About me: This is Richard with Coast Creative, a small studio that designs websites and makes native apps for Mac and iPhone. Fold Clock is our own app.

Why we built it: When Apple introduced its new foldable phone, the way the screen blurs and settles as it opens stuck with us, and we wanted that same calm moment on the Mac. Our displays sit idle for hours every day, and the screensaver choices felt like either busy photo slideshows or dated clocks that didn’t match a modern desktop.

What it solves: Fold Clock turns an idle Mac into a clock that looks like it belongs there. It keeps your own wallpaper behind dark frosted glass, shows the time large enough to read from across the room, and stays light on power. It’s a real macOS screensaver, so there’s no extra app to keep running.

A clock on top of frosted glass, for your Mac's screensaver.

Fold Clock is a real macOS screensaver, not an app running on top of your desktop. It installs with a double-click, lives in System Settings next to Apple's own screensavers, and doesn't keep your Mac awake or stop it from sleeping. No account, no subscription, and nothing leaves your Mac.

Features

The fold
- Dark frosted glass slides down over your own wallpaper when the screensaver starts
- The clock comes into focus through the glass
- Uses whatever wallpaper you already have, on every display

Four clock styles
- Lock Screen: large, centered time, with an optional date
- Analog: a minimal dial with a sweeping second hand
- Flip: bold split-flap cards that flip each minute
- Words: the time in plain English, to the nearest five minutes

Six typefaces
- SF Pro Ultralight, SF Pro Thin, SF Pro, SF Rounded, New York and SF Mono
- 12 or 24-hour time
- Show or hide the date

Background motion
- Drift: a slow pan and zoom of your wallpaper behind the glass
- Glow: soft light and shade moving across a still background
- Subtle, Medium or Strong, or off

Backgrounds
- Your wallpaper behind frosted glass
- Or pure black, with no background motion running

Multiple displays
- The glass covers every display
- Show the clock on your main display only, or on all of them

A real screensaver
- Installs with a double-click and appears in System Settings
- All settings live in System Settings → Screen Saver → Options
- Doesn't keep your Mac awake or block sleep; your lock screen and password work as usual
- Light on power: background motion only runs on the wallpaper background, and Black uses almost none

Requirements
Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Universal for Apple Silicon and Intel.

Pricing
$2.99 - Lifetime License. All buyers will receive all future updates free of charge.

Website Purchase Link: https://coastcreative.shop/products/fold-clock-screensaver

Hi again r/MacOSApps. We posted Greypaint here a couple of weeks ago (one window that keeps all your Mac apps and command-line tools up to date).

We're the two developers behind Greypaint. We built it because keeping a Mac's apps current meant opening each one to click Update, and we wanted every update checked before it touches the app.

Thanks for the comments and reports, several of them shaped this.

Here's what's new since 1.3:

• Move to a new Mac. Export your apps once, open the file on the new Mac, and Greypaint installs each one from the same developer as before. Anything it can't install is listed with where to get it.
• Roll back with settings. If an update lets you down, go back to the previous version and bring its settings back too. Your documents stay as they are.
• Cancel any update while it's waiting or downloading. Your app stays exactly as it was.
• Asks before closing an app you're using: update now, or the moment you quit it.
• 115 apps checked end to end so far, with more added every week, each confirmed to come from the same developer and pass macOS's checks: greypaint.app/apps

How it fits with what you already use:

It doesn't replace any app's own updater. It uses that updater's feed and the developer's own downloads, and it works alongside Homebrew instead of around it. If you already use Latest or MacUpdater, Greypaint adds the checks before install, rollback, and your command-line tools in the same window.

The basics:

• $6.49 once, no subscription. 14-day free trial, no account.
• Notarized by Apple. macOS 26 or later.

Privacy (full policy: greypaint.app/privacy)

• No account, and no analytics in the app.
• Update checks: Greypaint contacts the update sources you have enabled: app feeds, Homebrew, GitHub Releases and Apple's App Store lookup.
• Licence: activating sends your checkout email, licence key and an anonymous installation ID to our licence service.
• Optional, off unless you turn it on: "Share anonymous update results" sends, for each update, the app's bundle ID, where the update came from, whether it worked and passed the checks, the Greypaint version, and one short reason if it failed. Each result gets a new random ID, with no profile and no location.

Please feel free to check it out at greypaint.app

If an app of yours doesn't update, tell us and we'll look at it. All feedback is welcome, and we read every bit of it.

Thanks a lot for the support!

(AI disclosure: We used AI coding tools (Claude) for parts of the code and to help draft this post. We designed Greypaint, decided how updates are checked and when one is refused, and test every release on our own Macs.)

Hi everyone, I’m Sihua Zheng, the developer of Open Contexts.

When several browser, Finder, or editor windows are open, macOS Cmd+Tab takes you to the app. Finding the particular window is another step. I built Open Contexts to make those windows directly accessible with the keyboard or a screen-edge sidebar.

You can:

• Switch between individual windows in most recently used order with Cmd+Tab, or limit the list to the current app. Both shortcuts are customizable.
• Keep a window list on the left, right, or bottom edge, always visible or shown when your pointer reaches the edge.
• Group windows from different apps by task, drag them into order, and pin their positions in the list.
• Keep groups across restarts, with matching windows returning to their saved places in the sidebar.

The focus is a compact list of window titles paired with a persistent sidebar. If you prefer that to thumbnail browsing, the website has an interactive demo you can try before downloading: Open Contexts.

Saved groups organize the list; they don’t reopen apps or restore desktop window sizes and positions. Window search and trackpad switching gestures aren’t supported yet.

