ScrennFloat
I only recently realized that my use of screenshots falls into two very different categories.
On one hand, I use screenshots to illustrate blog posts and social media. That usually amounts to two or three captures a day.
On the other hand, I take screenshots constantly for technical reasons; learning a new application, documenting my self-hosted server configuration, keeping track of network settings in my home lab, or simply capturing information during
I only recently realized that my use of screenshots falls into two very different categories.
On one hand, I use screenshots to illustrate blog posts and social media. That usually amounts to two or three captures a day.
On the other hand, I take screenshots constantly for technical reasons; learning a new application, documenting my self-hosted server configuration, keeping track of network settings in my home lab, or simply capturing information during everyday tech work.
For the past couple of years, I’ve relied almost exclusively on CleanShot X for screenshots.
Recently I discovered ScreenFloat, which is designed for the second scenario. It’s not really an app where you capture a screenshot and file it away. Instead, the screenshots you take stay visible while you work so you can reference them.
If the screenshot contains text, that’s not a problem. ScreenFloat includes some of the strongest built-in OCR capabilities I’ve seen in this category.
Capture
Capturing screenshots is straightforward. You can grab a static region of the screen or use a timer when you need to trigger some UI element before the capture occurs.
ScreenFloat also supports screen recording with microphone and system audio.
You can start a capture from:
a keyboard shortcut
the menu bar
a widget
One small but practical detail; unless you change it, the next capture will reuse the same screen region as the previous one. When you’re repeatedly documenting the same part of an interface, that saves time.
Floating Screenshots
Floating screenshots are surprisingly useful when you treat them as working references.
Typical examples:
coding or scripting while referencing documentation
technical writing while capturing UI elements
design work where you need to sample colors or inspect visual details
Anyone working in a screen-heavy workflow quickly understands the value.
ScreenFloat works well here for two main reasons.
First, it includes a solid set of built-in editing tools. You can crop, rotate, resize, annotate, and redact sensitive information such as text or faces. Screenshots can also be folded (collapsed) so they stay available without taking up much screen space.
The text tools go beyond simple OCR. ScreenFloat can detect and interact with:
links
phone numbers
barcodes
Second, the app is designed around the idea that screenshots are reference material, not just disposable images.
Every capture is stored in a built-in library called the Shots Browser. It includes:
smart folders
tagging
favorites and ratings
full-text search
If you run ScreenFloat on multiple Macs, you can access the same Shots Browser from other devices. That’s a genuinely useful feature. Most competing tools simply dump screenshots into Finder folders and leave organization up to you.
What’s to Like
Aside from the feature set, the one-time purchase price of $17.99 is refreshing.
ScreenFloat also supports Mac automation tools such as:
Shortcuts
AppleScript
That makes it much easier to integrate into an existing automation workflow.
The developer, Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad, has a long-standing reputation for maintaining his apps and responding to users. I bought my first app from him more than a decade ago; the long-lived shelf utility Yoink.
ScreenFloat has also seen frequent updates since version 2 was released.
Version 2.3.5 (March 2026) added:
improved search results in the Shots Browser
ability to capture the mouse cursor in timed shots
drag-and-drop support in the markup editor
improved widget appearance
easier access to image-copy options
Possible Drawbacks
Like any feature-rich tool, ScreenFloat has a bit of a learning curve. The interface is well designed, but it still takes some time to understand everything it can do.
My recommendation is simple; start with one feature and build from there.
Another practical consideration is that floating screenshots are still windows. If you leave a few dozen of them open, you can expect some impact on system resources.
And if you’re looking for a full-blown screen recording and media production suite, this isn’t that kind of tool.
Conclusion
ScreenFloat isn’t just another screenshot utility. There are plenty of good ones.
What makes ScreenFloat interesting is that it treats screenshots as working references, not just images you capture and forget.
For developers, designers, writers, or anyone else who spends their day juggling information across multiple windows, that idea turns out to be surprisingly powerful.
Requirements: Requires macOS Monterey 12.3 or newer
Privacy Policy: The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Not my laptop
Where We Are… And Why
macOS 26 (Tahoe) is now months into its lifespan. The UI chaos it caused for menu bar management apps has calmed down a bit, but the situation is still far from stable.
A combination of API limitations, OS-level redesigns, and tighter security controls broke many of the assumptions apps like Bartender, Ice, and Barbee relied on. As a result, behavior that used to be predictable is now anything but.
Common symptoms
macOS 26 (Tahoe) is now months into its lifespan. The UI chaos it caused for menu bar management apps has calmed down a bit, but the situation is still far from stable.
