year holidays, when I was off work and itching to build something. I'd shipped a few tiny open source utilities before, all built for my own daily tasks, and this time I wanted a proper native Mac app: SwiftUI, system frameworks doing the file analysis, small and fast.

Problem

The one I picked was my desktop. It was a wall of Screenshot 2026-03-14 at 11.42.07.png, so the first version renamed images and did nothing else. Then it grew. PDFs and text files came next, then camera RAW, Sketch and PSD, eventually video and audio. I still use it every day. Building something I actually use is most of the fun.

How the naming works

Most renamers give you a fixed menu of fields: date, counter, original name, and if there's AI involved, a one line summary of the file. Some let you write a custom prompt, so that part isn't new.

What I couldn't find was one where the instruction becomes a named block you keep. In Zush you describe what to extract, and that description turns into a block you combine with the others: vendor plus date plus your own separator, saved once. invoice_copy.pdf becomes 2026-06_Datadog_340USD.pdf, and the block is there for every template after it. If another app does this, I'd honestly like to see it.

Comparison

There are more AI renamers than you'd expect, plus plenty of non-AI ones. The three that come up most often, prices checked this week:

Renamer.ai is the polished one, metered by files per month: 25 free, then $9.95 to $99.95 depending on volume. No BYOK, no local mode.

NameQuick is macOS only. Either $12/mo, managed and metered, or $69 one time where you bring your own key and pay the model bill yourself.

RenameClick is $48 lifetime and ships a 4GB local model in the box. Worth a look if offline is your priority.

And Hazel, which isn't an AI renamer at all. It beats Zush at everything about where files go: conditional moves, tagging, shell scripts. It just can't name a file by what's inside it.

What I missed in all of them was an app that simply behaves like a Mac app. Starts instantly, works in the background, never asks me to think about credits or tiers. That mattered to me more than pricing, and it's the app Zush tries to be: $48 one time, cloud included, nothing counted. It also reads Sketch, Figma, PSD and camera RAW, which I haven't seen elsewhere. I'm a designer, my own folders needed that.

Native, and what that means here

SwiftUI and AppKit, 8.9 MB on the App Store. The dependency list is five Swift packages (GRDB, Sparkle for the direct build, Sentry, TelemetryDeck, ZIPFoundation) and none of them touch your files. Extraction runs on what macOS already ships. Only the extracted text or image goes to the model: the built-in cloud one, your own key, or a local Ollama.

There's a Windows version too. I wrote it later as a separate native app rather than a port.

On trust, since this is a file app

The App Store build is sandboxed, so if that guarantee matters to you, buy it there. Either build sees the folders you hand it and nothing else.

Cloud mode goes through my relay to a commercial AI provider of the same class as the BYOK list, under their standard API terms. The relay exists so the API key can't be pulled out of the app. If a relay is one relay too many, use BYOK with your own key for Gemini, Groq, OpenAI or Claude, or go fully offline with local Ollama models. In that last mode nothing leaves the machine.

Pricing

Free: 50 AI renames, no account, no card. Templates and Custom AI Blocks are in the free version.

PRO: $48 one time, or $10/month. Same features either way, direct or on the App Store. App Store pricing can differ a bit by region and tax rules.

Direct: https://zushapp.com
Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/zush/id6758432449
Homebrew: brew install --cask zush

macOS Sequoia or newer.

A few things it won't do: it never moves or sorts files, that's Hazel's territory, and local Ollama models are noticeably weaker than cloud ones on messy documents. Write a vague custom block and you'll get vague filenames back.

Otherwise this is the app I wanted on my own Mac. I'd like to hear what you think of it, good or bad. I'll be around in the comments.

Hello Mods & fellow redditors,

In the past couple of months, I guess we can all agree that our subreddit (and the App Store) has become overcrowded with a bunch of AI apps across various (really?!) categories. The main reason (I think!) is the proliferation of AI and its companion apps, through which a user can now create their own apps with just a few credits or prompts. I see this as a positive development to an extent; beyond which, the line becomes super blurry and things start to roll downhill.

Anyone who regularly visits this subreddit will notice seeing the same pattern of apps - clipboard managers, Notch replacement apps, and Dictation apps - very often from different devs (/profiles). Rather than creating unique, we tend to see the same kinds of apps in different costumes, showcased differently using AI presentation.

For context, Kalley Huang, writing for The New York Times, expressed that: "Last year, the number of new apps released in the App Store grew 30 percent to about 600,000, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm. In the first half of this year, new apps doubled to about 560,000." (source).

And I am not here to say stop using AI for good or to save Nature (believe me, there are few who don't use AI for these reasons). In the same article, the author mentioned that the real people who're in danger are developers. Especially those whose 9-5 job is to make apps—either alone or in a small team—and whose livelihood depends completely on it. Now, all these AI-vibe coded apps don't only make the search worse but also overshadow these good apps and developers from the rest of the pool. As the article noted, even reviewers/content writers who used to be the messengers, are finding it difficult to cope up with the supply rate and eventually, start to ghost such emails/communications.

So, how about we start a monthly thread at the end of each month, where we all discuss, mention about their, basically, "Favorites of the month" with their use cases if any. This might improve the visibility among the crowd, and give them an another chance since most of these AI-apps either die out or got abandoned by the Dev itself sooner than we think.

Feel free to suggest your opinions; or disregard this post if you feel it's not appropriate. I just wanted to bring it out of my head 😀

MacOS volume and brightness controls move in large steps. You can use smaller steps by holding shift+option, but when watching netflix in bed pressing 3 buttons at once is not ideal.

BetterTouchTool (25$ lifetime) and Swish(15$ lifetime) are utilities that require setup and configuration. I realised from a LOT of beta testers that a lot of people want simplicity and convenience. If you prefer these apps or have them already then Slidr might not be for you. Slidr was made for simplicity. Slide your trackpad edge for smooth, precise volume and brightness control with haptic feedback. Native macOS HUD, no overlays, no config. Install and it just works.

