Mac Setup – 14 UNIQUE Apps You Need in 2023!

Hey friends, Andrew here – hope you're well! There are thousands upon thousands of Mac apps to choose from and it's pretty overwhelming so here are 14 unique apps I've been using and recently installed onto my new Macbook. They've helped me customize my Mac experience be more productive and get the most out of these expensive toys and I want to share them with you majority of the apps in this video are free apps some of them are paid but I think all of them are worthwhile in my opinion so let's get stuck onto my laptop here

and right into the first app first up is an app called Zappy and I use zappy to quickly capture screen recordings and even gifs this is a completely free app that builds upon the standard Mac command you know plus shift plus four screenshot or quick time screen recordings because it gives me a load more features and sharing capabilities which save me a lot of time for example if I'm reading an article and I want to share it with a friend or my team I'll come into zappy or use the shortcut command plus shift plus one

and then I can record a part of the article and even annotate it live while recording the screen and my voice then all my recordings are saved into the shortcut app here where I can quickly save them and then even turn the recording into a gif file just a heads up though that zappy is owned by zapier a popular app that you may already know so you'll need a free zapier account to log in so that's what I use for quick screen recordings and gifs but I do use a separate app for screenshots too and

that brings me on to the second app x-snip this app is still the best app I've come across for screenshots and trust me I've gone through a lot of screenshot apps x-snip is the fastest screenshot app I've used and gives us a boatload more features like ratio lock-ins auto window snapping and holding shift to capture multiple screenshots at once it's an app that gives you more functionality while still feeling like a very natural organic Mac app uh it works just as smoothly as the native screenshot function but with more functionality plus it's also free so

what's not to love next up is Sigma OS it's a relatively new app but it's a revolutionary one I think unlike the name suggests it's a very unique browser not an operating system it's helped me go from switching around all sorts of apps and tabs to having a central browser to do all my work in so most people work by having loads of browser tabs open just like I do but Sigma OS turns browser tabs into tasks and the entire browser itself into a to-do list of sorts so I have a different workspace on the

left hand side here for different tasks like reading and different projects and it's laid out in a way to encourage me to stay focused on the single workspace then tab around the entire place and for the more technical viewers here Sigma OS is built on Apple's webkit framework instead of Google's chromium so it's a less Ram intensive which is always nice I don't think this is an app for everyone but it's definitely an app worth trying out at the very least and let me know if you end up liking it down below so I used

to use Apple notes to jot down quick notes but recently I've come across the app called side notes and it's changed the game it's an app that unsurprisingly lives on the side of the screen here which I can access by just moving this cursor into the side of the screen and as you can see the interface is just as clean as the native Notes app but far more accessible and useful I've got my notes color coded organized by theme I can even then sync them up to iCloud and mark down to format text or export

the notes even into images if I need to send them there's also dark and light mode to match your desktop but it's dark mode for me all the way I use it for quick scribbles when I've got you know an idea or I need to collate info when I'm researching products and things like that best of all it's hidden from View and also just there when you need it I'll drop a 20 discount link to this app in the description box below for you guys to check out next clean my Mac X is always the

very first app I download and always the one that I recommend to others they are today's video sponsor but even if they weren't it's genuinely an app I'd be recommending and have been using for some time now it's even being notarized by Apple themselves and it's one of the longest running apps it's a One-Stop shop when it comes to the maintenance of my Mac and with a single click on this button here the app scans for Unnecessary junk and liberates our Macs giving us back gigabytes of space and frees up Ram space immediately under the

application and files on the left hand side you have an uninstaller tool to help correctly delete apps updated to keep every Mac up to date automatically extensions to keep track and cleanup extensions you may not need and under files these tools help visualize the biggest space wasters locate your largest and oldest files most likely to delete and the shredder tool here which securely wipes out certain files or documents completely there is a ton of features jam-packed into this beautiful app here the user interface is one of the most beautiful that I've seen in any Mac

app where the appraised and has won many Design Awards there's really no other app like it currently and there's a lot to love about it you can give it a go for yourself in the link below speaking of cleaning apps Gemini 2 is another quick app that I use and I run at least like once a week it helps me detect and delete duplicate files on my Mac so if I click on this button here it scans the entire system and with algorithmic help it finds all the duplicates that are safe to remove immediately with

the smart cleanup button and all the other duplicates that might be important or you know might have an impact on on the system I can quickly manage whether to delete them or keep them in this overview here which makes it really simple and yeah as you can see it scrapes not just files but also photo and music libraries alike another cool feature about this app is the live monitoring so I don't need to run a scan but there is a pop-up notification that comes up whenever it spots new copies of files right away so yeah