A combination of API limitations, OS-level redesigns, and tighter security controls broke many of the assumptions apps like Bartender, Ice, and Barbee relied on. As a result, behavior that used to be predictable is now anything but.
Common symptoms include:
icons disappearing and reappearing randomly
the OS overriding the order of icons
management apps losing track of icon positions
items reindexing themselves
settings resetting
hidden items suddenly reappearing
Even something as basic as determining whether a menu bar icon is visible has become unreliable. For example, NSStatusItem.isVisible can return true even when the icon is hidden behind the notch or pushed offscreen by menu titles.
The new OS-level menu bar controls are also incomplete. Tahoe will quietly hide items when the bar gets crowded, and apps receive no notification when that happens. From a developer’s perspective, the OS is moving the furniture around without telling anyone.
To work around this, some menu bar managers now request:
Screen Recording permission
Accessibility access
Event monitoring
That understandably makes some users uneasy. Worse, Tahoe’s restrictions on these permissions sometimes cause side effects such as ghost clicks, cursor interference, or other input glitches across the system.
None of this is malicious; it’s just what happens when an ecosystem built on clever workarounds collides with a new security model.
What the Future Probably Looks Like
Long term, the situation likely resolves in one of three ways:
Apple ships a real menu bar overflow manager
Apple exposes proper status-item APIs for developers
The category slowly fades as launchers replace menu bar workflows
The third possibility is already happening.
Launchers are increasingly taking over tasks that used to live in the menu bar. The bar itself is drifting toward a status display, not an interaction surface. You glance at it to see whether something is syncing or connected. When you actually want to do something, you open a launcher.
Accepting a Partial Solution
Over the past few months I’ve tested most of the menu bar managers currently available. Like many power users, I ended up choosing the option that annoys me the least. That is not the same thing as finding a solution that makes me happy.
Different setups behave differently. The manager that works well for Power User A might be completely unusable for Power User B depending on hardware, display configuration, and which menu bar apps are installed.
I get a lot of use out of my Elgato Stream Deck. It’s one of the best hardware purchases I’ve made in a long time.
It didn’t start that way.
Shortly after I bought it, I discovered that the device falls under the privacy policy of its parent company, Corsair. The policy reads like it was written by lawyers trying to cover every possible future use case.
According to the policy, potential data categories include:
identity information (name, account ID, email
I get a lot of use out of my Elgato Stream Deck. It’s one of the best hardware purchases I’ve made in a long time.
It didn’t start that way.
Shortly after I bought it, I discovered that the device falls under the privacy policy of its parent company, Corsair. The policy reads like it was written by lawyers trying to cover every possible future use case.
According to the policy, potential data categories include:
identity information (name, account ID, email)
device identifiers and serial numbers
IP address and network data
usage data and clickstream behavior
crash diagnostics and performance metrics
location information
audio/visual content uploaded through services
inferred behavioral profiles based on collected data
That’s a lot of potential data collection for what is essentially a programmable USB button panel.
The Stream Deck itself doesn’t need the internet to do its core job. At its heart, it’s a USB device that sends keyboard shortcuts, launches apps, and runs scripts. None of that requires a network connection.
However, the official Elgato software integrates a plugin marketplace and update system. Plugins can call APIs, communicate with remote servers, and run Node.js components. That’s where the network traffic starts.
The Practical Privacy Fix
The simplest solution is to block the Stream Deck software from accessing the internet.
It’s subscription-based, but it gives me a second Stream Deck surface on an iPhone or iPad. That’s useful when the physical device is already full or when I want a secondary control panel on another screen. You have to own a physical Stream Deck in order to use it.
For something that started out looking like an overengineered YouTuber gadget, the Stream Deck has quietly become one of the most practical automation tools on my desk.
Here are a few of the more noteworthy happenings of the last few weeks.
🌵 Continuing our stay here in Arizona, where the winters are much more appealing than Ohio’s despite reaching some chilly temperatures at night. I’ve gotten out for a few nice bike rides (including getting my first flat tire ever) and scenic hikes. We’ve been spending a lot of time getting our new (to us) place in shape—a few repair and update projects and a bunch of new furniture. It’s
Here are a few of the more noteworthy happenings of the last few weeks.
🌵 Continuing our stay here in Arizona, where the winters are much more appealing than Ohio’s despite reaching some chilly temperatures at night. I’ve gotten out for a few nice bike rides (including getting my first flat tire ever) and scenic hikes. We’ve been spending a lot of time getting our new (to us) place in shape—a few repair and update projects and a bunch of new furniture. It’s starting to feel like it’s “our” place.