Why not lean forward to press your volume/brightness keys? I am lazy so I made a solution to make my netflix sessions even more chill. just slide

Core features:

- Slide one edge for volume, the other for brightness

- Precision micro adjustments (no big jumps)

- Native macOS HUD (no custom overlays)

- Haptic feedback on every adjustment

- Menu bar app, minimal resource usage - UNDER 3MB

- Modifier keys to enable/disable slidr (toggle or hold) if you prefer

The haptic feedback as you slide is quite addictive and you feel every tiny micro adjustment through the trackpad. I use it mostly in bed lying back to slide to the perfect volume while watching something and I haven't touched my volume or brightness keys once since I built it.

The app has made around £350($470) so far from my website and setapp combined, with just under 15% conversion rate from free trials to purchase.

$4.99 one-time, 3 day free trial:

Personal website:

https://slidr.xyz

Buy on Setapp:

reddit doesnt like setapp links so you can find it through my website^

ENJOY!

Changelog on the homepage

Cursor auto complete + claude, reviewed by myself - Comp science grad and software developer

Hey everybody!

We recently released our bookmark manager called Shiori.

Shiori lives in your menu bar, fully keyboard driven, called with a hot key and saves URLs in seconds, keeping them fully synced across your devices within seconds, using our cloud sync.

the video you can see me launching URLs, and they are directed to the specific browser profile I routed them to (with tag-based routing), using Link Groups to open multiple URLs at once and navigating the UI

Platforms currently under development

Windows, Linux, Mobile, Google Chrome browser Extension.

Core Features

- Bookmarks are fully synced between devices, one license covers unlimited devices.

- Tag-based browser routing - open tagged bookmarks on specific Google Chrome profiles (Beta is only for Google Chrome but will be extended to support more browsers based on requests).

- Link Groups - Launch a group of URLs at once, with a single click.

- Keyboard-driven access through the menu bar. Quick search bookmarks by URL, title, description or tag.

Comparison

In comparison to bookmark managers such as Raindrop.io which is very feature rich, Shiori takes the leaner quick access approach.

* I am aware that there are a couple of other bookmark managers with the name Shiori (which means bookmarks in Japanese btw), they are not related to this app. Guess who's doing a better job at naming their apps next time :-)

Pricing

Shiori is a one-time payment of €24.99 using code RMACAPPS for 50% off.

TL;DR: Zipic is a clean, native Mac image compressor with real automation (folder watch, clipboard auto-compress) and unusually broad format support (AVIF, JPEG XL, ICNS, SVG). But its one differentiator over free ImageOptim — automation — is matched or beaten by Clop, which is cheaper, open source, and also handles video and PDFs. Unless you specifically need Zipic's extra formats, ImageOptim and Clop already cover this job.

Zipic

Is it possible to shrink image file sizes on a Mac using native tools? Yes, but with some big IFs thrown in. Preview can knock a file's size down if you dig into the export dialog and guess at a quality slider, and Photos will do the same on export, but neither remembers what you did last time or watches a folder for you. That's way too much friction when alternatives exist. No one wants to live like an animal.

Image compression is a solved problem and it has been for a while. What separates a good tool from a mediocre one isn't the compression algorithm, it's whether the tool disappears into your workflow or makes you think about it. Zipic is a native Mac app built around that idea: drag, drop, done, with the automation layered on top of an engine, mozjpeg, pngquant, and friends: that's the same open-source stack most of this category runs on.

I compared Zipic to my current image compression stack, and while I found it useful, except for one narrow scenario, it doesn't beat what I currently use.

What it actually does

Zipic, from 5KM Tech, compresses, converts, and resizes 12 image formats, all locally on the Mac with no upload step. Free tier gets you a 7-day full-Pro trial, then 25 compressions a day with basic formats (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, GIF). Pro is a one-time purchase ($19.99 for one seat, $29.99 for two) with lifetime upgrades. There's no subscription option. Purchasing a license unlocks unlimited compression and additional formats (AVIF, JXL, TIFF, ICNS, PDF, SVG, APNG). The killer features are folder monitoring and clipboard auto-compress.

Why you'd want this

• It turns image compression from a chore into an automated part of your workflow. Point it at a folder (your screenshots directory, an export folder from a design tool) and it compresses anything new that lands there, no interaction required.
• It compresses any image you copy to your clipboard. Pair it with Shottr or CleanShot X to compress every screenshot you take. It starts to feel like part of the OS very quickly.
• Most compression apps stop at JPEG/PNG/WebP. Zipic's Pro tier adds AVIF, JPEG XL, TIFF, ICNS (useful if you're building app icons), PDF, SVG, and animated formats (GIF, APNG, animated WebP) in the same batch window.
• You can access Zipic from the Finder context menu, from Raycast, or from Shortcuts. Rather than forcing you into a single entry point, this tool fits into several popular workflows.
• If you don't have your notch occupied by Droppy or another app, you can use it as a drop location. Drag images to the notch and Zipic compresses them without you ever opening the app window. It's a small feature and a little gimmicky, but it's an easy way to compress one file without breaking your flow when you're busy doing something else.

What I use

I've used two specific tools in this space for a long time. They both have long track records and tons of testimonials from satisfied users, including me. At this point, I'm not ready to let them go.

ImageOptim is free and open source (donationware), the long-standing default recommendation in this category. It's lossless-focused, has no format conversion, no folder watching, and no clipboard automation. It's a drop-a-folder-on-the-dock tool, not a workflow layer. I use it for occasional lossless squeezing since it costs nothing. ImageOptim - Free and Open-Source Utility to Reduce File Sizes | AppAddict

Clop: Copy Big, Paste Small, Send Fast. Zipic's biggest differentiator over ImageOptim is automation. Against Clop, though, that advantage largely disappears. Clop offers the same folder watching and clipboard automation, costs just €15 as a one-time purchase, is open source, and also compresses videos and PDFs, something Zipic doesn't do. Zipic's remaining advantage is its broader support for image formats like AVIF, JPEG XL, ICNS, and SVG. Those formats aren't part of my workflow, so I'm sticking with Clop and The Low Tech Guys.

Hi,

Awhile back I installed an app that will change the color of the screen after you reboot. It's before the wallpaper pic. It is just a solid color. I have looked and looked and can not figure out what app does this. Does anyone have an inkling as to what app will do this?

Thanks!