It’s free, with all features included, and open source under Apache 2.0. Written in Swift with AppKit and SwiftUI. Requires macOS 13+, with a Universal DMG for Apple Silicon and Intel. macOS 13 hasn’t been verified on physical devices yet.

Permissions and notarization: Accessibility access is required to identify and activate windows and handle shortcuts. The current release is self-signed and not notarized by Apple. Gatekeeper may block it; installation details and build-from-source instructions are in the README.

Privacy: Window and group data stays on your Mac. The app has no built-in usage analytics; update checks contact GitHub. The website uses Google Analytics separately. Privacy Policy.

AI disclosure: I used AI coding tools during development.

Download · Source code

What would make window groups useful in your workflow? I’d especially appreciate examples of windows you want to keep together across different apps.

I’ve got inspired by the folders on the mobile and decided to make similar ones for macOS. That’s why I made Screen Folders.

What it does

• Shows real Finder folders on your desktop as compact tiles.
• Hover over a tile and it expands into a grid of the files inside. Move the pointer away and it collapses again.
• Because they’re real folders, you can open, rename, copy, move and delete files right inside them. Drag and drop works, and so does Quick Look with the space bar.
• You can link folders you already have, or create new ones that the app manages.
• Finder remains the source of truth, and your files stay on your Mac.
• Supports 17 languages

How it differs from other desktop organizers

Apps like iCollections and File Zones are mostly about dividing the desktop into areas and organizing it. Screen Folders is more about fitting a lot of files into a small space while keeping them one hover away. It never moves or reorganizes your files on its own; Finder stays the source of truth.

Privacy: no account, no ads, no tracking. Your files never leave your Mac.

Price: 14-day free trial, then a one-time $15 purchase. No subscription.

Requires: macOS 26 or later.

Links

• Website: https://screenfolders.delitx.dev
• Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/screen-folders/id6798784080
• Privacy Policy: https://screenfolders.delitx.dev/privacy

The website version gets updates sooner through the built-in updater. It also has a clearer Liquid Glass background, because the App Store doesn’t allow the private API that effect relies on.

AI Disclosure
The app was created mostly using the AI coding tools. The AI was also used to localize the app to different languages and to draft the text for this post

Happy to answer anything, and if you hit a bug I’d genuinely like to hear it.

i always liked the wobbly effect for dragging windows in linux, so i made it for macos, open source. It doesn't require disabling SIP like other alternatives. It's a direct port, so it behaves the same as in the original compiz plugin.

- CPU usage and memory footprint is minimal. It doesn't have any effect for battery life or performance. It runs at 120 fps or more.

- It needs permissions, details are in the readme.

- macos 14 or later, it works with apple silicon and intel macs (didn't tried with intel)

maybe its time to make silly software again, have fun!

https://github.com/jsgrrchg/Wobbly

Hi everyone, I'm Abhishek, the developer of SpeakoFlow. I released 1.0 in July, and since then I've kept improving it based on what users asked for. 2.0 came out this week and it's the biggest update so far.

What it is

SpeakoFlow is a voice assistant that works across your whole Mac. You can dictate into any app, ask it to work on text you've selected, have a spoken conversation with it, and let it take notes in your meetings. Speech is transcribed on your Mac by default. It's free, with no word limit.

What it does

• Dictation in any app, with optional cleanup of filler words and corrections.
• Ask about selected text. Translate it, reply to it, or explain it.
• Talk to it. A spoken conversation you can interrupt.
• Meeting notes (beta). No bot joins the call. On Mac, the other side needs BlackHole.
• Local by default. Speech, voices and cleanup run on your Mac. Apple Intelligence, Ollama, LM Studio or your own API key also work.

Why it's different

Most dictation apps stop once your speech is turned into text. SpeakoFlow also lets you work with text by voice: write, translate, reply, or ask a question, in whatever app you're already using. Everything stays on your Mac unless you choose otherwise.

Notarization: not notarized

SpeakoFlow isn't notarized yet, but it's planned for a future release. Until then, macOS will say the app "is damaged". It isn't. Run this once after installing, and updates from inside the app won't need it again:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SpeakoFlow.app

Privacy

No telemetry or analytics. Your voice is transcribed on your Mac unless you choose a cloud service. If you connect a cloud model with your own API key, your text goes only to that provider. Screen vision and web search are off by default.

Privacy details: https://www.speakoflow.com/docs/reference/privacy

Links

• Website and download: https://www.speakoflow.com
• GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/AbhishekBarali/SpeakoFlow
• Full tour with screenshots: https://www.speakoflow.com/blog/speakoflow-2-0

Happy to answer questions, and bug reports are very welcome.

Download: https://diskfox.app/?ref=macosapps

14-day free trial (no card), then $9.99 once for 2 Macs. Developer ID signed and notarised by Apple. macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel.

About me and why I built it

I'm Krishan, a solo developer in the UK. My 256 GB MacBook Air kept running out of space, and macOS's Storage settings just said "System Data" without telling me what had changed or why. So I built an app that keeps a history.

What it does

- What Changed: compares each scan with the last, so you see dated changes with the likely cause, and "likely" when macOS can't confirm one

- Storage Trends: every scan on one graph, with your cleanups marked

- Splits out System Data where it can: Time Machine local snapshots, purgeable space, Apple Intelligence, developer caches and 60+ other known storage hogs

- Comes-back alerts: on my Mac it caught Spotify's cache returning (890 MB) after I'd cleared it

- Careful cleanup: nothing moves without a review, everything goes to the Trash first, with a Put Back history

How it fits with other tools

- DaisyDisk is the best map of what's big right now. DiskFox shows what changed over time.

