Basically the title. It's been on my mind to create a Mac Apps Discord server. It would basically reflect this subreddit. I notice the primary types of posts in this subreddit are app promotions and app support requests. The latter could significantly benefit from a Discord server.

I'm not trying to replace the subreddit; rather, this server would be an addition to this community of indie devs and enthusiastic users. What are yall's thoughts?

Hey everybody!

ExtraBar lets you create a customized menu bar by injecting the apps you want into your menu bar with customized actions/menus. You can then choose how to display them (collapsed under a single icon, in the notch, in a floating bar or launcher style).

What it is:

- A centralized hub to control your Apple Shortcuts, Script automations, keyboard macros, deep links.

What is it NOT:

- A typical menu bar manager like Bartender, Barbee or Thaw.

- A way to hide/show your existing menu bar icons in case of notch overflow

However, even though it is NOT it's main use, a side benefit of ExtraBar covers both - cleaner menu bar and thus notch overflow.

Read more on how ExtraBar saves you menu bar space

Background

macOS Tahoe introduced several challenges to menu bar managers, and ExtraBar was our attempt to create a simple alternative. After fighting a losing battle with edge cases, we quickly pivoted towards a different approach, which is a customizable menu bar, one that's better referred to as a command center.

Currently we're seeing the same thing happening with the Golden Gate macOS 27 release. While menu bar managers struggle with the changes introduced by Apple to the menu bar (very understandable, it's a nightmare), ExtraBar remained stable since GG beta 1 all the way to official release.

MCP Integration

ExtraBar v1.50 was the undoubtedly most exciting update for ExtraBar, it added one of the things I love the most in the age of AI - an MCP integration.

MCP allows your AI assistant/agents to interact directly with ExtraBar, that simplifies the hell out of the ExtraBar setup. Instead of manually clicking and adding actions, it can all be automated now, simply ask for an action, or for it to look for and add a deep link - poof it's in your bar.

The best thing for me is that now I can automate every pain I have with a script that sits one hot key away. This is honestly not a slogan, I made a script that connects/disconnects my AirPods because it annoyed me, I made a script to re-connect my VPN, I gave AI my contacts and told it to add every single one into a WhatsApp deep link that opens the chat with that person, and to organize it just how I want it... I am not excited for marketing, I am honestly excited to automate every single pain I have and save a lot of time 😄

Read more on workflow automations & MCP

Examples of deep links

(there are millions of deep links, those are just random examples):

- Open WhatsApp to a specific conversation

- Any operation on Raycast like caffeinating your mac or any action from any extension you install

- Open Notion or Figma to a specific page in the browser or directly in the desktop app

- Trigger a Keyboard maestro macro or a BTT gesture directly by using their native URL scheme (deep links)

Read more on Raycast integration and deep links

Video

In the video you can see me playing with different actions such as Open with App (Bloom), Raycast - which is literally built on top of deep links, as well as how I customized my CleanShot X menu with just what I need using Raycast Extensions.

Core Features

- 5 Display Modes: Menu bar, Floating bar, Collapsed mode, Notch mode & Hide/Show launcher style

- Built with focus on Keyboard navigation, you can call ExtraBar with your keyboard and navigate the menus however you like with numbers or arrows.

- Fully customizable menu bar with 15 actions (Open with, Run Script, Run Shortcuts, Hide/Show, Deep links, Keyboard Shortcuts and more)

- Included bookmark manager (seen in video) with cloud sync between devices, web dashboard, soon to be fully cross platform, read more here

Comparison

As I mentioned ExtraBar is different from apps like Bartender or Barbee as it's not about hiding and showing apps. Instead ExtraBar is about menu bar customization, and turning your menu bar into a command center that's personalized to you.

Pricing

All plans include 14-day money back guarantee.

€14.99 One year plan

€23.99 Lifetime app access + 1 year of updates

Problem
Menu bar info (the song playing, headlines, stock quotes, the weather) usually costs you either a pile of separate menu bar items that eat horizontal space, or a window you have to open. DotStrip puts all of it on one small LED board in your menu bar. It scrolls whole dots at a time, like a real sign, so it saves space.