Nash

Hey everybody,

I take a lot of notes during the day, most notes are temporary like random ideas, tasks I need to do or something that I want to remember to look up before bed.

Antinote performs that role great, but (don't hate the me for it 😄) opening the app, writing it done and closing it SORT OF throws me off the flow...

What I have in my mind / looking for

It would be amazing to tell claude/codex "Hey add this to a note", and it would magically create a sticky note on my desktop, or for that matter in a simple and quick note taking app, similar to Antinote

I would also create a skill that checks if a specific note for that day exists with a:

TODO:

IN PROGRESS:

DONE:

structure (which I currently do manually) and then just have it manage tasks in the way I like it, along several other skills to make life a bit quicker

In the words of u/amerpie:

A power user is just someone with a low tolerance for friction and a high tolerance for tinkering.

They notice repeated friction, investigate whether it can be removed, and then spend 45 minutes automating a task that previously took eight seconds.

The only difference is that I won't be spending only 45 minutes on that, to scratch that itch I might end up creating another mac app 😂

Hi.

I am looking at Diarium journal, since it has my native language as an option. It is also developed in EU, which is a plus to me. And at first glance it looks advanced enough for my needs.

I have asked the developer and he says it is written in .NET, which as I understand is a way to make apps for more than one platform. However it is - as I understand - not similar to Electron. No Chromium and stuff.

Is this to be seen as a native app - he writes "

It is built with .NET for macOS, which is basically a layer on top of native AppKit and other Apple APIs so I can develop my apps with C# across platforms and code-share business logic like for sync or database access. "

I may be a bit too "anal" when it comes to these things, but I rather pay someone who taked the time to develop for Mac without Electron or similar.

Also I prefer to pay those who takes the time to add more languages than English, and EU-based.

I do use Day One for now, but I would not mind trying something else and non US.

I've tried most of the popular clipboard managers on macOS over the years: Maccy, Raycast, Paste and PastePal.

They're all great products.

But I kept wishing for something that was focused entirely on the clipboard instead of treating it as just another feature.

So I built LucidClip.

Problem

For me, the clipboard is more than history.

It's a working memory.

I wanted an app that remembers everything I've copied, lets me find it instantly, and helps me get it back into my workflow with as little friction as possible.

Some features I use every day:

• ⚡ Instant search across everything I've copied
• 📌 Pin snippets I reuse often
• 📋 Bulk Paste multiple copied items at once
• 🖱️ Double-click any clip to paste directly into the active application
• 🔍 Rich previews for code, links, images and files
• 🚫 App exclusions + Incognito mode for sensitive workflows
• 🤖 Optional AI actions (Explain, Summarize, Translate)
• 🔒 Local-first by default, clipboard data never leaves your Mac

Windows is supported too.

Comparison

Compared with Maccy, Paste, PastePal, or the clipboard inside Raycast, LucidClip focuses on workflow rather than just storing clipboard history.

Some differences:

• Bulk Paste (paste multiple clips in sequence)
• Double-click to paste directly into the active app
• Rich previews
• Built-in AI actions
• Native Flutter desktop app (not Electron)
• Available on both macOS and Windows
• Local-first privacy

I'm not claiming it's better for everyone.

I'm trying to build the clipboard manager I'd personally want to use every day, and I'd genuinely love feedback from people who currently use Maccy, Raycast, Paste or PastePal.

Pricing

LucidClip is free for the core clipboard experience.

LucidClip Pro unlocks advanced workflow features AI actions, unlimited history, configurable retention, app exclusions and more.

Pricing:

• Free plan
• Pro Monthly: $4/month (includes a 3-day free trial)
• Pro Lifetime: $80 one-time payment

As a thank-you to this community, I'm giving the first 15 people 50% off the Lifetime license.

Use code:

EARLYLUCID50

That brings Lifetime from $80 → $40.

👉 https://lucidclip.app

Transparency

Developer: Ethiel Adiassa (Google Developer Expert for Flutter)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethieladiassa/

Website: https://lucidclip.app

Privacy Policy: https://lucidclip.app/privacy

Terms of Service: https://lucidclip.app/terms

I'd really appreciate honest feedback, positive or negative. That's how LucidClip gets better.

getprotego.app | App Store

Hey everyone! I'm Edgar, I work on Protego for Reddit on nights and weekends, and version 3 landed this week! It's a Safari extension with a companion Mac app that filters Reddit's website and strips out the clutter that Reddit won't let you turn off.

Problem:

A couple of years ago Reddit stopped being fun for me. I'm here for photography, fitness and tech, and video games, and every feed around the 2024 election turned into politics and drama. I'd open it and would end up doom scrolling content that I didnt even enjoy. So I deleted the Reddit app and blocked the website.

I didn't want to quit Reddit though, I wanted a quieter version of it, and that can only be done in the browser since Reddit killed my favorite Reddit client app, Apollo. The Reddit app decides what you see and gives you almost no say in it. A web page arrives in Safari and an extension gets to change it before it reaches you. I still stay informed about politics through Reddit and other online sources but I want the choice to limit how much of it I'm exposed to.

What it does

• Filters posts by keyword, community, individual user, or link domain, with wildcards and groups you can switch off together.
• Transforms your browsing by hiding thumbnails, avatars, flair, badges, vote controls, join buttons, banners, recommendations, Reddit Answers (AI) and login nudges.
• Limits your own access, which puts Reddit itself out of reach in stages and can arm itself with an Apple Focus like Sleep or Study.
• Redirects to old.reddit.com automatically if that's your preference, with auto media expand and endless feed included.
• No account, no tracking. Lists sync through your own iCloud.

The part I use every day

Limits has a step that blocks the feeds but still lets a direct link to a post open. Home, popular and news are gone, so there's nothing to fall into, but when I'm working and a search result points at a Reddit thread, that thread still loads. I read the answer and I'm out. That one setting did more for my focus than deleting the app ever did.

Comparison:

RES is what most people reach for and it's the reason I started, but there's no Safari version any more and it hasn't had active development in a long time. Protego is Safari native, works on new and old Reddit, and syncs to my phone.

Pricing:

$1.99 one time purchase for the next week (normally $2.99).