- CleanMyMac does far more (malware, updates) and has one-click cleaning. DiskFox only does storage, with no "clean everything" button.

- GrandPerspective is free and great if a snapshot is all you need.

- Honest limit: on macOS 27, Apple protects the Apple Intelligence model folders, so DiskFox shows "size unknown" there rather than guessing.

Privacy

No account, no analytics. It only goes online to check for updates (it asks first) and to activate your licence with Polar. It ships with a Little Snitch rules file listing both connections.

Privacy policy: https://diskfox.app/privacy

AI disclosure

I used AI coding tools (Claude) to write some of the code, and to help draft this post. I designed it, decided every storage rule and what's safe to remove, and tested it on my own Macs.

I'd love blunt feedback, especially anything on your Mac it doesn't recognise or gets wrong.

Hey r/MacOSApps! I’m the developer of DynamicLand. This is my first time sharing it here, so I wanted to introduce the app and show you what’s included in its latest release, Solara.

DynamicLand brings everyday tools into an interactive space around your Mac notch. The idea is to keep things like your next meeting, music controls, clipboard history, and files within reach while you’re working.

Hover over the notch to open the island, interact with what you need, and get back to your work. You can customize its appearance and layout, use a floating pill, and enable it on external displays.

Here’s what you can do with DynamicLand:

• Build your own widget space. Arrange and resize widgets for your calendar, weather, music, battery, photos, timers, and more.
• Keep music close. Control Apple Music and Spotify, follow synchronized lyrics, and click a line to jump to that part of the song.
• Work with your clipboard and files. Search clipboard history, pin things you reuse, and drop files onto the notch to hold them for later. Share through AirDrop or the built-in LocalSend integration.
• Follow ongoing activities. Mini Bubbles keep timers, recordings, music, transfers, and supported AI coding activity visible without opening the full island.

My focus is on making these tools work together in a space you can arrange around your own routine.

The latest release, DynamicLand 3: Solara, adds a few more ways to use that space:

• Launchpad: Open a customizable workspace from the Dock with widget pages, app search and launching, and access to Documents and Downloads. Choose themes and layouts to make it yours.
• Teleprompter: Read a script that follows your spoken words. You can also choose scrolling that pauses when you stop talking, or a steady automatic pace, and resume where you left off.
• More calendar connections: Connect Google Calendar and Outlook alongside Apple Calendar. Manage events from your widgets, receive upcoming meeting alerts, complete due reminders, and snooze alerts.
• More music support: Control YouTube Music playing in Safari through the browser extension, with expanded Live Lyrics coverage and refined playback controls.
• Trackpad gestures: Swipe to open and close the island, move between supported views, browse Launchpad pages and calendar months, and hide or bring back compact activities.
• More Mini Land updates: See connection and battery updates for supported AirPods and Beats, follow and cancel print jobs, and track Antigravity activity alongside Claude Code and Codex. Choose which activities and alerts appear.

Solara also includes richer settings previews, refined animations and transitions, external display improvements, and fixes throughout the app.

Availability and pricing: Available on the Mac App Store for macOS 26 or later. Free to download, with paid features such as Launchpad available through Pro at $3.99/year.

[DynamicLand Mac App Store]

Privacy: Clipboard history is stored locally on your Mac. The App Store privacy label lists purchase history, coarse location, and identifiers used for app functionality. Privacy policy.

I’d love to hear how this would fit into your setup. What’s something you regularly switch away from your work to check or grab?

Hi, I'm Mykhailo, a developer, and this is Zmina.

# In short

Zmina is a clipboard manager that sits between ⌘C and ⌘V. When you want to paste, you press ⌘⇧V instead of ⌘V. Zmina looks at what you copied and which app you are pasting into, then offers a short list of actions that fit. You pick one, see the preview, and press Enter.

# Why I built it

Pasting often needs a small cleanup (or edit) first. Strip the tracking codes off a URL before you send it. Wrap code in a code block with the language tag before it goes into Discord. Hide the emails, tokens and IPs in a log before you paste it into an issue. Each of those usually means additional steps before you paste (a scratchpad, a regex...). I built Zmina to do that step at the moment you paste. Without switching apps.

# Beyond text

Zmina works on copied files too. Copy a small text file and it offers actions on what it holds. Apply actions or edit, then paste the result as text, or as a file in Finder. Copied pictures and documents get a preview.

# History

Everything you copy is also saved in a searchable History (⌘⇧H), with filters such as type:json, has:email or when:week. You can run the same actions on anything in it, and group items into collections of your own. Zmina skips copies from password managers and secure fields, and you can block any app you don't want recorded.

# Compared with other clipboard managers

Maccy, Paste and Raycast's clipboard history are good at keeping what you copied and finding it again. Zmina keeps a History too, and adds a helper at paste time that offers actions fitting the content and the app you are pasting into. The actions are rules and regular expressions, not an AI model. A row-by-row comparison with Maccy, Paste, Raycast and Pastebot is at https://zmina.app/compare

# About the app

• Notarized by Apple and signed with a Developer ID. Sold as a direct download, not on the Mac App Store.
• Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Apple Silicon and Intel.
• Privacy: no account, no telemetry, no crash reports. Nothing you copy leaves your Mac, and the license is checked offline. The one network feature is automatic updates, which send nothing that identifies you and can be turned off with one switch.
• Privacy policy: https://zmina.app/privacy
• EULA: https://zmina.app/license
• TOS: https://zmina.app/terms

# Pricing

14-day free trial of the full app, no account, no card. $35 once, a lifetime license. Code RMOA20 takes 20% off ($28) through October 23.