🍸 Our new neighbors have a daily (yes, daily!) happy hour, which is sometimes referred to a “circle time.” Everyone has been very welcoming and it’s been a great way for us to get to know the folks on our street. I’ve learned pretty quickly that drinking alcohol every day is not the path to wellness, so I’ve dialed that back significantly!
✝️ Probably inspired by all the religious-oriented fiction I’ve been reading lately (see below) I launched Saint Bot, a Mastodon bot that posts daily blurbs about Catholic Saints. Follow along, if that’s your jam.
📚 I finished three books in the last few weeks. (I guess that’s where some of my time has gone lately!) Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Sign of the Cross by Glenn Cooper, and Three Marys by Glenn Cooper. All were very entertaining. (Links are to my mini reviews if you want to know more.)
🧠 While my body may not be getting quite the attention it needs, I have been spending time exercising my brain. In the hope (possibly in vain) of preventing dementia, I continue to do the workouts and puzzles in Elevate, where I recently completed my 500th workout. I’m also continuing to resuscitate my Spanish language skills, and just completed my 100th day in a row of studying with Mondly. I feel like I’m getting value for both paid subs.
That’s probably enough for today. Thanks for reading. See you next time.
It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted me to approach the lead developer to learn more about the past, present and future of the company. But first, the apps.
Crank
Crank
Crank acts on triggers you
It’s always such a pleasure to find out when one of my favorite developers has released a new app. That’s how I felt recently, when I read that The Low‑Tech Guys not only had a new app but that it was going to be a pretty strong player in the Mac automation field. That prompted me to approach the lead developer to learn more about the past, present and future of the company. But first, the apps.
Crank
Crank
Crank acts on triggers you define to take action without requiring user intervention. It’s more powerful than just Apple Shortcuts or Shortery, but at just €8 for a five-seat lifetime license, it stops short of Keyboard Maestro’s complexity and price.
Crank can do all of this and a lot more:
Stop notifications from interrupting Zoom calls
Check and fic quarantine issues on everything you download
Toggle VPN usage based on the connected wi-fi network
Move downloaded ebooks right into calibre
Change the audio output to bluetooh headphones or speakers when they connect
Automatically adjust your display
Disconnect Bluetooth devices before closing the MacBook lid
The Portfolio
It was the quality of Low Tech Guys' previous applications that made me happy to hear about their new release. I first encountered one of their apps a couple of years ago when I discovered Clop. Since then, I have systematically gone through their portfolio to take advantage of the extremely useful, free, and low‑priced powerhouses they’ve developed.
Clop
Clop ($15) - Clop automatically optimizes (reduces) the file sizes of images, videos and PDFs copied to your clipboard. Optionally, it can also convert files on the fly. Clop can even feed the results to a shortcut for further processing. You can set it so that it watches specific folders for different file types. - Clop - Image, video, PDF and clipboard optimiser
rcmd (FREE) - rcmd uses your right command key + a letter to launch applications. You get app-launching hotkeys without having to set them up manually, although you can do that too. You can use the same hotkey to hide an app or cycle through other apps. If you pait rcmd with Hammerspoon, you can even cycle through windows, not just apps. rcmd - Switch apps instantly using the ⌘ Right Command key
Lunar
Lunar ($23) - Lunar is the acknowledged leader in display control for all DDC capable monitors, whether it’s a brand new Apple Studio with a Mac Pro, or a no name brand connected to a Hackintosh. It’s features include:
Extending keyboard control for brightness and volume to all displays
Extra controls on Apple native displays
Sync mode to change the brightness of all connected displays based on the built-in Ambient Light Sensor
Exceed the brightness constraints on XDR Apple laptop displays
Dial screen brightness below the 0% setting (because that’s not really 0%)
Startup Folder (FREE) - Startup folder gives you aw way to open anything at startup, apps. shortcuts, links and files. It can hide anything you wajt running but not on screen even when that’s not a native feature. You can optionally set it up to keeps apps from quitting and if they fo, they will automatically be relaunched. Startup Folder - Run anything at startup by simply placing it in a special folder
Pipiri
Pipiri (€8) - Pipiri brings picture in a picture functionality to ant macOS window and that has more use cases than you would think"
Watching a long-running terminal command while working in another app
Keeping logs visible while debugging software
Keeping an eye on AI agent progress (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) while browsing
Streaming a video that doesn’t support native PiP (Twitter/X, Reddit, Twitch, etc.)