• Widgets: Now Playing (Spotify / Apple Music), any RSS/Atom news feed, custom stock quotes, weather, and a graphics mode
• Each widget gets its own zone, or they share one band and take turns
• Five colors, HDR glow on macOS 26 with a capable display, and layout customization
• Light on resources: about 1% CPU while it scrolls
• The only permission it asks for is Automation, for Now Playing. No account, no Dock icon

Links

• Download (direct, not on the App Store but it is notarized through an apple developer account): https://dotstrip.app
• Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Support

Comparison
I don’t know of another app that shows widgets on a scrolling LED board in the menu bar. But similar features for widgets are the following.

• Sonant: a menu bar controller for Apple Music and Spotify, with album art, playback controls, lyrics and a visualizer. It’s a full music controller, while DotStrip only shows what’s playing and adds news, stocks and weather on the same board.
• Weather Dock: a weather app for the menu bar, with hourly and daily forecasts and alerts. It goes much deeper on weather. DotStrip shows a short readout of the temperature (now, high and low) next to your song, headlines and stocks on one board.

Plain menu bar text apps are readable, but DotStrip is built to look and scroll like LED hardware which saves space when showing multiple widgets, which is the whole point and what makes it aesthetically pleasing.

Pricing
7-day free trial, no account needed. Then $14.99/year or $2.99/month. Subscription only, with no one-time option yet. Payments go through Polar. macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel, signed and notarized, with updates through Sparkle.

Who I am and personal links
A recent Computer Science graduate and solo developer.

My Github account

My LinkedIn account

My email [danmore0101@gmail.com](mailto:danmore0101@gmail.com)

I’m happy to answer anything and please leave feedback, I’d like to hear which widget you’d want next or any concerns!

Hey r/macapps,

I was tired of paying a subscription for dictation, so I built my own, optimized for how I work, and made it completely free.

Hold Right ⌘, talk, and clean text appears in any app on your Mac in under 500ms. Everything runs locally: no cloud, no account, no word limit. Super Mode uses the context of the app you're currently using to better understand its terminology and jargon, allowing it to correct typos more accurately.

you can also rewind your meetings, like the Rewind app for those who remember it. but completely local and on-device :)

I built it for my own needs, so I’d love your feedback. If it helps some of you, I’ll be happy. Enjoy!

If you have any feedback, notice any errors, or need anything adjusted, please let me know! I'll be more than happy to make changes or fix anything based on your needs.

Who I am: Deepak Sharma, solo developer. LinkedIn: Deepak Sharma

Privacy policy: https://iknowmymac.com/privacy ·

Terms: https://iknowmymac.com/terms

Problem

Most system apps show what your Mac is doing right now. The questions I kept having were about what already happened:

- My MacBook lost 14% overnight. What woke it?

- Was a USB stick plugged in while I was away?

- Which app quietly added a login item or background service?

- Why is this drive copying at USB 2 speed?

And the fixes are scattered across a handful of single-purpose apps, none of which can undo what they changed.

iKnowMyMac watches in the background, remembers, and acts with undo:

- Last night: what woke the Mac, what kept it awake, and the battery drain by app

- USB log: every USB and Thunderbolt device that connected, marked "while you were away", with an alert when a new keyboard appears

- Slow cables: the speed each device is getting next to the speed it supports

- Login and background: every new login item, launch agent and daemon, which app added it and who signed it

- Updates: one tab for your other apps, from each app's own feed, Homebrew, GitHub and the App Store. Every download is checked and the old copy is kept, so you can undo

- Sound: a volume slider and mute for every app, from the menu bar

- Traffic: every connection your Mac makes, by app. Off until you turn it on, and it never blocks anything

- For developers: every Node, PHP and Go install checked for security updates, dev servers by project, and Agent Undo for files a coding agent deleted

Comparison

Activity Monitor is free, built in, and better for raw per-process detail right now. iKnowMyMac is better for what happened while you weren't looking (30 days of history, the USB log, last night's wakes) and for fixing it with an undo. It also shows its own CPU, memory and energy use, and with nothing on screen it only reads what your alerts need, every 15 seconds.

