This is a collection of helpful macOS programs that I use every day. There are free, premium, and freemium options available. I’ll do my best to maintain this list current.

Terms

• FOSS: Software that is both free (as in freedom) and open-source

• Freemium: Business model and software licensing scheme in which the basic form of a product is free of charge, and access to additional features requires payment

Productivity

• Alfred: (£59) Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more.

• DropOver: ($6.99) Dropover is a macOS utility that makes Drag and Drop easier.

• HazeOver: ($5.99) Turn distractions down and focus on your current task.

• Rectangle Pro: ($9.99) Superior window management on macOS.

• Stretchly: (FOSS) The break time reminder app.

• Shottr: ($12) Shottr is a tiny and fast mac screenshot tool with annotations, beautiful backgrounds, scrolling screenshots and cloud upload capabilities.

Development

• DataGrip: ($99) A powerful cross-platform tool for relational and NoSQL databases.

• Docker: (Freemium) Develop faster. Run anywhere.

• xh: (FOSS) Friendly and fast tool for sending HTTP requests.

• Ghostty: (FOSS) 👻 Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration.

• Visual Studio Code: (FOSS) Your code editor. Redefined with AI.

• Cursor: (Freemium) AI-powered coding assistant.

• SnippetLab: ($0) Keep Your Code At Your Fingertips.

• Termius: ($10) Modern SSH Client.

• Git Tower: ($69) The most powerful Git client for Mac and Windows.

Utilities

• 1Password: ($2.99/month) 1Password is so much more than a password manager.

• OpenKey: (FOSS) Vietnamese Input for macOS, Windows and Linux - Bộ gõ Tiếng Việt nguồn mở đa nền tảng.

• Keka: (FOSS) The macOS file archiver.

• KeyboardCleanTool: ($0) KeyboardCleanTool is a super simple little tool which blocks all Keyboard and TouchBar input.

• Mac Mouse Fix: ($2.99) Make Your $10 Mouse Better Than an Apple Trackpad!

• AppCleaner: (Free) AppCleaner is a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.

• Ice: (FOSS) Ice is a powerful menu bar management tool.

• Signal: (FOSS) Say “hello” to a different messaging experience.

• Stremio: (FOSS) Stremio offers a secure, modern and seamless entertainment experience.

Casks

• biome: A toolchain for web projects, aimed to provide functionalities to maintain them. Biome offers formatter and linter, usable via CLI and LSP.

• btop: A monitor of resources

• bun: A fast, all-in-one JavaScript runtime.

• Clop: Clipboard optimizer for macOS.

• deno: A secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript.

dotenv-linter:⚡️Lightning-fast linter for .env files. Written in Rust 🦀

• eza: A modern alternative to ls

• fastfetch: A maintained, feature-rich and performance oriented, neofetch like system information tool

• fd: A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to ‘find’

• fnm: 🚀 Fast and simple Node.js version manager, built in Rust

• folderify: A tool to convert a flat folder structure into a nested folder structure.

• fzf: A command-line fuzzy finder written in Go

• git: A free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

• git-cliff: A highly customizable changelog tool that makes changelog easy.

• git-delta: A syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, grep, and blame output

• git-flow-avh: AVH Edition of the git extensions to provide high-level repository operations for Vincent Driessen’s branching model

• git-toolbelt: A suite of useful Git commands that aid with scripting or every day command line usage

• httpie: A command line HTTP client.

• hugo: A fast and flexible static site generator that’s perfect for personal, organization, or business sites.

• hyperfine: A command-line benchmarking tool.

• jq: Command-line JSON processor

• jql: A JSON Query Language CLI tool

• just: 🤖 Just a command runner

• lazydocker: The lazier way to manage everything docker

• markdownlint-cli: MarkdownLint Command Line Interface

• mdbook: Create book from markdown files. Like Gitbook but implemented in Rust

• minify: Go minifiers for web formats

• neovim: Vim-fork focused on extensibility and usability

• numbat: A statically typed programming language for scientific computations with first class support for physical dimensions and units

• pandoc: A universal document converter

• pyenv: Simple Python version management

• rclone: Rclone is a command-line program to manage files on cloud storage.

• ripgrep: ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore.

• ruff: An extremely fast Python linter and code formatter, written in Rust.

• shellcheck: ShellCheck, a static analysis tool for shell scripts

• starship: ☄🌌️ The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!

• GNU Stow: GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct sets of software and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them all appear to be installed in a single directory tree.

• taplo: A TOML toolkit written in Rust

• thefuck: Magnificent app which corrects your previous console command

• tlrc: A tldr client written in Rust

• zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included

• tree-sitter: An incremental parsing system for programming tools

• uutils-coreutils: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

• uv: An extremely fast Python package and project manager, written in Rust.

• yazi: 💥 Blazing fast terminal file manager written in Rust, based on async I/O

• yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

• zadark: ZaDark is an extension that helps you enable Dark Mode for Zalo PC and Web. ZaDark is available on Windows, macOS, Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox.

• zoxide: A smarter cd command. Supports all major shells.

• zsh-autosuggestions: Fish-like autosuggestions for zsh

Visual Studio Code Extensions

Javascript & Typescript

• xabikos.JavaScriptSnippets: Code snippets for JavaScript in ES6 syntax.

• wix.vscode-import-cost: Display import/require package size in the editor

• biomejs.biome: Toolchain of the web