Monitoring a dashboard or CI pipeline without switching windows
To see everything The Low Tech Guys have to offer, check out this page,
"Low-Tech Guy #1"
If you’ve ever wished your external monitor behaved more like a MacBook display, you’ve probably encountered Lunar, the powerful monitor control utility from developer Alin Panaitiu. Over the past several years Alin has quietly built a small ecosystem of thoughtful Mac tools including Clop, rcmd, Crank, and others that focus on real workflow problems rather than novelty.
I asked Alin about how he got started, the challenges of building hardware-adjacent Mac apps, and what he’s working on next.
How did you get started in app development?
I got started in 2017 after buying my first external monitor for my MacBook; an LG 4K display with USB-C.
It was a great monitor, but something felt off. Unlike the MacBook, it had no adaptive brightness. In fact, the brightness couldn’t be adjusted at all.
That sent me down the rabbit hole. I discovered DDC, the protocol used to control monitor settings, and started building Lunar so my external monitor could adapt its brightness automatically.
For about four years Lunar was completely free and open source. In 2021 I took the leap, quit my job as a Python engineer, and started working full-time on the paid Lunar Pro tier.
“I discovered DDC and started building Lunar because I wanted my monitor to adapt its brightness automatically.”
Is Low-Tech Guys your full-time job?
Yes; if you can call it a normal job.
It’s my only source of income and where most of my effort goes. But the rhythm isn’t typical.
Sometimes macOS changes break something important and I end up working 14-hour days. Other weeks are quieter; answering support emails and fixing the occasional bug.
Which of your apps has been the most challenging to build?
Lunar, without question.
It operates very close to hardware; communicating directly with monitors, Raspberry Pis, and ESP32 chips. That’s very different from most macOS software.
Hardware is unpredictable. Firmware quirks, kernel panics, monitors that stall or behave strangely; problems that only occur on a particular user’s setup.
Those are incredibly difficult to debug because they can’t always be reproduced locally.
“Hardware can be unpredictable; stalling, kernel panics, wrong firmware, missing bits. Things that only happen on a user’s very specific setup.”
Which developers do you admire?
Sindre Sorhus for building an enormous ecosystem of Swift packages that macOS developers rely on, including Defaults and Hotkeys.
I also admire Ryan Hanson for creating Superkey, which finally allowed me to ditch Karabiner-Elements.
And Saagar Jha, whose work on macOS reverse engineering taught me a great deal.
You recently released Crank. What are you working on next?
No new apps for the moment. Crank and Pipiri took a lot of effort and I’m a bit drained right now.
Instead I’m focusing on rcmd v3 and Clop v3.
rcmd v3
The next version of rcmd will include: • Native window switching • Launching apps by holding rcmd and typing letters Example: rcmd S P O launches Spotify • Window search with quick typing Example: rcmd X C jumps to Xcode → Crank window • Searching windows by title • Stages; saving sets of apps and windows as workspaces • Instant switching between stages using rcmd + letter • Optional trigger keys such as Caps Lock or Fn
Clop v3
Clop is moving toward a pipeline-based optimization system where multiple file operations can happen without repeatedly re-encoding data.
Example workflows might look like:
Images dropped into ~/Desktop/blog • optimize • resize to 1600px width • convert to WebP • move to ~/Projects/blog
Videos dropped into Dropzone • optimize using a high-quality encoder • speed up to 1.5× • remove audio • upload with Dropshare • copy the URL to the clipboard
PDFs dropped into an Invoices folder • optimize • crop to A4 • extract text to a file
Other improvements include a dropzone that appears near the cursor and better support for external storage.
I wrote a review of Cling that was a bit tough on it. You handled that gracefully. What’s the current state of Cling?
Cling is something I still want to develop further, but time is the limiting factor.
I started building a custom fuzzy indexing engine for it and got about 90% of the way there. As usual, the last 10% is the hardest.
The goal is to remove external tools like fzf and fd and bring everything directly into the app with faster and more accurate results.
Right now the fzf scoring algorithm simply isn’t well suited to what Cling is trying to do.
2026-04-02 - Update - (From Reddit) Spotlight doesn't index files like hidden dotfiles (~/.config), System frameworks, root configs and binaries, .plist preference files etc. That means apps that rely on the Spotlight index like Raycast or Alfred also can't find these files.
Cling brings its own custom index made specifically for the macOS filesystem, which allows you to fuzzy search any file that exists on your Mac.