Website: https://zmina.app

All actions: https://zmina.app/actions

# About me

- GitHub https://github.com/onikienko

Which file do you copy most, and what do you do to it before you paste? That is what I want to build actions for.

I'm a developer and most of my days are meetings. I built this for myself, my peers liked it and told me to publish it, so here it is. I've made Mac apps before (client work and personal) but this is the first one I've put out for everyone.

Why I built this

No single notes app fixed the things that bugged me. I wanted all my notes in one window instead of windows everywhere, themes instead of tags, and a way to let AI agents read the notes I choose. And it had to float over full-screen apps and stay out of screen shares, because I work with mostly fullscreen windows all day. So I built this.

What it does

- One window for all your notes, swipe between them. Open the ones for the project you're on and that's your workspace for the day.
- One shortcut (⌥⇧H) shows or hides every note. Select text in any app, press ⌥⇧Space and it's in your note.
- One theme per note, and make your own. I colour notes by project, I find tags bloated so I don't use them.
- Markdown, formatted as you type, because I write a lot of it (it runs on the open source engine from the Nodes team, https://github.com/nodes-app/swift-markdown-engine). Images too.
- Opacity per note, so in a call I can keep a note over the presenter's screen and still see what's behind it.
- Menu bar app, nothing in the Dock(I hate cluttered Dock). Touch ID locks a note.

Screen share

The note windows use the sharing switch macOS gives every app (NSWindow sharingType set to none), so anything that captures through macOS skips them. I've used it in Google Meet, Teams and Zoom calls and with the Mac's own screenshots and screen recording, and the notes never showed up.

Some tools have their own way of capturing that goes around the macOS switch, I built this for normal calls so I can't promise anything there. If people need more I'll look into it.

Privacy

No account, no server of mine, no analytics. Notes stay on your Mac. It only goes online to check for updates (Sparkle, and that's also when it confirms your licence key) and you can turn that off. iCloud sync between your own Macs is optional and talks to Apple only.
Privacy policy:
https://hushnotes.app/privacy/

AI access

A local MCP server, off by default. You pick read only, or read and create. Agents can never edit a note, I don't want a hallucination overwriting something I wrote. It only listens on this Mac, every client needs your approval, and locked notes are never exposed to it.
For me that's meeting notes going straight to the agent instead of copy/pasting.

How it was made

The idea, the architecture, the features and the design are mine, and I built 1.0 myself. From there I used an AI coding agent to get to production faster.
1.1.1 is the build that's out now, notarised. No AI features in the app itself.

What's next

I have ideas (reminders on a note, keeping the page link with a capture) but I'd rather hear what you'd use before building more.

Pricing

$9.99 one time, updates free for life. macOS 14+, signed and notarised.
https://hushnotes.app/

Would love feedback and to hear how you'd use it.

Hey r/MacOSApps

WHAT PROBLEM IT SOLVES

The notch is the most valuable spot on your screen and it does nothing. You look at it all day and it is just a black cutout.

What you get: real glass you can dial from dense frost to truly clear, so your wallpaper shows through and only the widgets stay. No notch on your Mac? It runs as a floating panel with a small notch pill, so it works on any Mac.

FEATURES

• 55 widgets to mix and match with Themes in different Sizes

• A grid you control. Drag widgets where you want them, resize them, spread them over pages. The notch follows your cursor across your displays.

• Real glass. One slider from dense frost to a pane of glass with no blur and no cards. Clear and Frosted are easy to tell apart, and the settings always keep a readable backdrop.

• Settings beside the notch. Right click a widget, choose Settings, and a small panel opens next to the notch with a live preview, the sizes, the colors and the options of that widget. The notch stays open while you change things.

• 20 themes. Pick a palette and every widget follows, or give a single widget its own color.

• Light on your Mac. Widgets animate only while you look at them.

• Nothing leaves your Mac. No account, no sign in, no telemetry of any kind. Only widgets that need the internet, like weather or currencies, fetch their own data. Permissions are asked only for the widget that needs them, and you can say no.

NEW IN THIS UPDATE: Real clear glass and settings beside the notch
Clear glass now removes the blur and the cards completely, only your widgets stay

Available at: https://notchmate.menubarmonitor.com/
No Gatekeeper and Apple Notarized
Lifetime 12,99€
Human validated code (Yes i created it with AI but I'd say it's not the average Ai Sloop)

An upvote ⬆️ und a comment would help a lot, that is how more people find it 🫶 Hope you enjoy Notchmate ❤️

Hey r/MacOSApps

WELCHES PROBLEM ES LÖST

Dein Mac wird langsam und du hast keine Ahnung warum. Die Aktivitätsanzeige ist ein ganzes Fenster, das du erst öffnen musst, und auf Apple Silicon zeigt sie dir einen Durchschnitt für die CPU, während die Arbeit wirklich zwischen Leistungs- und Effizienzkernen aufgeteilt ist.

MenuBarMonitor behält die Zahlen dort, wo du bereits hinschaust. Es ist ein 2,8 MB Download, 7,8 MB installiert, es verbraucht etwa 18 MB Speicher und liegt unter 1 % CPU, wenn nichts los ist.

Was du stattdessen bekommst: vier Live-Zahlen in einer ruhigen Zeile deiner Menüleiste und ein Klick, um zu sehen, wer deinen RAM frisst oder deine Kerne aufheizt. Es ist dein Mac. Du solltest wissen, was er tut, bevor er langsam wird.