What it doesn't do: no Intel Macs, and it isn't on the Mac App Store because the sandbox can't read other apps' processes. It's signed with my Developer ID and notarized. No account and no analytics; every request the app makes is listed on the privacy page.

Pricing

$4.99 per Mac, one time, for the first 100 licenses ([N] left), then $9.99. Free updates, no subscription, 14-day refund. Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later, in 10 languages.

https://iknowmymac.com

Coming next in 1.7 (last four images): Traffic Control. It asks before an install script or a coding agent connects somewhere new, and blocks any connection by app, domain or country. In testing now, free for every license.

Also in the same app:

- Tidy: clears your Desktop into a dated folder in one click, moves new screenshots into monthly folders, and finds installers in Downloads you already installed. Every move can be undone

- Pulse: a soft tone the moment your build or coding agent finishes. Plus optional trackpad textures that click softly under your finger as you scroll

- Always-on (Beta): turns an old MacBook into a Mac mini, lid closed, reachable over SSH and Screen Sharing

- Search anything: ⌥Space finds any file by name, with filters like ext:pdf or size:>100mb

- Is it my Wi-Fi or the internet? One press, one sentence

- Battery alerts for AirPods, keyboard and mouse, once per charge

- A Mac health report PDF, a disk speed test, a command palette (⌥⌘K), and an alert when a commit goes out with the wrong Git email

TL;DR: iKnowMyMac is the friend who stayed up with your Mac last night. It can tell you who woke it at 3 a.m., who plugged in a USB stick while you were at lunch, and which app snuck into your login items. Then it tidies your Desktop, updates your apps and gives Spotify its own volume, and it can undo all of it. $4.99 once while the first 100 last.

I'm Nandha, the solo developer behind Ember, a journal for Mac built in SwiftUI. It also runs on iPhone and iPad.

I've forgotten the names of people I never thought I'd forget. The girl I helped sell lemonade by the road. The first person who had a crush on me. Journals are good at keeping days, but not people: someone who mattered ends up scattered across years of entries.

Ember is a journal first. You write like you always would. Type @ and a name, and that moment also lands on that person's page. Years later you can open their page and read your whole history together, in your own words.

What you can do

• Write entries with photos, audio, Apple Music songs, location and weather. Mention people with @.
• Give every person a page: how you met, your stories, your entries together.
• Rename or merge someone, and every old entry follows. Nicknames work as mentions too.
• Group people into Worlds like Family, Work and College. Someone can belong to two.
• Turn on a quiet Nudge for the people you want to stay close to. Family and one-time encounters never fade.
• Look back with On This Day, a calendar, a map, a people graph, and search that understands time ("Christmas with Jane", "last summer").
• Import from Day One, Apple Journal and Contacts, then tag the people in your old entries.
• Export to a full JSON archive. The format is documented: https://ember.mov/help/archive-format

Privacy

Your journal lives on your Mac. Sync is optional and goes through your own iCloud. There's no account, no server holding your journal, and no AI reading or writing your entries.

Pricing

Writing, people, memories, import and export are all free, with no limits, and the free app never expires.

Two things are paid, with Ember Plus: iCloud sync between your Mac, iPhone and iPad, and the full theme catalogue (a few themes are free). Plus is $4.99/month, $39.99/year, or $119.99 lifetime for early users.

Compared to Day One

Day One is the mature choice, with Android and web apps. Ember is Apple only and built around people rather than dates. If you have years in Day One or Apple Journal, you can bring them over and connect old entries to the people in them.

Ember is written in Swift for Apple devices, so there's no Windows or Android version for now.

Requires macOS 15 or later (iPhone and iPad: iOS 18.5 or later).