Comparison:
Spotlight, Alfred, Raycast can only find apps and files in the home directory and the fuzzy algorithm isn't as fuzzy as I like it to be.
ProFind, HoudahSpot, EasyFind, Tembo, Find Any File: these are a lot more capable than Cling in narrowing down a specific search based on file metadata, Cling is more for fast search by name.
Cardinal is the only app I know that is closest, very similar. Some 2.0 additions in this app like the live index view were inspired by it. Cling focuses more on actions while Cardinal focuses on adding some metadata to the index.
Features:
instant fuzzy search over the whole filesystem
keyboard-centric actions for opening, editing, copying and managing files
ignore lists for excluding files and folders from the index
external storage indexing, search while disk is unmounted
QuickFilters for narrowing down results with a minimal typing
Pricing: €12 for a lifetime license on up to 5 Macs
There's a 14-day trial that starts automatically on launch. After the trial, the app keeps working in Free Mode where you can still fuzzy search files but only in Home and Applications.
Tax laws in my country changed significantly, forcing me to move from an LLC to a sole proprietorship.
To simplify accounting I consolidated everything under Paddle.
That meant ending contracts with Setapp, Apple distribution agreements, and other marketplaces. As a result, my apps are now free on the App Store, while paid licensing is handled through Paddle.
I don’t expect that arrangement to change anytime soon.
Closing Thoughts
Talking with Alin, a theme keeps surfacing: the most useful Mac utilities often come from developers scratching their own workflow itch. Lunar began with a simple frustration; an external monitor that couldn’t adjust its brightness.
Since then that curiosity has grown into a small but influential set of tools used by Mac power users around the world. And if the roadmaps for rcmd v3, Clop v3, and eventually Cling are any indication, Alin is far from done refining the Mac experience.
For users who care about thoughtful utilities and deep macOS integration, his work is well worth watching.
Let's file this under #immigrationdiary or something, I dunno. For the uninitiated (or, I suppose, you weirdos who just love being overly-initiated), my wife and I are moving to Europe. Specifically, Poland. More specifically, Warsaw, Poland. And while I am still considering how to write about how this massive life change came about more broadly, I've decided to occasionally toss little posts out into the ether to help document some of the, uh, more unexpected feelies that arise during this pro
Let's file this under #immigrationdiary or something, I dunno. For the uninitiated (or, I suppose, you weirdos who just love being overly-initiated), my wife and I are moving to Europe. Specifically, Poland. More specifically, Warsaw, Poland. And while I am still considering how to write about how this massive life change came about more broadly, I've decided to occasionally toss little posts out into the ether to help document some of the, uh, more unexpected feelies that arise during this process. Because though The Move has been in the works for some time, and I've been basically operating with a baseline level of optimism, I do find myself more frequently oscillating between excitement and terror. Like, I wouldn't say I'm in a state of perpetual freakout, but the closer we get—the realer everything becomes—the more my optimism has to fight something scarier. The unknown. I don't know what I don't know, and I want to know, but don't know how to know it. And so I go searching for assurances without even really understanding what I'm looking for. I just want answers to a question that remains elusive.
Like you know how sometimes you wake up at 6am this morning and can't fall back asleep, so you go out to the couch and curl up under the weighted blanket and soothe your racing mind by eagerly tapping around the street view of your short-term apartment to get a lay of the land? You know, preemptively build some familiarity with your soon-to-be surroundings. To settle those gnawing feelings of I wonder what it's going to be like to live here. Where are the parks? Where will my dog poop? What will I eat? Oh fuck! Food! Where will I buy groceries?? And then you realize in the bottom floor of your apartment building, there's a store called Żabka and you're like, Thank god! I know where I'll buy my groceries. And out of, like, I guess, morbid curiosity, you tap into their website and it's just... Polish. Everywhere. So many consonants. No language toggle tucked away in a dropdown menu. Not even an English-UK option. My kingdom for a "colour"! You think. Hell, I'll take an "aluminium". Or a "petrol". Or a "biscuit". But no, only "Oferta". I don't know what that is. And "Oferta 18+". Turns out, not porn. Only piwa. And you're just frantically tapping between all of these menus and trying to figure out what the Polish word for "lemon"[1] is but you can't even find a fucking photo of a lemon on the website, so you don't even know if you'll be able to buy lemons to recreate the dish you made last night. And it all suddenly becomes so... very... overwhelming. And you find yourself fighting back that feeling in your throat, where it constricts and you try to swallow through it, but you can't—not really—and that feeling works its way up to your tear ducts and starts squeezing little beads of fire into your eyes that just pool on your lower lids, threatening to carve salty crevices into your cheeks if you dare to blink. But you don't blink, because now you're staring at a coupon for Coke, trying to comprehend what the deal is. 7,50 złoty for 2 1,5 liters? Is that... good?