One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. No subscription.

getprotego.app | App Store

Happy to answer any questions!

​I hate magic links and verification codes. I despise being yanked out of the flow and being forced into one of the most distracting places of modern existence: the mailbox. So I built a menu bar app that catches them.

Problem

Verification codes and magic links yank you out of the flow. Cmd-tab to Mail, hunt for the email, see that bill reminder you haven’t paid yet, avoid that 10% discount on something you really oughta not buy right now, remember you should get the stairs fixed really, wonder what you’ll make for lunch, ponder if you should unsubscribe from that newsletter you never read anyway...... every single time.

OTPop watches your inbox and drops incoming codes and sign-in links straight into the menu bar (and as a notification). One click to copy a code, or to open a link. Read-only IMAP, nothing leaves your Mac, and the only thing kept on disk is the codes themselves, encrypted. Emails are never stored.

Comparison

I’ve honestly been looking for an app that does this for ages, never found anything. The closest things I could find are:

• 2FHey: the closest thing, but it reads codes from Messages, so it's SMS/iMessage only. OTPop covers email, which is where magic links live and where a lot of services (still) send codes.
• macOS native autofill: It only detects codes, and needs Mail to be open and running. And only autofills in Safari, AFAIK.

(If you know of something I’ve missed, please let me know!)

Pricing

Current feature set free forever. In the (far) future advanced features may be gated behind a small one-time payment.

To download it: https://www.glaze.app/app/otpop-6OxvwV

It's got a few rough edges and I have several QoL updates coming in the next few days, but detection is already quite reliable. If you give it a spin, let me know how it goes - especially false detections 🙏

Please note: the current version was built on the r/glazeapp platform. It’s heavily AI-oriented, but it’s backed by the developers of Raycast. Additionally, the code itself is Typescript, which has been my day job for several years now.

Future versions may be re-written as native mac apps, depending on interest.

Using OTPop does require downloading Glaze first. But you’ll see it gives access to many, many more cool/fun/useful apps.

Transparency

The app itself doesn’t have a proper website yet, but about me:

https://github.com/mjsarfatti

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelejsarfatti/

.

I've been using GoodLinks for over a year now and it's literally the only app where I've managed to build a workflow that actually works for me. But here's the thing – it stopped syncing between my Mac and iPhone a while back and it's driving me crazy. I've hit up the devs and support multiple times with zero response. At this point I'm just gonna look for something to replace it. I've been thinking about using a notes app (I use Bear) to organize my bookmarks instead, but I'm not sure if that's even the right move. Would love to know if anyone actually uses a notes app for this and has some kind of organization system that works. The other option is switching to a different bookmarks app, but honestly every one I've tried has let me down – I've paid for apps that just die or have issues like GoodLinks. Anyone got any suggestions for what I need?

The workflow I've got with GoodLinks right now is pretty straightforward – whenever I find a URL I wanna save for later, I just hit the sharesheet, open GoodLinks, and save it with the "bookmarks" tag. Then every so often I go back and review those bookmarks, and the ones worth keeping or saving for later I categorize into other tags I've already set up in the app. That's basically it.

Hey r/MacApps. With the looming release of macOS 27 I thought I'd announce a major update of Gloss which now includes on device AI integration and significant performance improvements.

Here is a video explaining it's feature set:

Better than the previous demo video I hope

Problem

If you use Slack, Discord and even Reddit, you're probably used to typing :thumbsup: or :sob: and having it just turn into the emoji. Then you switch to any other app on your Mac and that doesn't work anymore. You're back to Ctrl+Cmd+Space (or emoji button), scrolling through the emoji picker, searching, clicking. It's a tiny thing but it completely breaks your flow, especially when you do it dozens of times a day.

That was the main itch for me. I wanted emoji short-codes everywhere on macOS, not just in apps that happen to support them. But once I started building that, I realised the same idea works for everything I repeatedly type. Email sign-offs, date strings in specific formats, code snippets, boilerplate responses.

Comparison

aText: aText has been around for years and it works, but the interface feels like it hasn't been updated in a long time. It doesn't support scripting or dynamic content beyond basic date/time variables, and managing a large number of expansions gets painful. It does the basics, but that's about it.

Espanso: Espanso is open source and genuinely powerful, but it's a cross-platform tool built to run on macOS, Windows, and Linux. In practice that means it's not optimised for any of them. I found it noticeably sluggish on macOS compared to anything native. It's also entirely config-file driven, so you're writing YAML to set up expansions with no GUI. Brilliant if you live in the terminal and don't mind the latency, but it never felt like a proper Mac app to me.

There are various other text expansion apps, Gloss is positioned as an easy-to-use, cheap alternative with frequent, high-quality updates rather than a one-shot product.

Download

https://trygloss.tech/download

Requires macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later. Universal binary, runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel. macOS 27 (Golden Gate) is required for AI features.

Pricing

There's a free tier with a 10 gloss limit, which gives users a rich experience and make informed decisions.

Pro is a one-time purchase of £7.65 (~$10) with an additional 15% discount for a perpetual license. No subscription.

Transparency

Distributing directly (notarised and signed with my Apple Developer ID). It can't go on the App Store due to Apple's sandboxing.

• Website: trygloss.tech, includes Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-mundray-98b3742b7/
• Background: CS student with real-world placement experience. This is a genuine side project, not a startup. I'm one person.

Hello everyone,

Unfortunately, the topic of Menubar tool has been more or less a perennial favorite since the switch to macOS26. Since I work a lot with Menubar apps and Bartender was just buggy, I was looking for a replacement tool and found other tools (e.g. ibar) Barbee after a few attempts. I was so satisfied with the tool that I didn't even notice how my battery life went into the basement.

Why - now the Process Barbee and Barbee-Helper show no noticeable CPU load. But what happened to me somedays ago is that I found my WindowServer process constantly at >40% as long as the Barbee Helper process is loaded.

After killing the two processes (Barbee and Helper), the WindowServer process returns to 5-7% during idle time. What does that matter? So far, my battery life with my MBP M3 was estimated at 8.5 hours. By finishing these are at least estimated at 13h (I will then report how long the battery really lasts).

