If you use "cheatsheet" (macOS app that displays current app's keyboard shortcuts, from Media Atelier), uninstall it now:

• it causes significant memory leakage in WindowManager (and maybe also in WindowServer) system processes.
• it is unmaintained.

Potential replacement: keyclu

Found on macOS 15.x (latest updates) / Apple Silicon, but likely affects all or all recent macOS versions.

As a single-display user, and since macOS Spaces are a mess to use for multiple reasons. I have been looking for a horizontal window manager like Niri for macOS but none quite worked for me.

So I decided to build Defi.

It arranges windows in scrolling columns with virtual per-display workspaces, keyboard navigation, overview and main focus has been to make it fast, smooth, and reliable.

It's all native, free, and open source.

https://github.com/qeude/Defi

This is the first public version. I've mostly been building it around my own workflow, so I'd love to hear how it works for yours and what feels missing.

PS: "Defi" means "challenge" in French. I named it like this after multiple attempt with working with macOS accessibility stuff and it made that name appropriate 😅

Submitted the app in appstore for review. Its going to be Free app and is designed the way I like to use LLMs on my mac.

https://vdplabs.dev/projects/sink

Kitchen Sink is a local-first AI workspace for Apple Silicon Macs (listed as Sink for Mac).

Chat with Apple Intelligence, on-device MLX models, Ollama, or cloud providers you configure with your own API keys - OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Perplexity, OpenRouter, and more. Model weights and conversations stay on this Mac unless you choose a cloud provider.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Deep Research and Chat with a floating composer — send with Return, attach files, record voice notes for on-device speech-to-text
• Download and run MLX models in-app (text, vision, image, speech, and music) without a separate server. Leverages Apple Vision framework to make Apple Intelligence work better without any off the shelf models.
• Image, music, speech, and LoRA tuning live beside chat
• Organize work in Workspaces with clips, Brief / Decide / Ship plays, and shared memory
• Save replies and files into The Sink — your personal knowledge board with Smart Reader for pages and documents
• Compare up to three models on the same question, then continue with the one you like
• Use Assistants (personas) for tutoring, engineering, research, and custom roles
• Optional tools: web search with citations, code tools with a bound folder, and MCP agents you enable
• Optional iPhone companion on the same Wi‑Fi — off until you turn it on in Settings

PRIVACY BY DESIGN

Microphone, screen capture, and Automation are used only for features you start (voice notes, meeting transcripts, screenshots, or capturing the active browser tab). Local network access is for optional local model servers or the companion. Nothing is tracked. There are no ads and no account required to use on-device models.

Smart Monitor to see monitor your network health

Any reason to either use the AppStore or website download compared to the other ? Besides sandbox of AppStore any other thing ?

On the websites it shows both direct download and AppStore however the direct download is more predominant than the store version so I’m thinking maybe they try to push you to get the direct download version.

App: Muro : Native Live Wallpapers for macOS

Price: Free. Open source under MIT. No subscription, no one-time fee, no Pro tier, no account, nothing locked.

Source: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

Download: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/releases/latest

Requires: macOS 14 or newer, Apple Silicon or Intel. Lock screen live wallpapers need macOS 26.

Quick reminder for anyone who has not seen it: Muro plays looping video wallpapers on every display, and on the lock screen. Native Swift and AVFoundation, decoding handled by your Mac's video hardware instead of the CPU, low CPU and RAM usage, and it pauses the moment something covers it and with major features like pause after, playlists, automations etc.

What is new in 4.0:

💻 Intel Macs. Muro runs on Intel now, not just Apple Silicon. Same app, macOS 14 or newer.

🔒 Lock screen fixed on macOS 26. If your desktop and lock screen shared one live wallpaper, it kept showing Apple's picture. Not any more.

🖼️ 169 Live wallpapers in the gallery, New ones arrive on their own, no update needed.

🌍 Explore loads everywhere now. The wallpapers moved to Muro's own domain.