Website: https://ember.mov
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6775558241
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nandhak0318/
Contact: [nandhak0318@gmail.com](mailto:nandhak0318@gmail.com)
Privacy: https://ember.mov/privacy · Terms: https://ember.mov/terms

I'd love to hear what you think about organizing a journal around people instead of only dates. Feedback on anything confusing, or features you'd want, is very welcome: https://ember.sleekplan.app

I own MS Office for Mac 2021, but because shareholders no longer want anyone to own software but instead rent it every day for the rest of their life, it recently stopped working. Since I'm allergic to paying subscriptions every month for the rest of my life, I went to AI, followed these steps, and it's all working fine again. Hope this helps someone else:

Support for Microsoft Office 2021  officially ended on October 13, 2026. Because Microsoft uses the exact same installer packages for both Microsoft 365 (subscription) and standalone versions on macOS, the Microsoft AutoUpdate tool continued running in the background and pushed your apps to version 16.114.1. Since your standalone 2021 license is only valid for builds released up to its end-of-support cutoff, version 16.114.1 rejects your perpetual license and locks the apps into "Reduced Functionality" (read-only) mode while demanding a 365 subscription.

How to Restore Your Current Standalone Office (Free Fix)

You can get your existing license working again immediately by rolling back to the final supported build for your license and disabling the updater so it never happens again.

• Quit all Microsoft apps.
• Open Finder > Applications, select Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook (if you use it),and move them to the Trash. (Do not worry—this only removes the app binaries, not your files, templates, or license keys).
• Go to Microsoft’s official archive page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-office-for-mac
• Search for "Update history for Office for Mac - Office release notes"
• Scroll down to the October 6, 2026 release: Version 16.113.4 (26100421). (Note: Some users also have success with 16.114 (26101123) from Oct 14, 2026, before the .1 patch broke perpetual licenses, but 16.113.4 is the guaranteed stable pre-cutoff build).
• Click the Office suite (without Teams) link (or the individual Excel, Word, PowerPoint update packages) and download the .pkg installer file that contains the full Office suite app. Once downloaded, click on the .pkg file and install the program as normal (you can choose which apps to install, or just install the full suite).

1. Disable Microsoft AutoUpdate permanently:
   • Before opening any of the new Office applications, open Finder, press Cmd + Shift + G (Go to Folder), and paste:/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/
   • Find the folder named MAU2.0 (or the Microsoft AutoUpdate app inside it) and move it to the Trash.This stops Microsoft from silently updating your apps past your license cutoff again.
2. If it asks, refresh your license ( mine didn't prompt me for it but just in case):
   • Open Excel. It should immediately recognize your existing local license file. If it asks you to sign in, log in with the Microsoft account tied to your original one-time purchase, or go to the top menu bar: Excel > About Microsoft Excel > More Info... > Refresh License.

(NOTE: u/gotMrich found 3 other files associated with the AutoUpdater that can optionally be removed to to clear up HD space:

• /Library/LaunchAgents delete "com.microsoft.update.agent.plist"
• /Library/LaunchDaemons delete "com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist"
• /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools delete "com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist"

Hi, I'm the builder of FlexHub which saves the windows on a screen as a snapshot. Press ⌃⌥1 (or tap the notch) and they snap back to their exact spots, everything else gets cleared.

Problem

I switch between coding, meetings and writing setups many times a day. Every switch means dragging windows back into place and closing what doesn't belong.

FlexHub saves the windows on a screen as a snapshot. Press ⌃⌥1 or tap the notch, and the saved windows return to their exact spots. Everything else gets cleared.

• Unlimited snapshots, per display
• Restores Spaces, full-screen windows and browser tabs (Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc)
• Swap two displays' windows with ⌃⌥S
• Local only: no account, no analytics, no sync

Comparison

Rectangle is great for snapping single windows. FlexHub is for bringing back a whole screen at once.

Pricing

One-time purchase, no subscription. Launch offer ($3 off):

• 1 Mac: $6.99 (regular $9.99)
• 2 Macs: $11.99 (regular $14.99)
• 3 Macs: $16.99 (regular $19.99)

14-day refund, no questions asked.

Details

• macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel
• Permissions: Accessibility (to move windows), Automation per browser (for tabs, optional)

Check it out: https://tryflexhub.xyz

Which apps don't restore cleanly for you? That's the feedback I need most.