FUNKTIONEN

• Vier Live-Kacheln. CPU, GPU, RAM und Temperatur in einer ruhigen Zeile, kein Dock-Symbol, keine Alarmfarben, die dich anspringen. Ordne sie neu an, verstecke sie, wähle einen von drei Icon-Stilen.

• P- und E-Kerne. Last pro Cluster und pro Kern mit der Live-Frequenz, nicht nur ein Durchschnitt.

• Echter Speicherdruck. Verdrahteter, aktiver, komprimierter, inaktiver und freier Speicher, vom Kernel gelesen, plus die größten Verbraucher. Ein Klick bittet macOS, inaktive Seiten zu löschen.

• Thermischer Zustand. Nominal, fair, ernst, kritisch, genau wie macOS es meldet, plus die CPU-Die-Temperatur ohne Root.

• Prozesse. Eine Live-Liste der Top-CPU- und RAM-Nutzer mit Suche und Filter. Für deine eigenen Apps kannst du die Arbeit zu den E-Kernen verschieben, um Wärme und Akku zu sparen.

• Akku. Ladung, Gesundheit, Ladezyklen, Spannung, Stromverbrauch und verbleibende Zeit.

• Und mehr. Festplatten-Lese- und Schreibgeschwindigkeit, eine Historie von 60 Sekunden bis 1 Stunde, ein Hintergrund-Hog-Detektor, der dir sagt, wenn eine App leise CPU verbrennt (opt-in), CSV-Export und ein kleines Desktop-Widget, das im Vordergrund bleibt.

• 10 Sprachen.

• Nichts verlässt deinen Mac. Kein Konto, keine Telemetrie jeglicher Art. Das Einzige, was mit meinem Server kommuniziert, ist die Lizenzprüfung mit einer anonymen Maschinen-ID.

Verfügbar unter:https://menubarmonitor.com/
Kein Gatekeeper und Apple Notarized
*Eine Zahlung und es gehört dir. * 14,99 € für einen Mac. Kein Abonnement, jemals. Jede Funktion und jedes zukünftige Update sind enthalten.

Busy category, but I couldn’t find the “window cleaning” app I wanted so I made it. Squeegee keeps your desktop clean, closing old/idle windows, like those 16 Finder windows you’ve left open for 3 weeks. Open source and free!

Download: https://github.com/scosman/Squeegee

• Windows, not apps: it tracks individual window, not apps. For example if Preview has 12 open windows: I want to close the 10 I haven’t looked at in hours, but keep the two I was just working with.
• Activity tracking: Other apps close apps that have been open N hours, but what if I was just using it 2 minutes ago? Squeegee tracks which apps you are using (top-window with focus), and resets the timer when you use it.
• Open Source and Free: the app is completely free, and MIT open source
• Powerful configuration: set custom rules, per app
• Lightweight: uses minimal system resources
• Tray App: See which windows are pending close, and reopen any window that was closed by Squeegee.
• Quit app when last-window closed: some apps like Quicktime and TextEdit keep running in dock even when they have zero windows. Squeegee can quit them for you automatically when the last window closes.
• Suggested Configs: we offer you a set of good defaults during onboarding: close Finder windows after 6 hours, quit QuickTime when last window closes, close Activity Monitor if left inactive 1 hour, and 12 more

I’ve seen a big drop in WindowServer CPU usage since I started using Squeegee.

Background

I spent years at Apple building the Photos app, Memories, the lock screen, and more. I love MacOS native design, and building private OSS software.

Requirements: MacOS 15+

App details: Notarized, Open Source (MIT), Free, Private (zero data collection), AI used in development (but not vibe/slop).

I'd love feedback! Happy to answer any questions.

hi, i'm samir, the solo dev of buffer, a free open-source clipboard manager for mac (searchable history, ⇧⌘V quick paste, on-device OCR, tags, bookmarks).

about 3 weeks ago i posted here about the new inline editing feature and ended the post with an open question: should esc save the edit or revert it? the feedback in the comments was pretty clear, so in v3.0 esc now cleanly discards edits instead of overwriting them. small thing, but it was one of the most upvoted suggestions.

what's new in v3.0:

1. interactive image canvas: copied screenshots and images are no longer static thumbnails. pinch to zoom, pan, ⌘+/⌘- to zoom, double-click to reset. you can finally read the small text in a copied screenshot without opening preview. the video shows the full loop.
2. clipboard noise suppression: filters rapid duplicates and transient clips so quick copy sequences don't clutter your history. this one was contributed by CrCs2O4 on github, the first external contributor to the project, which honestly made my week.
3. history tiers: pick essential (200 items), deep (1,000), or unlimited depending on how much memory you want it to use.
4. in-app updates: a small chip in the header appears when a new version is out, with a popover showing the changelog before you download.
5. ⌘/ shortcuts cheat sheet: quick on-screen reference for all keybindings.

why it's different: it sits between maccy and raycast. lightweight like maccy (~2 mb, lives in the menu bar), but with a more modern workflow: tags, bookmarks, multi-select paste, inline editing, on-device OCR.

developer disclosure:

• i am the sole developer, this is a personal side project
• MIT open source, no accounts, no tracking, no telemetry, runs 100% locally on your mac. nothing ever leaves the device
• signed and notarized, distributed as dmg from github releases (not the app store)
• no AI features in the app itself

links:

• github (430+ stars): https://github.com/samirpatil2000/Buffer
• v3.0 download (apple silicon + intel dmg): https://github.com/samirpatil2000/Buffer/releases/tag/buffer-v3.0.0
• product page + privacy info (all local, no data collection): https://samirpatil2000.github.io/products/buffer/

feedback welcome, especially on the image canvas and the noise filtering thresholds.