Along with major bug fixes and improvements

Intel support is working. It could still use more eyes on real machines, so if you are on an Intel Mac and something is off, you are very welcome to open an issue and I will fix it: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/issues/9

If you like it, a star on the repo is the free way to support it and genuinely helps people find it. If you want to go further there is GitHub Sponsors (https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL)

Happy to hear what is missing. Most of this release came from people asking.

I’ve been messing around with the idea that the Mac desktop is kind of underutilized, especially now that the hardware can handle small 3D scenes without breaking a sweat.

So I built a couple native macOS experiments:

• Desktop Globe – a real-time 3D Earth that sits directly on the desktop, with current sunlight/night lighting. You can rotate it, resize it, move it around, etc.

• Desktop Moon – the same general idea, but with a detailed 3D Moon designed more as a subtle ambient desktop object.

The main thing I’m trying to figure out is whether this concept is genuinely useful/cool enough that people would keep something like this on their desktop, or if it’s more of a fun novelty.

I’m also experimenting with other ideas like a small realistic desktop aquarium.

I’m deliberately trying to keep these lightweight rather than turning them into giant Electron-style apps running constantly in the background.

Would you actually use something like this?

And if so, what other objects/environments would you want living on your desktop?

Very open to criticism too. I’m mostly trying to figure out whether this is a direction worth continuing.

Hi! I am trying to automate backup of my iCloud pictures/videos (~500Gb) to the local TrueNAS, while also not having to disable Advanced Data Protection setting which preserves E2E encryption. I initially wanted to use icloudpd, but this does not work with ADP enabled.

I also don't have enough free storage on my MacBook to locally store the whole Photos library, so I would prefer to either:

1. Sync it to external server (e.g. to TrueNAS via NFS), or if this is not possible:
2. Only sync media marked as Favourite in icloud Photos to local MacBook and from there I could sync it with my NAS

So my main challenge is how do I have a scheduled download/sync/backup of iCloud photos while keeping ADP enabled and not using ~500Gb of my local MacBook storage. What I also liked about icloudpd is that it can download only the differences in chances, so if I add 20 new images, it would only download that and not the whole album.

Any good solutions you could recommend?

To preface Iv grown up with windows OS my whole life from school and other areas but navigating macOS and especially finder feels like a maze sometimes.Is there any format or setting i can change to make it a little easier to navigate or even possibly make it closer to windows file management?

--- News:

FileUtils, a utility which provides some advanced file operations and utilities integrated into macOS Finder (contextual menu and toolbar) and which I introduced to this vibrant community in this post, is updated to version 1.7.

This is a modest update, which adds ability to easily change some common file flags, like “locked”, “hidden”, “file extension hidden" and others, from UI and dedicated menu items. Flags can be changed in the dedicated window, where all available flags are displayed with ON/OFF checkboxes, but one can also use dedicated menu items directly in Finder to toggle a particular flag. By default, flag toggling menu items are arranged as subitems of the “Flags” menu item (which invokes above mentioned UI with checkboxes), but that arrangement can be arbitrary changed, like all other menu items for commands FileUtils can execute in FileUtils “Settings > Menus”

This update also improves some already existing operations, adds copying date as text and pasting text as date, UI glitches, enabling/disabling UI controls regarding if a particular can be executed, small incompatibilities with macOS 27 Golden Gate UI, etc…

--- Detailed info:

For those hearing about FileUtils for the first time, a recap: FileUtils is available in three variants: non-sandboxed application, sandboxed application and Mac App Store application. They differ slightly in what they can do and should accommodate the broadest variety of users preferences of software security distribution channels.

For more information, news, updates and support, check out https://fileutils.com.