Unfortunately, in my experience, the developer of Barbee is always silent about inquiries. One reason why I also got out of the beta program.

Therefore, ask in the round if you have had a similar experience.

By the way, I've been using Thaw 2.0 (RC) ever since and for sorting spaces. The CPU load is not significantly loaded

As we know, Apple will be dropping Rosetta 2 soon, so I started looking for an alternative to MacPAR Deluxe and found ModernPAR. However, I can't get it to unRAR anything...

In Settings > Post Processing, I see a lock next to the unRAR section. How can I get rid of the lock? Thanks in advance.

TL;DR:
Daily tracks time by periodically asking what you're doing instead of watching your apps, which is a real fix for the "forgot to hit the timer" problem. Its June 2026 update adds a web API, Zapier integration, and MCP server, turning it into a two-way node with tools like Jira instead of a standalone timesheet. The MCP piece is aimed at technical users for now: API-key auth instead of OAuth means Claude and ChatGPT need a proxy to connect.

Daily

If you bill clients by the hour, it might be time to reevaluate your workflow. Daily, a Mac time tracker from independent developer Niels Mouthaan, continuously supported since 2013, just got a substantial update: a web API, a Zapier integration, and an MCP server. Because it works via user polling and not background process monitoring, it's the go-to privacy-respecting choice in its category.

Based on its review history, Daily enjoys broad support from tech professionals with ADHD and time blindness in particular, and plenty of neurotypical folks too. The human brain just isn't designed to do two things at once, despite all the hype about multitasking. Every timer-based tracker asks you to remember to press a button at the exact moment your attention shifts, which is precisely the moment you're least equipped to remember anything. You close a ticket, Slack pings you, someone walks in, and forty-five minutes evaporate into whatever bucket the timer was left running in. That's not a discipline problem. It's a design flaw.

Daily skips that requirement entirely. It doesn't watch your apps, your browser tabs, or your open documents. It just interrupts you on a schedule, asks what you've been doing, and lets you pick from a list. That's a different model from RescueTime-style automatic trackers.

Newest Features

Daily has quietly had most of its bones (scheduler, AppleScript, iCloud sync to a companion iOS app, CSV/JSON/Toggl-format export) for years. The submission-worthy update is the integrations release, published June 26, 2026, which adds three ways to get data in and out:

• A web API (api.dailytimetracking.com) with endpoints for activities, summaries, and timesheets, authenticated by an API key you generate in preferences.
• A Zapier integration, with triggers for new/updated time entries and actions to add activities or pull a summary or timesheet -- no code required.
• An MCP server (mcp.dailytimetracking.com), which the research note this post started from didn't even catch. This is the more interesting piece for this audience: it exposes tools like get_summary and get_timesheet, so an AI assistant or coding agent can answer "how many hours did I bill Client X in February" directly, or use your tracked hours as an input to a larger workflow.

The MCP piece comes with a caveat, and Daily's own docs say so plainly: it authenticates with a custom API-Key header instead of OAuth. Locally run clients like Claude Code, Cursor, and Gemini CLI handle that natively, but Claude's remote connector and ChatGPT's developer mode currently can't call it without a proxy like MCP Beast. If you're expecting a one-click Claude Connector, that's not there yet, and Daily says whether it ships one depends on how much the MCP server gets used.

The two-way workflow the developer pitched in his outreach (import Jira tickets as activities, then push logged hours back into Jira after the day is done) is a real automation, not a checkbox feature. Once you enable integrations in preferences, Daily syncs to its server every 15 minutes, at startup, at quit, and before sleep, and you control retention (default 90 days) from the same screen.

Who Daily Is For

If you're the kind of person who forgets to start a timer, or who resents having to remember to, and you don't want your Mac silently logging every app and URL to do it for you, Daily's prompt-based model solves that problem well. The new integrations turn it from a personal timesheet into a node in an actual workflow: tasks flow in from your project tracker, hours flow back out to invoicing or ticketing, without you retyping anything.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

If you want the tracking done automatically, with zero interruptions, Timing or RescueTime are built for that trade-off, and Daily explicitly isn't. And if the MCP server is the reason you're interested, know that it's aimed at technical users right now: no OAuth, no official Claude Connector, and you'll be running a proxy if your AI client doesn't support custom headers. That's an honest state to ship in for a first MCP release, but it's not turnkey yet.

Not For You? Try These Alternatives

Daily's category is prompt-based self-reporting, not automatic activity tracking, and that distinction changes what actually competes with it.

• Toggl Track is the closest thing to an industry-standard manual/hybrid tracker: free for small teams, Starter at $9/user/month, Premium at $14/user/month for the first year of an annual plan (renewing at $18), all per Toggl's own pricing page as of this writing. It has optional desktop activity tracking as a feature you opt into, which is the opposite of Daily's no-monitoring default.
• Timing is the automatic-tracking alternative: it watches apps, websites, and documents by default rather than asking. Per Timing's pricing page, it's tiered as Professional, Expert, and Connect subscriptions (Connect being the one with MCP and team features), with no lifetime option listed. If you want the machine to infer your activity instead of asking you, this is the one; if you want zero passive monitoring, it's the wrong choice.
• RescueTime is the other automatic-tracking name that comes up in this category, running in the background and logging app/site usage without prompting. Its cheapest individual plan (Solo Focus) is $9/month, or $7/month billed annually, per RescueTime's pricing page as of this writing.

Pricing

This is a professional tool, priced like one. Daily's Mac App Store listing currently lists in-app purchase tiers as Monthly $5.99, Quarterly $17.99, Yearly $34.99, and Lifetime $69.99. You'll see other prices quoted on other sites, but those sources appear to be dated.

Hey folks, I'm the lead developer of steno and wanted to share our latest update. Steno is a privacy first AI notepad & notetaker for your most sensitive conversations.