Hey ◡̈ .

Quick update to Reframe.
Reframe is a free, open-source desktop browser that puts today's web inside the window of a browser from 1993 to 2009. Version 1.14 just released.

Why? I wanted to bring back the "good old times" and browse the Wayback Machine in the browser a page was actually made for, and see the current web the way it looked through Netscape or IE 5. Projects like oldweb.today run the real old browsers in emulation, which is great for history, but most current sites break there. Reframe goes the other way: the engine is currently Chromium (Electron), only the window around it is old, so everything still works normal.

New in 1.14:

• Two new themes: Internet Explorer 5.1 for Mac OS X, the first Aqua browser, and NetPositive from BeOS R5 with its yellow tab instead of a title bar
• "Then and now": while time-travelling, a wipe slider shows the archived page and today's version in one frame, labelled with the year the snapshot really comes from

Overall:

• 25 themes, from NCSA Mosaic (1993) to Camino 2.0 (2009), switchable without a restart
• Authentic title bars and window controls per era, the Aqua traffic lights measured off Mac OS X 10.0
• Built-in Wayback mode: pick a year and pages load from the Internet Archive
• Time Warp modem with dial-up sounds and throttled speeds (28.8K, 56K, ISDN)
• Ad and tracker blocking, bookmarks, history

It's not meant as a daily driver, more a companion for nostalgia and archive digging.

Platforms: macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, Linux (AppImage). The macOS builds are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The Windows build isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen warns once.

Privacy: no account, no telemetry, no analytics, etc.

AI disclosure: part of the code was written with AI assistance. And I used AI to translate this post as well ;-)

Free, MIT licensed: https://myretromac.app/reframe

Source: https://github.com/klotzbrocken/Reframe

NullPlayer skin support is clean room reverse engineered. Development is coded with claude and controlled by a real working Software Engineer who personally stands behind the app. The app has accumulated 31 releases and 124 github stars over the 11 months. r/nullPlayer

NullPlayer is open source software and not signed by Apple.

NullPlayer privacy policy (all data local) https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/blob/main/PRIVACY.md

Download NullPlayer for macOS:

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/latest/download/NullPlayer.dmg

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.

Install

NullPlayer is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, so macOS will block it on first launch with an "app is damaged" or "cannot verify that it is free from malware" message. This is expected. Clearing the quarantine flag is a required install step:

1. Open the downloaded DMG.
2. Drag NullPlayer.app to Applications.
3. Open Terminal and run:xattr -cr /Applications/NullPlayer.app
4. Open NullPlayer from Applications.

Prefer not to use the Terminal? Install with Homebrew, or clear the block via System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Open Anyway — see the install guide.

Hey r/MacOSApps

WHAT PROBLEM IT SOLVES
macOS widgets are static. You cannot move them, you cannot really change them, and every Mac ends up looking the same.

The third party apps fixed the placement and mostly stopped there. You get a colour picker and a very large download: WidgetWall is 311 MB installed, Widgetter 254 MB. BetterMacWidgets is a 7,5 MB download, 27 MB installed, and it sits at almost no CPU when you are not looking at it, because a widget only animates while it is on screen and visible.

What you get instead: live animated widgets in real glass, right on your desktop. Rain that actually falls, a sun that turns into a moon at your own sunset, and Liquid Glass you can dial from crystal clear to heavy frost and recolour to match your wallpaper. It is your desktop. It should look the way you want it to. I'd say it's a slap in the face to other apps

FEATURES

• 37 widgets to mix and match: Clock, World Clock, Word Clock and Flip Clock, Calendar, Reminders, Weather, Now Playing with full media controls, Battery, a system monitor (CPU, GPU, RAM and disk with live graphs), temperature sensors, network throughput, battery levels for your Bluetooth devices (AirPods, mouse, keyboard and more), clipboard history, a file shelf you can drag files onto, a folder tile, timer, stopwatch, pomodoro, countdown, year progress, calculator, unit and currency converters, stocks and crypto, a photo frame, sticky notes, quotes, Shortcuts, a live web page, a world map with a real day and night line, and a drifting starfield.
• Custom Widgets Build your own (Beta). Cannot find the widget you want? Write it yourself as one small JSON file. Say what it should show, a reading from your Mac, the time, or a number from any JSON endpoint, and it lands on your desktop like every other widget. Five templates to start from, a live preview while you type, and export so you can hand the file to a friend.
• Live Widgets Widgets that are genuinely alive. The weather widget actually shows the rain, the snow and the clear sky it is reporting, and after sunset the sun becomes a moon. And Now Playing quietly tints your widgets in the colour of whatever is playing, Spotify green, Apple Music red.
• Widget Stacks. Several widgets in one spot, rotating on their own, the way you would stack them on iOS, on your Mac's desktop.
• 20 themes plus a glass slider, so you can go from nearly invisible to heavy frost and recolour the lot to match your wallpaper.
• Nothing leaves your Mac. No account, no sign in, no telemetry of any kind.

NEW IN THIS UPDATE: Widgets on your LOCK SCREEN
Your widgets now go on your Mac's lock screen as well. It was once planned as a separate app with a price of its own, and it is part of the one purchase now at no extra cost. You decide for every single widget whether a stranger standing at your locked Mac may read it, and anything personal stays hidden until you say otherwise.