Am I going to be able to figure this out?
I can't even navigate a fucking website. How am I going to do reality?
Why can I buy Resident Evil 9 from Żabka, but not lemons.
And so you look into this whole Żabka situation a bit further and quickly realize that Żabka is a convenience store chain. You buy your conveniences here. Your hot dogs. Your snacks. Your piwa. Your, lol, Resident Evil 9, I guess. Okay. Cool. You're lying on your couch at 6am on the verge of tears about the Polish equivalent of 7-Eleven.
It's gonna be a long three months.
You haven't even listed the house yet.
There's no harm in building some familiarity, but embrace the uncertainty. No amount of tapping around on street view is going to prepare you for the real thing. Though you do realize that there is an Aldi a couple blocks away. You recognize that name. That's a grocery store. You tap into the website. Polish everywhere. Not even an English-UK toggle. But the carousel at the top of the screen quickly flips to the next image. A bunch of lemons. You'll be able to make that dish you made last night. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
It's going to be okay.
"Cytryna." In hindsight, that one feels pretty obvious. ↩︎
Independent developers continue to build some of the most thoughtful utilities on macOS. These are small, focused tools that solve real workflow problems instead of trying to become the next all-in-one productivity suite.
Here are a few that recently caught my attention.
Stealthly Icon
Stealthly
For anyone whose workday involves frequent Zoom, Teams, or other online meetings, presenting a professional, distraction-free screen matters. The same is true if you recor
Independent developers continue to build some of the most thoughtful utilities on macOS. These are small, focused tools that solve real workflow problems instead of trying to become the next all-in-one productivity suite.
Here are a few that recently caught my attention.
Stealthly Icon
Stealthly
For anyone whose workday involves frequent Zoom, Teams, or other online meetings, presenting a professional, distraction-free screen matters. The same is true if you record tutorials or training videos. You want viewers focused on the content; not scanning your Dock, desktop, or menu bar for clues about your life.
I installed Stealthly for both myself and my wife as soon as I heard about it.
Stealthly is a $12.99 utility available directly from the developer (recommended) or on the Mac App Store. It automatically hides desktop icons, application windows, Dock items, menu bar icons, and even your wallpaper when you’re sharing your screen. It also enables Do Not Disturb to silence calls, alerts, and notifications.
When your meeting or recording ends, Stealthly restores everything exactly as it was.
Automation works in two ways:
Scheduled automation – Stealthly runs at specific times
Application triggers – Stealthly activates when certain apps launch, such as Zoom or Teams
The app includes a two-week free trial and is available in six languages.
If you regularly share your screen, this is one of those utilities that solves a problem you didn’t realize you had until someone else built it.
Screenshot showing the Find Files feature in FileMinutes app
File Minutes
When I started doing IT support at a small private university, I was shocked to discover that many students and even junior faculty dumped every document into a single folder and relied entirely on search to find things later.
I still can’t wrap my head around that approach.
I prefer a defined file structure with folders that have clear roles in my workflow. It isn’t complicated, and most of the time I can navigate directly to what I need.
Search still has its place, though.
File Minutes sits somewhere between a search tool and a lightweight file manager. It’s keyboard-driven, easy to learn, and extremely fast when you need to locate images, Markdown files, archives, or other documents across your system.
Once you find the file, you can either open it in its native app or reveal it in Finder.
Some features I particularly like:
Filter browsing by file type
If I’m looking for a PDF, my view isn’t cluttered with unrelated file types.
Save favorite folders
Jump instantly to locations you use frequently.
Bi-directional filtering
Search for files named invoice and narrow the results to Downloads; or browse Downloads and filter results to files containing invoice.
Keyboard navigation
Up and down arrows browse the current branch of the file tree. Left and right arrows move up or down a directory level.
File actions
Open, copy, or preview files using keyboard shortcuts.
Content search
Search inside PDFs, Markdown files, documents, and text files.
File Minutes collects no telemetry and performs no data collection. It runs on macOS 13 or later and costs $10 for a single license or $21 for three seats.
MiddleDrag (Free)
MiddleDrag is a tiny free utility (about 2 MB) that adds natural middle-click functionality to your Mac trackpad; whether that’s your laptop trackpad or a Magic Trackpad.