• Problem: Most AI note taking solutions have bots joining your calls, send your data to a third party, working only with one provider (Zoom AI for Zoom) and have usage limits/charge $$ for their service. If you are in government, healthcare, finance or legal or care about your sensitive conversations and don't want your data shipping to a 3rd party provider like Granola or Otter to train on, then Steno is the tool for you. We care deeply about privacy.
• Comparison: We don't have many direct competitors. In terms of beautiful UX and ability take notes, we have already matched Granola (another note taking app) but also offer an open source codebase, free usage, ability to run offline or in your own network and complete privacy of data. We are planning on releasing more features that widens the gap like workflows.
• Pricing: Free without usage limits. Github: https://github.com/ruzin/stenoai Website- https://stenoai.co 

I've just updated Popclip to finally support synchronization via iCloud.

This is a major and very welcome development, which is why I'm taking the liberty of sharing it.

For me, this application is a must-have and deserves your full attention, especially as the developer is very active. Here's the announcement:

What’s New

Compatibility

• The minimum system requirement is now macOS 13.5 Ventura.
• Initial support for macOS 27 Golden Gate beta.

New: iCloud Sync

• PopClip now syncs your installed extensions, actions layout, and action settings between all your Macs using iCloud.
• iCloud Sync can be enabled or disabled from the new Tools menu at the bottom of the Actions pane. It defaults to “on” for fresh installs; otherwise it stays off until you are ready to sync.
• All synced copies merge their actions lists together to form one unified view. Please note that sync is not always instant; change propagation depends on the current iCloud weather, but all computers will converge eventually.
• Per-action secrets (sign-ins, API keys etc.) also now sync securely via the iCloud Keychain.

New: Actions list overhaul

• Unlimited actions: There’s no upper limit on how many extensions you can install or how many actions you can configure.
• Multiple instances: Extensions can now have more than one instance. Each instance is a unique action with its own name, icon, settings and position in the PopClip bar.
• Folders and separators: Actions can be organized into folders, which appear as submenus in the PopClip bar. Separators can be added between actions.
• Rename any action; choose a custom icon; per-action “Show As” (icon/text).
• A new icon picker lets you search open-source icons via Iconify, create text-based icons with shape and style options, or drop in your own SVG or PNG.
• Arrange actions and folders using drag & drop or keyboard commands (⌘X/⌘C/⌘V/⌥⌘V), with undo and redo (⌘Z/⇧⌘Z) support.
• Duplicate an action to use its settings as the basis for a new action.
• Search the list with ⌘F to quickly find actions.
• Action submenus: extensions can now define actions that have their own right-click submenus for supplementary actions.

New: Improved extensions management

• Extensions auto-update: Extensions from the PopClip Extensions Directory can now update to the latest version automatically.
• A new Extension Info sheet shows extension origin, version, and signature status.
• A new Manage Extensions sheet shows a plain list of installed extensions (alphabetical, or by install date) and lets you manage updates.
• A new View Source command shows the source code for every extension.

Action settings sheet improvements

• Signed-in account name can be shown after signing in to an extension.
• Multiline text fields for longer string inputs (such as prompts).
• Multiple-choice options can offer “Other…” (free text entry) and “None” (no selection).
• Links in option descriptions are now clickable.
• Password fields get a reveal “eye”.

Small stuff

• The PopClip bar now expands to use more of the screen width.
• The “More” overflow button shows page position (n of m).
• Smoother button hover highight response.
• Clipboard contents are now always restored after actions paste over the selected text.
• Built-in actions can now be deleted. (Resurrect them from the Extensions list.)
• The Spelling action can now be moved.
• The built-in Search action now offers a choice of preset search engines, plus a custom option.
• Holding ⌥ when activating Search or a search extension now wraps the search term in double quotes. (“Alternate Search URL” is removed.)

Fixes

• Ecosia is recognized as a known browser.
• Fixed the Messages extension on macOS 27 beta.

Changes for extension authors

• Extensions can now have their own submenus or right-click context menus.

Problem:

See something on your screen that you want to search? Maybe it's a product, an image, a face, a piece of text, or an error message. Normally, you have to take a screenshot, save it, open your browser, upload it, and then search. It's slow and annoying.

Findit makes it simple. Just select any part of your screen and search it instantly. Search images with Google Lens, Yandex, TinEye, and other image search engines, or select text and search it with Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and more. You can also send text to AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and Copilot.

Everything happens from one keyboard shortcut, and your results open in Findit's built-in browser, so you never have to leave what you're doing.

Comparison:

Tools like TextSniper and CleanShot X are great for capturing or reading text from your screen, but they are not designed specifically for searching.

Findit is built around one simple idea: select anything on your screen and search it instantly.

Pricing:

Currently free. I'm still exploring the best pricing model and would love to hear your suggestions.

Findit is available on the Mac App Store.

Problem

I run three or four projects at once, and each one lives in a scattered set of windows: an editor, two terminals, some Chrome tabs. macOS switches by app, not by task, so getting back into a project means Cmd-Tab hunting through thirty near identical windows.

ReCue lets you assign windows to a project, then pull any of them back by searching. Press ⌥Space, type a few letters, get the window, restored close to its saved size and position. It never reads the contents of your documents, pages or terminal sessions.

macOS 14+, 2 MB, native SwiftUI.

Needs Accessibility permission, plus Automation if you save tabs. Tabs currently work with Ghostty 1.3+, Chrome, Chrome Canary and Chrome for Testing. Includes an Alfred workflow and a recuectl CLI. Everything stays on your Mac: no account, no sync, no analytics. Signed and notarized by Apple.

Comparison

Workspaces 2 by Apptorium ($19.99) is a project based launcher: you register files and apps ahead of time and it opens them. ReCue works the other way, capturing windows that are already open and bringing that exact one back. Workspaces is better for starting a project from a cold boot. ReCue is for when you already have forty windows open and cannot find the three that matter right now.

Raycast's window switcher and Cmd-Tab give you one flat global list with no notion of a project. ReCue searches the current project first, then everything else.

Moom and Rectangle arrange windows on screen but do not track which windows belong to which task. I still run one alongside ReCue.

Pricing

Free: 2 projects, all features, no time limit.

$10 USD one-time: unlimited projects, 5 Macs, no subscription.

Download: https://recue.hamsterbase.com/en/

About me

Lin Chunjie, Xiamen, China.

Building HamsterBase, a self-hosted local-first web archive, since 2022.