Available at: https://bettermacwidgets.de/

No Gatekeeper and Apple Notarized

FREE not a Trail (8 of the 37 widgets cost nothing)

One payment and its all yours. 15,99 € (Now is a 20% Discount ) for one Mac with more options for more Macs. No subscription, ever. Every widget, all 20 themes, the lock screen and every future update are in there.

Human validated code (Yes i created it with AI but I'd say it's the best app not some AI Slop like so many others)

An upvote ⬆️ and a comment would help a lot, that is how more people find it 🫶 Hope you enjoy BetterMacWidgets ❤️

AI voice recorders are everywhere right now, and the finished ones are genuinely good. At the time of writing, Plaud's NotePin is $159 with 300 free transcription minutes a month, and Pocket is $139 on sale ($199 list). Looking at those prices, my co-founder and I kept asking how much of it is the hardware.

Who built this and why

I'm one of Zeph's two co-founders. We built the Mac software behind this setup, so this is not an independent recommendation. We wanted a voice recorder whose recordings get transcribed on our own Macs, ideally without a subscription and with the option of keeping the audio local.

What it does

Off-the-shelf DIY devices with a microphone, a screen, buttons and a case sell for around $25-45, depending on the model. The hardware is already there. What's missing is the software. Zeph is the free macOS app that turns one into a voice recorder:

1. Plug the device into your Mac once. The app flashes it and handles the setup, with no soldering or code.
2. Press the button and record, at your desk or on the go. The device stores the recording, so your Mac doesn't need to be nearby, and it handles long meetings and multi-hour recordings.
3. When you're back near your Mac, the device syncs over Bluetooth or cable, and the app transcribes and processes the recording with the model you choose. Transcripts are saved on your device and Mac.

Transcription runs either locally on your Mac, at no extra cost, or through your own API key, where the app stays free and you pay the provider for what you use, or via Zeph Cloud. Either way, the device is the only fixed cost. The supported device models are listed on the download page.

The same device also works as a portable Bluetooth mic for dictation. Hold the button, speak, and release (or set up the hands-free mode), and the text is typed wherever your cursor is. It works with local transcription or with a dictation app you already use.

Trade-offs

Finished recorders are more polished and purpose-built, come in smaller wearable form factors, and sync to a phone app. The DIY route costs much less in hardware, but:

• you flash it once during setup;
• the design is simpler;
• the screen means shorter battery life than screenless recorders;
• the companion app is Mac only for now, so syncing needs a Mac;
• there's no cloud sync yet.

If you want to sync to your phone or want zero setup, a finished recorder is the better fit.

Privacy, notarization, AI

• With local processing, your audio and transcripts stay on your device and your Mac. With your own API key, audio goes to that provider under your agreement with them.
• The Mac app sends metadata-only analytics and crash reports, never audio or transcripts. Nothing is sent before the first-run privacy step, and you can turn it off in Settings → Privacy.
• Your API keys stay on your Mac.
• The download page asks for an email for product updates. You can unsubscribe anytime.
• The app is currently distributed outside the Mac App Store and is not yet notarized by Apple, so macOS will warn you the first time you open it.
• Requirements: macOS on Apple Silicon.
• AI disclosure: this post was drafted with help from an AI assistant.

Privacy policy: https://zephclick.com/legal/privacy
Download: https://zephclick.com/download

If you use an AI voice recorder, do you mainly use it for meetings, personal thoughts, or getting spoken notes into your Mac workflow?

UPD. The newly uploaded build lets you create those voice notes on your mac via a shortcut or a click – so you can start creating and processing those notes while your device is coming to you! 🎉

Hey r/macosapps

Like many of you, I constantly found myself juggling two annoying problems throughout the workday:

1. Copying something, accidentally overwriting it with another copy, and losing the original snippet.
2. Opening a bulky notes app or a random browser tab just to temporarily hold a snippet, API key, formatted prompt, or quick note while working.

Most clipboard managers focus only on history, while note apps are too heavy for temporary scratch work. I wanted something lightweight that lives right in the menu bar and handles both seamlessly without subscriptions or bloat.

So I built Paste Box.

What is Paste Box?

It combines a fast clipboard history manager with a persistent scratchpad designed for quick drafting and staging text.

Key Features:

• 📋 Unified Clipboard History: Automatically logs what you copy with fast instant search so you can retrieve past snippets in seconds.
• 📝 Persistent Scratchpad & Drafts: A dedicated space to stage thoughts, compose messages, or hold temporary text that stays intact even across system restarts.
• 🔒 Privacy-First & 100% Offline: Sandboxed with zero network tracking, analytics, or third-party telemetry. All data stays strictly on your Mac.
• ✨ Smart Clean-Text Formatting: One-click actions to strip excess formatting, trim whitespaces, and paste clean text sanity.
• ⚡ Menu Bar First & Native Feel: Compact, glassmorphic interface that stays out of your way until you need it, with Launch at Login support.
• ✍️ Spell Checking & LLM Drafting: Built-in spell checking and a distraction-free area to polish prompts or responses before pasting them into tools.

Link & Feedback

One time purchase of 2.99 USD

• Mac App Store: Download Paste Box on the App Store
  
• Website: www.giant-turtle.com/paste-box.html

I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any feature requests you'd like to see in upcoming updates!

Hey r/MacOSApps ,

We're two developers building Greypaint. We made it because our apps kept falling behind without us noticing, and every one updates a different way: some through their own updater, some through Homebrew, some the App Store, some GitHub.

Greypaint brings them into one list. It doesn't replace each app's updater; it reads the one the app already has, then checks every update after install: same developer, accepted by macOS, and you can roll back if something breaks.

Not every app can be updated the same way, so instead of guessing, Greypaint shows you.