it's quite a simple but effective app for saving our precious disk space because duplicates they really rack up really quickly okay so productivity enthusiasts are going to love the next unique app it's spaces for Mac I use this app to clean up my messy desktop and Mac before I launch into a new task that requires a whole new set of apps and websites say if I'm about to do some video editing then I'll close all my windows to clear up Ram space and then click here for my video editing space then all my necessary windows

will here in the spots I want them to be ready to go immediately so in the mornings I want to check in with my team for example I'll set up my inbox to appear along with slack on the side and Spotify too to play music while I run teen check-ins it's a simple but effective app and saves me probably minutes of my time rearranging my windows every day and keeps me just focused I absolutely love this app too speaking of Saving Time The Daily Time tracking app allows me to keep the exact timing of how

long I spend on tasks so I can see the trends of my workflow and optimize it to rain my time back in if I'm procrastinating procrastinating procrastinating too much there's a lot of time tracking apps out there this one's just clean simple and just works when I start a new task I'll make it a habit to come to the taskbar and begin the time tracking here by the end of the day and even week I'll have a full summary of how long I've spent on each task this is also a pretty useful free app for

agency owners or Freelancers too who need to track their time while I'm working sometimes I might stumble across a great post or article while I'm researching or browsing links and sometimes it's tough to you know resist the urge to get distracted and read the article then and there but that's where this app comes in pocket I save interesting articles to read later by having the browser extension here and clicking the save button if I have the time I can categorize them in tags highlight passages and read them in different font Styles and sizes in apps

companion IOS app gives me more flexibility to read the articles at a later time no matter where I'm at so it's really convenient it's also a free app although ad supported with a small cost to remove Those ads if you want to create app overall next up is in crypto an app that helps me securely store and send files it takes basically any file or folder and adds aes256 encryption so only the intended person can access the file for the most part when I store important information on a drive or before sending confidential documents are

secure within crypto by dragging and dropping the files into the app and adding a password to decrypt it it's as simple as entering the password and voila you can access your files I just love how simple and discreet this app is and I don't use it like all that much but when I do use it it just works as well for those of you who may want to take care of their battery health when it comes to a new Mac which is particularly important if you plan to sell your Mac later on then the battery

health app here is a must get it keeps track of things like the max milliamp charge the temperature of the battery and the overall health of your max app also if you just got a brand new Mac it's worth downloading this app right away and making sure you didn't receive a Mac with a faulty or subpar battery it gives you that sort of information immediately you can see the manufacturer date age and the charge cycle count of the new battery I've actually heard of stories where new Macs were delivered with a few cycles of charges

completed so yeah this app just helps you get on top of that and see if your Mac is healthy at this current date the next unique app you must check out is an app called Magna this is a no-brainer must have if you dock your laptop onto a wider screen like me it's a little similar to the spaces by Mac app but I use them both in tandem to maximize the screen space I'm using so this app Auto snaps and aligns multiple different windows for perfect multitasking and eliminates app switching especially on larger monitors so

quick Taps of shortcuts get the windows snapped into various positions I want them in like Control Plus option left and right and return to maximize the window again my mileage varies if I use this on a smaller 13-inch MacBook Air simply because there's less screen estate but for I think a 15 inch MacBook and above or external monitors especially this is a must have app in organizing your workspace really quickly and if you do any sort of typing on the regular grammarly is another must-have app grammarly is a writing assistant and reviews my spelling grammar

punctuation on the Fly no matter what app I'm using it's surprisingly accurate and better than any stock standard word processor grammar check I have used it's so good with its suggestions that I've learned more than a thing or two when it comes to grammar it also just helps me concentrate on what I'm actually writing rather than be distracted by basic errors which interrupt my flow the interface can be annoying at times with the grammarly interface popping up in inconvenient areas too just like this but I mean overall this is a free app it's great to

have by your side when you're typing away and then we have figma which is traditionally known as an app for designers but I think a lot more people can get good use out of figma's free plan it's a powerful app that I use for web design mobile design presentations and other basic graphic design stuff basically if you need a blueprint for your plans figma is likely going to be pretty helpful for you I've even used it to casually plan and visualize my new office Studio setup by creating this board here and this board here is

just basically a collection of mood boards and pulling in all my plans into one spot it's been really useful to use and fig Jam is also another one within the figma app where it helps you better brainstorm and chart tools I've used it over and over again and it comes integrated into figma it's another great planning tool design tool at your disposal so yeah overall I think uh it's a great thinking and communicating app that has many use cases so these are the apps I've been loving and hope you end up loving them too let

me know if you do and also if there are any apps you'd recommend let me know down in the comments below I am a sucker for apps and love testing new ones out and while you're here I'll leave a video right here where I share the best budget Tech and desk accessories to complement your Mac and desk setup don't forget to like if you've enjoyed the video and sub if you want to see more Tech and lifestyle content from me and as always thank you for watching I'll see you in the next video