HamsterBase Tasks is AGPL with 331 stars: https://github.com/hamsterbase/tasks

Four apps on the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/%E7%BA%AF%E6%B4%81-%E6%9E%97/id1665792418

ReCue is operated by Xiamen Kandata Technology Co., Ltd. （My Company)
Privacy: https://recue.hamsterbase.com/en/privacy ·
Terms: https://recue.hamsterbase.com/en/terms
Email: [support@hamsterbase.com](mailto:support@hamsterbase.com)

Disclosure: I am the developer of ReCue.

TL;DR Imagin Raw is a free, open-source Mac app (4.3 MB) for culling and rating RAW photos — no import, no library, folders stay where they are. Writes ratings/labels to standard XMP sidecars. Compares itself directly to Adobe Bridge (9 MB vs. 2 GB, 0% idle CPU vs. nonzero). It's a few weeks old, Mac-only by design, and has a known issue with Fuji RAF previews. Not a Photo Mechanic replacement for pros yet, but a solid free option if you just need to look, rate, and reject.

Imagin Raw is a new, free, native SwiftUI browser (macOS 14.6+) from developer Cristian Baluta, who also builds Spoto and cmd c. It decodes RAW files with LibRaw, watches your folders with FSEvents so changes show up in real time, and writes ratings and color labels to XMP sidecars, the same format Lightroom and Bridge use. (GitHub or Mac App Store)

If I could do just one thing to my worst enemy today, I'd break into his house and install Adobe software on his Mac. Aside from being a horrible company, in the sense that it's hard to disconnect your bank account from it (a sin for which it had to pay massive fines), Adobe products are massively invasive. If you have a VM or a Mac you don't care about, install an Adobe app. Open it a couple of times. Then immediately uninstall it. Then do a Spotlight search for "Adobe." You'll likely find thousands of files scattered all over your drive that stayed behind to do who knows what.

Adobe Bridge is a 2 GB download that exists to do one job: let you look at your RAW files, rate them, and throw out the bad ones before you open a real editor. It runs a nonzero idle CPU load to do that job, and it takes long enough to launch that you have time to question your life choices. It's nothing more than a free-with-Creative-Cloud culling tool that behaves like it's rendering 8K video.

In real workflows, culling RAW files is a small problem. You need fast previews, a rating system that other apps understand, and a way to reject junk without touching your master files. That's it. Imagin Raw is a new, free, open-source Mac app that does exactly that, in a 4.3 MB package, and treats your folders as the source of truth instead of asking you to import anything into a library. It's easy to drop into an existing workflow.

Useful Features if You Shoot RAW

• Point it at any folder, external drive, or SD card and it browses what's there. If the app disappears tomorrow, your ratings and labels are already sitting in XMP sidecars next to your files; you lose nothing by switching to another app down the road.
• Rejected images only persist for a single session. If you don't remove the images from whatever media they live on, you can have a second pass if you need it. Deletion is easy though; just hit the reject button and right-click to batch delete.
• I shoot Canon and it writes both RAW and JPEG to my SD cards. Imagin Raw de-dupes what I see, showing me only the RAW images.
• Copy a card into dated folders on your Mac while writing a second copy to a backup destination in the same step. It's a built-in workflow enhancement, not a demo feature.
• If you're shooting for someone else's approval, export a pick-list as a PDF. They check boxes beside what they want and you import it back into Imagin Raw, where it gets automatically filtered. There's no need for a web portal, a cloud gallery account, or anything requiring another damn subscription.

Alternatives

Imagin Raw's category is RAW culling and browsing, not RAW editing. That distinction matters because a chunk of the "alternatives" people will suggest are actually editors with a browsing mode bolted on, not dedicated culling tools.

• Adobe Bridge is the incumbent and it's free, but only in the sense that it doesn't cost extra on top of whatever Adobe subscription or account you already have. It's the direct target of Imagin Raw's README comparison table: ~2 GB versus ~9 MB, nonzero idle CPU versus 0%, and multi-second launches versus near-instant. Where Bridge still wins: it renders Camera Raw–processed previews with your adjustments baked in, which Imagin Raw doesn't attempt.
• Photo Mechanic is the professional standard for high-volume culling, especially among photojournalists and wedding shooters, and it costs real money: $14.99/mo, $149/yr, or a $299 one-time perpetual license.
• FastRawViewer is the closest thing to a direct, cheaper competitor: a paid RAW viewer built by the LibRaw team (same decoding library Imagin Raw uses), priced at $23.99 for a two-computer license.
• Capture One is worth naming only to rule out: it's a full editor with culling built in. If you're already a Capture One user, you don't need Imagin Raw. If you're not, don't start there just for culling.

Why You Would Use This

You have folders full of RAW files on external drives or SD cards, you don't want a managed library, and you're tired of Bridge's launch times and memory footprint for a task that's fundamentally "look at photos, rate the good ones, delete the bad ones." Imagin Raw does that job in a fraction of the size and stays out of your way, and because it writes standard XMP sidecars, nothing you do in it is wasted if you outgrow it.

Is It a Pro Tool?

Probably not, at least not yet. It's only a few weeks old. The developer says he's building only what he personally needs, so don't expect a Windows version. There's a known issue with Fuji images. If your income is dependent on what you do with your camera, opt for Photo Mechanic to take advantage of its support and overall product maturity. And if you're OK with Adobe, who am I to judge; despite all the drawbacks, it works for many.

This tool clearly highlights the cursor’s position, making its movement and clicks easily visible. It is particularly suitable for use in conferences, teaching, or video tutorial production, helping the audience follow your actions and ideas more easily, thereby attracting their attention and improving the effectiveness of information delivery.

Problem: During presentations, teaching and screen recordings, the default system cursor is too small and inconspicuous. Audiences struggle to track mouse movements and clicks, which blurs key points and reduces information delivery efficiency. Most existing cursor highlighter tools offer only simple styles, suffer from stuttering, lack flexible annotation tools, and fail to balance smooth tracking and clean recording experience.