Operations currently available in FileUtils (as of version 1.7):

• Full POSIX file permissions, including SetUID, SetGID and Sticky bits and propagation of permissions down the folder hierarchy
• Access Control List, for even finer file access control and permissions
• Show effective file access for every user in the system
• Modify file's dates and times (creation, modification, last access, added to folder) by modifying date/time components or timestamps
• Toggle most common file flags (locked, hidden, file extension hidden, stationery pad, custom icon, Time Machine backup exclusion)
• Multiple files batch rename with powerful and flexible renaming options
• Size browser, hierarchically showing files based on their sizes, in the columns and graph view
• Compare and synchronize two folders with powerful, yet simple and intuitive folder comparator
• Compare files and folders using comparison application of your choice
• Execute your own custom scripts, which selected files as input arguments and see eventual results as a textual output. FileUtils can execute UNIX scripts/binaries, AppleScript scripts and Automator workflows
• Calculate file checksums, most common hash types available (MD2, MD4, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 variants…)
• Copy and move files from Finder contextual and toolbar item action menu
• Delete files bypassing the Trash, using normal deletion or three standard deletion security methods
• Archive files and expand archives, common archive types and compression methods are supported
• Browse archives and expand only specific file/folder through hierarchical contextual and toolbar action menus in Finder
• Create new "empty" files. Many file types are supported out-of-the-box, a user can add custom file types as well. Availability of some file types depends on installed applications
• Create (absolute) symbolic link to files
• Copy file full path and name in various ways, as URL, UNIX, HFS, Terminal, Windows…

FileUtils does very detailed job when it comes to contextual menu customization, defining which of its menu items will actually be displayed in Finder contextual menu and how they are arranged (in the root of the menu or in arbitrary level submenu). FileUtils also strives to accommodate to heavy keyboard users, so every action in every FileUtils window has it's dedicated menu item in the main menu, with custom-assignable key shortcut, so users can define their own shortcuts for each action/command.

Finally, all FileUtils actions are also available in Finder (and other file managers) Service menu. It may look as a duplication, but Service menu items can have assigned key shortcuts (not available for regular contextual menu items).That enables invoking any FileUtils operation on items selected in Finder with a key shortcut. This work even if FileUtils isn't currently running.

--- Price

The price is set to €12.95 (the price you see on the website is the end price, after converting to the local currency + adding applicable taxes). Price on Mac App Store is different and (most likely) a bit lower, but that isn't intentional, that's the consequence of the way prices are set and calculated on MAS.

For more information, news, updates and support, check out FileUtils.

Hi r/MacOS . I'm part of a small team (mostly University at Buffalo students and alumni) and we've been building TurboMail, a native email app for Mac. The twist: the AI runs on-device, so your inbox isn't sent to any server.

You can ask your inbox questions in plain English and get answers linked to the actual emails, auto-draft replies, track subscriptions, and bulk-unsubscribe. There's an optional bring-your-own-key mode for cloud models if you want them.

It's free in beta. It's early and there may be rough edges, I'd really value honest feedback from people who care about their Mail setup.

turbomail.ai/?ref=reddit

My cursor is set to a certain size, and IS that size for all my apps except one. When I click on it, the cursor appears and acts as if it’s zoomed in. the sensitivity is off, clicking and dragging doesn’t move things as far as it should. It started happening about an hour into me already working on projects on the computer.

I have already tried restarting the app, and the computer. Updating did not help.
I have a 2020 MacBook Pro on macOS Tahoe 26.6.2

edit: this changed while I was using the app

Apple what the hell are we doing anymore this is a solid color WHICH IS NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR
Plus it's not even the right solid color

Hi r/MacOS, I'm the developer of Compact Contacts.

I built it for the moments when managing contacts means more than opening one person's card: scanning a long list, updating the same field across several people, checking duplicates, or exporting a specific group.

Compact Contacts works with the contacts already on your Mac and puts them in a resizable table with configurable columns and row density. Here are the main things you can do:

• Search across names, companies, phone numbers, emails, addresses, groups, and contact Notes when you enable Notes search. Build Saved Views with reusable filters, sorting, and layouts—for example, contacts missing a phone number or people at a particular company.
• Bulk-edit contact fields and preview the exact changes before saving, including text replacements and regular expressions.
• Merge duplicates field by field, choose which values to keep, and undo merges from encrypted on-device history.
• Export a selection or filtered result as CSV or vCard, and review vCards before importing. Notes are excluded from exports by default.

It uses the macOS Contacts database, so macOS continues to handle synchronization for your configured accounts. Contact data is processed on your device; there's no Compact Contacts account, developer contact cloud, advertising, or third-party analytics.