If you work without a mouse, this can make a surprising difference.
Some places where it really shines:
CAD and 3D modeling
Pan and orbit smoothly in Fusion 360, Blender, OnShape, FreeCAD, and SketchUp without reaching for a mouse.
Browsers
Open links in background tabs, close tabs instantly, and auto-scroll long pages with a simple three-finger tap.
Coding and terminal work
Paste selections in Terminal (Linux style) and interact more naturally with VS Code multi-cursor editing.
It’s small, simple, and one of those utilities that quickly becomes muscle memory.
Restore workspace interface
Workspace+
If you run a multi-monitor command-center setup with several tiled windows, a browser full of tabs, and a dozen apps open at once, recreating that layout every time you switch tasks gets tedious fast.
Workspace+ lets you capture an entire workspace and restore it with a single click.
Apps reopen, windows return to their positions, and browser tabs reload as part of the workspace.
This makes switching contexts dramatically faster.
Some useful capabilities include:
Keyboard access
Navigate and trigger workspaces entirely from the keyboard using hotkeys.
Multiple browser support
Works with Safari and Chromium-based browsers including Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Arc, and Vivaldi. Firefox is not currently supported due to technical limitations.
Automatic triggers
Workspaces can restore automatically when displays connect or disconnect; ideal if you move between a desk setup and a laptop environment.
If you already use a window manager like Rectangle Pro, Snaps of Apps, or Moom, you can approximate a similar workflow. There’s also the free utility Bunch, which comes close but requires some basic scripting.
Workspace+ is easier to configure and requires far less setup.
A lifetime license costs $14.99, or you can subscribe for $2.99 per month with a three-day free trial.
One current limitation: the app does not yet restore windows across multiple Spaces in Mission Control. The developer has indicated that this feature is on the roadmap.
If you’re in the USA you’ve probably seen the Progressive Insurance commercials depicting
Dr Rick, a man on a mission to help 30- and 40-somethings un-become their parents.
I think they’re hilarious, but I’ve noticed that some people take them personally.
Despite all that, it semms inevitable that we all are doomed to channel at least some of our parents’ behaviors as we get older.
To my perennial horror, I frequently notice myself using gestures are turns of phr
If you’re in the USA you’ve probably seen the Progressive Insurance commercials depicting
Dr Rick, a man on a mission to help 30- and 40-somethings un-become their parents.
I think they’re hilarious, but I’ve noticed that some people take them personally.
Despite all that, it semms inevitable that we all are doomed to channel at least some of our parents’ behaviors as we get older.
To my perennial horror, I frequently notice myself using gestures are turns of phrase that I absorbed from my father.
But this week I had a particularly startling revelation, and it didn’t arrive until long after the fact.
Let me back up and give you some background, in succinct bullet list form:
I like to hike while I’m here in Tucson.
I wear a straw panama hat that I bought in Mexico.
The hat does not have a chin strap.
I like my hat and don’t want to lose it.
A week or so ago, I was getting ready to leave with a group on one of our weekly hikes. At the last minute, I realized that my hat might be in danger so I rummaged around the shed to see if I had something to fashion a makeshift chin strap.
I didn’t find any old shoe laces or leather cord. Nor could I find any beads.
🚩 This right here, this should have been my warning sign to stop and go do something else.
But I persisted.
To my delight, I found some string and a hex nut.
You read that right: A HEX NUT.
This will work! I thought as I hastily accessorized my headwear. Success! The wind would not beat me on this day.
As an impromptu response to an urgent situation, this probably was okay. But it’s been two weeks now and the string and nut apparatus is still attached to my hat.
This is totally something an old man would do. This is not what cool dads do. I’ve wandered into “Okay, Boomer” territory.
I’m beside myself with a strange mix of pride (for my resourcefulness) and shame (for, well, you know).
Hi everyone, I have no idea if this is the right way to do this, but wanted to update that Michael has passed. He was surrounded by his family when it happened and lots of friends and family were able to come and say goodbye prior to his passing. I didn’t know much about his blog, but he deleted his Facebook and Instagram last like two weeks ago, so this was the best option to inform any online friends. I hope some of you got some joy from reading his posts, I think he really enjoyed w
Hi everyone, I have no idea if this is the right way to do this, but wanted to update that Michael has passed. He was surrounded by his family when it happened and lots of friends and family were able to come and say goodbye prior to his passing. I didn’t know much about his blog, but he deleted his Facebook and Instagram last like two weeks ago, so this was the best option to inform any online friends. I hope some of you got some joy from reading his posts, I think he really enjoyed writing them. If you want to do something in honor of Michael, please make a donation to St Jude, I believe he has it linked on his homepage.