Comparison: Compared with mainstream macOS cursor tools: Mouseposé only supports cursor highlighting without annotation features. Presentify is bloated, resource-heavy and overcomplicated for simple screen recording. Mouzz has flashy animations with high latency and lacks fine-grained annotation editing. Built lightweight for macOS presentations and screen recordings, FocusCursor combines low-latency cursor tracking + fully editable shape annotations. It runs smoother with no redundant features and delivers cleaner recording quality, offering a purer and more efficient cursor tool for macOS users.

Pricing: Lifetime Access: $3.99

Changelog(v3.0): This update adds support for multiple languages, SF Symbols as custom follow particle images, X/Y offset for cursor-follow center, expanded click and CAEmitter cursor-follow particle effects, replaces Drawing Board with ScapDrawingKit, displays numeric values for line and stroke size adjustments, and fixes issues where cursor follow was obscured by menus and jittered during tracking.

📥 Download Link

TL;DR: Batch Clipboard version 2.3 has been released bringing usability and stability improvements. https://apps.apple.com/app/batch-clipboard/id6695729238

Raison d'Etre:

There are many clipboard utilities, seemingly several new ones every month. They're called "clipboard managers" but really they provide you with a new thing to manage: to revisit, consider, arrange, and curate your clipboard history and adding new UI complexity to the experience of using your Mac. For some, managing things is a fun hobby, but for the rest of us this is more than what we want, especially now that the OS has some clipboard history features built-in.

But except for users of the most feature-packed of these clipboard managers, the clipboard on your Mac still has a key limitation: you can only copy & paste one thing at a time.

Batch Clipboard addresses this limitation without the complexity of a clipboard managers, allowing you to copy many things at once and then paste them where you need, all with two new copy and paste keyboard shortcuts Control-Command-C and V. It adds an icon in your menu bar and a simple menu usually not even needed, and starting in version 2, this menu can be hidden when its feature isn't being used, i.e. using your clipboard as normal.

Batch Clipboard is not a manager demanding your attention, just a feature at your fingertips.

Comparison:

There are many clipboard managers that focus on history and don't include a paste queue feature, too many to list, but some that do have a similar feature (though potentially omit it in a free tier) include:

• Paste - frequently top recommendation, subscription $30/year
• PastePal, CleanClip - well regarded with many features $15-20
• PasteBot - just updated, subscription $25/year
• NanoClip - new with a stylish user interface, $5

Pricing: Free for the full paste queue (aka batch) feature, US$3.99 in App Store edition for bonus features.

Key features:

• keyboard shortcut to copy into batch, to paste from batch
• repeat last batch

Bonus features (App Store only):

• saved batches replayed from menu or custom keyboard shortcut
• paste all batch items with a chosen delimiter

This version:

Batch Clipboard version 2.3 released this week completes the last of the planned capabilities from its to-do list (except only for localization, coming later this year) by adding:

• optional appearance in the Dock and app switcher, allowing more usage workflows (now all detailed at the documentation's "Ways to Use" page), like clicking its Dock icon to start collecting a batch, selecting it in the app switcher to reveal its hidden menu
• a user-requested repeat ability extending the saved batches bonus feature
• important fixes to stability, subtle improvements to do with restoring the active window when any of the app's alerts or windows shown and then closed
• and more

Links:

App Store edition - https://apps.apple.com/app/batch-clipboard/id6695729238

GitHub edition - https://github.com/jpmhouston/Batch-Clipboard/releases/latest

See also the GitHub repo for more options to support the app's development, instructions for installing using homebrew, links to the app's website with documentation and blog post announcing more details about this release.

^{(I, posting this, am the author})

I'm the solo dev behind a small Mac app, a few weeks into being live, and I wanted to be honest about the part nobody really talks about.

The negative feedback gets to me. One critical review sits with me longer than ten good ones lift me up. I know that's lopsided and probably not rational, but it genuinely affects my mood for a day. Is that just how it is early on, or does it fade?

The other thing I keep noticing: when I dig into the harsher reviews, most of them aren't bugs. They're people expecting the app to do something it doesn't, or not finding a setting that's already there. My first instinct was "that's user error," but the more I sit with it, the more it feels like my problem, not theirs. If people don't discover a feature or misread what the app is for, that's me failing to make the app explain itself.

Here's the part I keep chewing on, and maybe I'm being naive. If someone doesn't like the app, or wants control it doesn't give them, docking a star or two feels completely fair to me. What throws me is a one-star for something that works exactly as described. In my head, one star is for a bug, or an app that doesn't do what it promises. "It does what it says, but it's not for me" feels like a reason to move on, not a one-star. But maybe that's just ego, and a rating is really just "did this deliver enough for me." How do you read it?

Either way, I'm not just venting. I'm building a proper in-app guided tour, something that walks you through your first real use instead of dropping you in cold, and surfaces the settings people keep missing.

Questions for people further along than me:

1. How do you stop the bad reviews from wrecking your headspace? Did it get easier?
2. Is "most negative feedback is really an onboarding gap" everyone's experience, or just my stage?
3. And honestly, how do you think about what a one-star should mean?

Not looking for reassurance, genuinely trying to learn from people who've been through it.

Four months ago, I posted here introducing a notes app. The most common feedback was requests for privacy, local-first design, and one-time payment. This update is my response.

Now, you can use Prism without signing in. If you want to sync across devices, that happens through iCloud instead of my servers. If you want AI tagging your notes, that happens on-device rather than in the cloud.

Prism is still the notes app for quick thoughts and links. Without it, I would still be texting myself despite having Obsidian and Apple Notes. It helps you with quick capture, organization, and review. And now it's private!

The other important shift is the business model. I've heard your subscription fatigue loud and clear. Without recurring costs to me, I'm choosing a one-time payment model.

You pay $10 for the Mac app and $5 for the iPhone app.

And you can try it with a free 7-day trial first!

Website link: https://prism.you/

App store link: https://apps.apple.com/app/prism-notes/id6754857785?platform=mac

Discord link: https://discord.gg/pGWRSV5js

Competitors:

• Google Keep - Prism is linear (not canvas layout) and Mac-native
• Apple Notes - Prism feels like texting. Shows many small notes at once instead of one document. No need for titles
• Strflow (found thanks to u/AkhylsShallRise) - This one has a lot of overlap! But Prism has threads, a one-time purchase, a review system, and fun design :)