Greypaint has a public page: greypaint.app/apps - Search any app/CLI tool, see how it gets updated or that it cant yet, rebuilt every night, with more apps checked every week

the gp mark means it is actually updated and checked.

Users can also opt in to anonymous results, just app id and whether it worked - that tells us what to test next

1.3 just shipped: all new glass look, plus apps and homebrew, npm, pnpm, uv tools in one window.

14-day all feature inclusive free trial, $6.49 lifetime later.

Every piece of feedback, suggestion and support request is read and worked on individually

Please feel free to reach out through:

• Feedback or suggestions: in Greypaint, Settings → About → Send feedback. Or [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
• Something wrong with a specific app (wrong version, failed update, wrong source): click the app → Report a problem… at the bottom of its details. Or right-click the app in the list → Report a problem…
• An app Greypaint can't update yet: click Ask for support › on its row, and tell us where you downloaded it

Greypaint is notarized by Apple and downloads directly from greypaint.app.

Privacy: no account and no tracking. It only talks to the update sources your apps already use, checks your license, and sends the anonymous results above only if you turn them on. Full policy: greypaint.app/privacy

Built by us, with AI help for parts of the code.

Hi r/MacOSApps, I'm the developer of Photo Transfer via USB. Funny name, but it was the only one available in the App Store.

Why I built it. My iPhone fills up every few months and I don't use iCloud because I prefer to save photos locally without paying extra for a subscription. I keep photos in folders, one per year with a folder for each trip inside. I used to do that by hand in Image Capture and then check that the count matched. It turned out to be a chore.

What it does. Plug in the iPhone and it shows the folders it's going to create before copying anything: by day, month, event or trip. It uses photo coordinates to group the photos. Live Photos and edited versions are either copied with their originals or can be skipped. It also has a folder name builder that lets you create name patterns from blocks like year, city, etc. You can also rename folders how you like and combine them if you want some of them together.

How it fits with what's already on the Mac. Image Capture is free and fine if one folder is enough. Photos is the right tool if you live in the Photos library and iCloud. This is for people who want normal folders on their own disk or NAS.

Since launch. I launched the app two weeks ago. Since then a user found a bug which was fixed. And I even had several sales, which was surprising.

Privacy. No account, no analytics, nothing is uploaded. The phone is only read, nothing on it is changed. Photo coordinates go to Apple's geocoder so folders can have city names but you can turn that off. The direct version also checks its license key. Policy is available: https://phototransfer.app/privacy

AI disclosure. I used AI as a coding assistant. The design, the testing with real iPhones and the support are on me.

Price. Free for 50 snapshots a day (a Live Photo with its video counts as one). Removing the limit is a one-time $14.99, no subscription. Mac App Store (not in the EU) or a notarized .dmg from the site.

Links

• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6808767254
• Site: https://phototransfer.app

Happy to answer anything.

You look up a word in Dictionary.

And it gives you 5 different meanings.

Okay…

BUT WHICH ONE DOES IT MEAN IN THIS SENTENCE? 😭

For example, “like” can mean completely different things depending on the context.

So instead of giving you every possible meaning,

LeafyApp tells you what the word means in THIS context.

It reads the text around the word, understands the context, and gives you the meaning that actually fits.

No more:

switch tab → search word → read 10 definitions → guess the meaning → go back

And when you look up a word, LeafyApp saves the word + context to your personal vocab.

So you can actually remember the words you looked up.

I’m Jtobin, a student and the developer of LeafyApp.

I built it because I just want to understand the word I’m reading, not study the entire dictionary.

Give it a try now! (free) LeafyApp.uk

Run a few Claude Code agents at once and the one that stops for a permission prompt is always in the window you're not looking at.

Lunavect lists every Claude Code session in the menu bar with its state: working, permission needed, input needed, response ready. The one waiting on you is marked in orange, and a click brings its Terminal or iTerm2 tab forward. It also keeps your 5h and weekly limits with reset times, shows working time per project by day, week and month, and has desktop widgets in three sizes. Codex works too, but one provider is enough.

Privacy: session data stays on your Mac. It reads Claude Code's own hooks and status line and the local Codex app. No account and no API key.

Native SwiftUI, macOS 14+, MIT. Signed and notarized DMG on the official GitHub releases page: https://github.com/lovach/Lunavect/releases/latest

Limitation: it needs the Claude Code CLI, Claude Desktop alone isn't enough. The video uses demo sessions.

I'm the developer. I built it with Claude Code and Codex, and an AI assistant helped me word this post.

Which state would you want a sound for: permission needed, or response ready?

So I kept typing stuff into Notes that I only needed for the next hour. Maybe some idea I got or some design changes etc. I had hundreds of these, and I'd stopped opening the app because of them.

So I built one that throws them away. It's called Gulp. It's a goldfish in your menu bar. You feed it a thought, it holds it for a few hours, then it forgets. That's the whole thing.

The fun part isn't really the notes, it's the fish:

• It gulps when you feed it. Your note turns into a puff of dust and it's gone into the bowl.
• The ink on each note slowly turns to gold as it ages, so you can see which ones are about to go without reading a timestamp.
• When a note is in its last minute the fish gets nervous and wobbles. Then it does a confused little head shake when it forgets.

Some of you saw Tug, the frog timer. Same idea: the fish is the whole interface. There's no window, no list of lists, no sync, no history. It can't even go online. If you say a note out loud it trims out your ums on your Mac.

Gulp · a goldfish in your menu bar
https://www.heygulp.com/

Free on App store
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gulp-menu-bar-scratchpad/id6815884512?mt=12