M4 Mac Mini
When I bought my last new Mac two years ago, I set it up the way I had been setting up my personal computers for years: plug in a Time Machine drive and run Migration Assistant. On a modern Mac with an SSD, even if you have hundreds of apps installed like I do, the whole process takes about 20 minutes. It recreates your Applications folder, brings over preferences, and generally makes the new machine feel finished almost immediately.
Nothing could be easi
When I bought my last new Mac two years ago, I set it up the way I had been setting up my personal computers for years: plug in a Time Machine drive and run Migration Assistant. On a modern Mac with an SSD, even if you have hundreds of apps installed like I do, the whole process takes about 20 minutes. It recreates your Applications folder, brings over preferences, and generally makes the new machine feel finished almost immediately.
Nothing could be easier.
There is a downside, though. Migration Assistant faithfully brings over all the accumulated cruft along with the good stuff. That’s how I ended up with Keychain entries for wireless access points I installed in 2014, and references in ~/Library/Application Support to apps I haven’t touched in years.
UPS is dropping a Mac mini on my doorstep sometime this morning. For the first time in a long time, I’m not going to use Migration Assistant.
Automated App Installation
Thanks to tools like Updatest and Cork, I’ve moved every application that can be managed by Homebrew into that ecosystem. On my current machine that covers 212 GUI apps plus 260 CLI packages and dependencies.
Recreating that environment on a new Mac is trivial.
To back up your current setup:
brew bundle dump
To install everything on a new Mac:
brew bundle install
By default, Homebrew can also install Mac App Store apps using the mas CLI. The generated Brewfile is plain text and extremely easy to edit if you want to remove anything before installing.
A small sample looks like this:
cask "gechr/tap/whichspace"
cask "wifi-explorer"
cask "wins"
cask "xbar"
cask "xnconvert"
cask "xnviewmp"
cask "zen"
cask "zotero"
mas "Acidity", id: 6472630023
mas "Actions", id: 1586435171
mas "Actions For Obsidian", id: 1659667937
mas "Amphetamine", id: 937984704
mas "AppTela", id: 6752568197
mas "AutoMounter", id: 1160435653
If you don’t use Homebrew, you can still automate Mac App Store installs directly with the mas CLI.
To export a list of installed App Store apps:
mas list | cut -d' ' -f1 > mas-app-ids.txt
To install them on a new Mac:
xargs -n1 mas install < mas-app-ids.txt
To identify apps that were installed outside Homebrew or the Mac App Store, run:
Open the resulting JSON file in a text editor like BBEdit. Any app showing:
_“obtained_from” : “identified_developer” _
was installed directly from a developer download and will need to be reinstalled manually.
Configuration
Applications are the easy part. Configuration is harder.
Just entering license keys and registration details for my paid apps could easily take hours.
I briefly looked at Mackup, but it doesn’t seem well suited for a GUI-heavy workflow like mine. A more modern tool, chezmoi, looks promising for exporting and restoring my dotfiles, including things like:
• .zshrc
• .gitconfig
• ~/.ssh/config
• .config/nvim/init.vim
For everything else, my plan is simple: build a small set of rsync jobs by hand and move over only what I actually need.
To avoid permission issues and sandbox quirks, I’ll launch each application once before restoring its configuration so macOS creates the necessary directories:
~/Library/Application Support/
~/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Containers/
~/Library/Group Containers/
Because I run a heavily automated setup with apps likeKeyboard Maestro, BetterTouchTool, Hazel, and Raycast, I’ll rely on their built-in export/import features rather than trying to automate those configs.
It’s technically possible to script the capture of a large number of system settings. In practice, the time it would take to build and debug that script would probably exceed the time it takes me to reconfigure things manually.
Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks
Earlier in my career in edtech, I spent a lot of time doing large-scale Mac deployments. The workflow was simple: build a golden image and deploy it hundreds of times using NetBoot to whatever hardware the district had just purchased.
Later we moved to modern deployment systems like Jamf.
If you need 900 eMacs unboxed and deployed, I’m your guy.
Highly opinionated personal setups like the ones most of us run on our own Macs are a different animal entirely. There’s no universal image for that kind of machine.
But there’s a lot we can learn from each other about building reproducible setups that stay clean over time instead of dragging a decade of digital barnacles from one Mac to the next.
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