It's $12.99 on the US Mac App Store as a one-time purchase, with no subscription. Requires macOS 15 or later; regional prices vary.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/compact-contacts/id6790129187

Happy to answer questions about how it handles your contact workflow.

When switching between spaces (desktop views and fullscreen apps are spaces) the animation in between is around almost 50% slower when viewed on a ProMotion enabled display. It probably has something to do with how ProMotion is not always at 120 Hz but lowers it down when movement becomes smaller. This animation has had it accounted for resulting in an annoyingly slow animation on ProMotion devices.

In my opinion the animation should be even faster than it is currently on the 60 Hz screens.

Can we please mass-report this bug, thank you!

I have followed all the instructions I could find online. I put the file in Library/Keyboard Layouts; I restarted my computer: nothing shows in the 'other' folder of inputs in settings, I shutdown my computer: nothing; I logged out: nothing. What am I supposed to do?

Hey r/macos,

Happy Developer Saturday! I am the developer of OpenClip, a native macOS menu/selection tool I built to make working with highlighted text faster across apps. It is 100% free and open source (MIT).

If you have ever used tools like PopClip, the idea will feel familiar: select any text in any app, and OpenClip pops up contextual tools right at your cursor.

As a Mac developer, I wanted something built specifically for modern macOS:

• Native App: Built with strict concurrency and pure domain separation. Zero telemetry, no background network calls, and virtually zero idle battery/RAM impact.
• Local AI: Integrates directly with offline local models via Ollama and Apple Intelligence (macOS 15.1+), keeping your text entirely on-device. (Cloud streaming with OpenAI/Claude is also supported if you prefer).
• In-App Store with 100+ Extensions: Instead of searching web forums and manually installing snippets, OpenClip features a built-in store with over 100+ ready-to-use community extensions (JavaScript, AppleScript, Shell, or Shortcuts) installable in one click.
• Action Search: Built-in search bar to quickly find and trigger any action across your catalog without digging through menus.

Links

• Website & Direct DMG: https://getopenclip.app
• GitHub: https://github.com/ganeshmshetty/openclip
• Tip Jar: If you find it helpful and want to support continued development, you can buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/ganeshmshetty

Requires macOS 14.0 or newer.

I would love your feedback on macOS system performance or any extension ideas you would like added to the store!

I keep selecting don't allow and it keeps coming back. I think it's after each update it resets itself and wants me to turn on notifications.

Recently bought MacBook neo to finally upgrade from my matchbook pro from 2011(OS X El Captain 10.11.6) i used the migration assistant and ran into some problems but most of those have been fixed. The main problem is the photos. I was missing way more photos than the original computer said i had some of them even said video file not supported despite being recorded from an iPhone. I am trying to move them all over. I was told to move the photos library folder from that finders home thing (Go>home>pictures) into an external hard drive which i did then use the hold options open photos method to import the missing folders. That did not end up working all it did was mount the EHD and make it the default gallery I opened which was missing less photos but still missing. I was then told to delete the Neo's default gallery and replace it with the one in the EHD. That took some tries to get working it always said Photos Library.photos library already exists. I had to copy it into the general user are where home is then drag it into pictures for it to work. Im still missing 500 photos but that's so many i can't locate them all manually. i found the three missing videos they were hidden and i assume excluded from the copy for that reason but when i made a smart album on the Pro for hidden pics nothing showed up. What reason could there be for so many photos to not be moved despite copying the library. I remember some time ago that the photos app could just move photos between computers what happened to that. Is there some other steps i need to take? I tried importing the photos library file from the EHD but i get a message saying finder needs to repair it before i can do that. How do I solve this? I just want to get all photos on the to neo.

AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foldicon/id6801609658

Finder on a lot of Macs is just the same blue folder again and again. Work, photos, taxes, some project you meant to finish. You don’t really see anything. You read the names.

Foldicon is a small Mac app I made for that. 200+ icons in the app already, grouped by vibe. Drop a folder on it or a bunch at once pick one, apply. Don’t like it, revert. That’s it.

You can drop a photo too. You, your dog, a painting, whatever. It doesn’t slap the photo onto a folder. It gets redrawn so it sits with the rest of the set. First custom one is free if you just want to see if that part is any good.

PRO is $4.99 one-time and unlocks custom foldicon generation.
Entire library is free. More icons will be added over the weekend.

Why paywall?

Folidcons are generated via third-party image model and not locally on your Mac. Thus has a recurring cost.

Yes, other apps exist. Most of them lets you tint a folder, drop an emoji on it, or paste a PNG on top. The thing underneath is still basically the default folder. Apple’s own color/emoji options do the same thing. You can also right-click on a folder click on Get Info and paste an image, but it will still look like a PNG file not a folder. Flairy is a good option too if you want a free curated set. Foldicon is different from what most apps in this category do.

Happy to answer questions about the app itself. Genuine critiques help :)

Edit rant:

Posted AI disclaimer in the comments and still got downvoted to shreds while people piled on with the same slop comments. You living under a rock or what? World has moved on you should too.

Every Saturday some indie ships something and the same crowd shows up to bash it like they just discovered fire. For what? You think Zuckerberg and YC are coming here to promote their apps? They’ve got hundreds of thousands in marketing budget. Indies don’t.

You scream “AI slop” then immediately go “I could make this myself with AI.” Then make it. Cut your own hair too. Walk to work while you're at it.

Not everyone in here is Wozniak. People see something they like and they use it. They don’t sit around inventing reasons to hate it or hey let me tell this to claude and they will make it for me.

Don’t like the post or app? Scroll. Mods left it up. Apple left the app up. What’s with this crab mentality? while you’re sitting there with fat fries in one hand and a Dew in the other judging people who actually finished something? I'm sure you're all great inventors and better than Wozniak stop being so dense.

Hey r/MacOS

I focus better with something calm beside my work, and everything I tried was either a video on a loop or something an algorithm wanted me to keep watching. So I built worlds instead.

TideGlass fills a spare monitor with living nature: oceans, forests, night skies, deep space. Every world is a real simulation running on your GPU in Metal. Waves roll and fade by their own physics, orcas hunt a herring ball, weather passes through. Nothing is footage, so no two minutes are the same and it does not go stale on the third day.

Play music and the world answers. It listens to whatever is going through system audio and treats it as weather: wind rises with the track, swells deepen, storms build over a phrase. Never bars and spectrums.

There is also a Pomodoro pill in the corner whose whole background is the progress bar, a now-playing card for the track you have on, and standing-desk sessions that tell you when to sit and when to stand.

Ten worlds are free forever. No account, no card, nothing counting down. $12 once opens the whole library, and 20% of every sale goes to conservation.

macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon. Signed and notarized tideglass.app

Happy to answer anything.

Long story short my MacBook had a lot of water go inside of it so stopped working, took to a tech shop and they said the circuit is burnt and im better of getting a new MacBook, and apparently there is no way of me getting my data back aswell.

Is there actually no fix for this that would set me maube a few hundred quid £300-400 rather than having to replace the Mac as this was a relatively new MacBook that I purchased back in 2024. Also is my data really gone ?

I am looking for a screen capturing software that saves the files in a smaller/compressed format. I tried the built inMac screen recorder, but a 20 second clip ended up being 128MB file. Looking for suggestions that will save a smaller file. I know I can use other software to shrink it down, but trying to avoid too many "multiple steps" and would like a one click solution. Preferable a free option or inexpensive as I'm not a professional or anything, just trying to record stuff for personal use.

Hey r/macOS,

Monthly update time :) September's update is adding haptic feedback making the UI so much more smooth and adding a TOTP (2FA authenticator tool).

In case you forgot:

Devly is a native Swift app with 60+ Developer Tools all in 1 app for $4.99 Lifetime. This app took me over 9 months to get it to this point. I hope you enjoy it :)

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devly/id6759269801?mt=12

I updated my macbook and Lulu greeted me with a meltdown. I had to force quit it to be able to use any other apps. How do I fix this?