I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of friction from my Mac workflow. macOS is a great system, but out of the box it still leaves a lot of obvious automation opportunities on the table.

I spend a lot of time trying to remove small bits of friction from my Mac workflow. macOS is a great system, but out of the box it still leaves a lot of obvious automation opportunities on the table.

Most of the improvements I rely on come from stitching together tools like AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts, and a few power-user utilities I discovered at r/MacApps.

None of this is complicated once it’s set up. The goal is just to eliminate little interruptions that happen dozens of times a day.

Here are a few small automations and workflow tweaks that currently make my Mac feel a lot more like my machine.

• I like Safari, but I don’t like how easily it spawns extra windows. I now use an AppleScript tied to Keyboard Maestro. With a mouse click or hotkey, it closes every Safari window except the frontmost one.
• Safari has good AppleScript and Shortcuts support, but it still doesn’t provide a keyboard-friendly way to jump directly to a specific Tab Group. My workaround is an Apple Shortcut that batch-opens groups of URLs that mirror my tab groups: Server, Social, Blogging, Software, etc.
• I set up BetterTouchTool so that fn + Button 3 on my Logitech mouse triggers the New command across roughly two dozen apps. Depending on the app, that can mean a new tab, new note, new document, new Shortcut, new Keyboard Maestro macro, new email, or new message.
• I’m currently using SideNotes as my scratchpad. It stays hidden on the right edge of my primary display until I toggle it with a hotkey or an ExtraBar menu item.

Most of these are tiny things, but they add up surprisingly fast

• I use Rectangle Pro’s layout manager to launch and arrange 10 apps across two displays and eight virtual desktops. Each desktop has a keyboard shortcut, and I tie them together with a single Keyboard Maestro macro. (download link)
• I wrote a small shell script (download link) that reconnects me to Tailscale if the connection drops or fails to start. It runs via launchd, configured through Lingon Pro.
• I use macOS 26’s automation features in Apple Shortcuts to create my daily Obsidian note from a template. The automation also inserts a weather report and the day’s calendar events, so the note is ready when I sit down at my desk each morning. (Requires Actions for Obsidian.)
• When I need a dual-pane file manager instead of Finder, a Keyboard Maestro trigger runs an AppleScript that closes all Finder windows and replaces them with a ForkLift window. (download macro)
• I removed the menu bar icons for BetterTouchTool, Default Folder X, Supercharge, and Rectangle Pro. Their functions are now exposed through ExtraBar instead.
• If a developer doesn’t expose a URL scheme, you can’t deep-link into specific menu items. Finder is a good example; there’s no direct link for Go to Folder. ExtraBar can run scripts, though, so a small AppleScript can send keystrokes to trigger the command. If the feature exists in a menu but has no keyboard shortcut, you can also create your own under System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Sample Script

tell application "Finder"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "g" using {command down, shift down}
end tell

None of these are huge changes individually, but together they remove a lot of small interruptions during the day.

Curious what small automations or workflow tricks other people here are using.

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Every Mac user eventually ends up with a pile of files that need converting. Screenshots that are too large for the web. HEIC photos from iPhones that need to become JPEGs. Audio recordings saved at ridiculous bitrates. Video files that need to be optimized for sharing.

You can solve all of that with command-line tools like ffmpeg or with a handful of separate utilities.

Or you can just use Picmal.

Picmal is a single macOS utility that handles image, audio, and video conversion and compression. Once installed, it integrates directly into the Dock, Finder, menu bar, Services, and Shortcuts, so it behaves more like a built-in system tool than a typical standalone app.

It works immediately with sensible defaults, but if you want to tweak codecs, formats, or compression levels, the controls are there.

Images

I’ve set up one of my screenshot apps specifically for images I plan to post on the web. It saves those screenshots into a folder that Picmal watches.

When a file lands there, Picmal automatically:

• converts it to my preferred format
• applies a compression level that keeps good clarity while shrinking the file size
• renames the file so I know it’s already been processed

That automation alone has been useful for blogging and documentation.

If you regularly deal with HEIC photos from iPhones or iPads, Picmal can also watch a folder and convert them automatically.

Picmal also handles image resizing and color space conversion (sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, Display P3, and others). If you’re preparing files for printing, you can adjust DPI as well.

Audio

Batch processing works well. I had a collection of spoken-word recordings from events I’d attended, and many of them had been saved at extremely high bitrates that made sense for music but not for speech.

Picmal converted and compressed the entire batch without complaint. The resulting files sounded the same for spoken content while taking up far less disk space.

Video

Video conversion uses simple presets:

• Maximum Quality
• Balanced (Size & Quality)
• Web Optimized
• Social Media
• Maximum Compression
• Custom

Pick the preset that matches the destination and you’re done. If you need more control, the Custom option exposes additional settings.

Clipboard Optimization

Clipboard optimization lets Picmal compress images you copy to the clipboard. Copy a screenshot, a web image, or a file in Finder and Picmal quietly optimizes it in the background.

A small overlay appears so you can immediately replace the original clipboard contents with the compressed version.

If you enable the option, Picmal can automatically copy the optimized image back to your clipboard. One practical advantage: images processed this way can be pasted into Finder as files, which isn’t something macOS normally allows with clipboard images.

A nice touch: if the image is already efficiently compressed, Picmal detects that and skips the process instead of recompressing it.

How It Fits Into a Typical Mac Workflow

If you already use media tools on macOS, you might be wondering where Picmal fits.

ImageOptim
Great for compressing images, especially for web publishing. Picmal overlaps here but adds format conversion, automation via watched folders, and clipboard workflows.

Permute 
Permute focuses mostly on media conversion with a clean UI. Picmal covers similar ground but adds automation features and deeper Finder integration.

ffmpeg / command-line tools
Still the most flexible option for scripting and complex workflows. Picmal obviously can’t match that level of control, but for everyday tasks it removes a lot of friction.

In practice, Picmal feels less like a replacement for those tools and more like a convenient layer on top of common conversion tasks.

Final Thoughts

At $15.99 per seat with lifetime updates, Picmal is reasonably priced for what it does. There’s also a 15-day no-questions-asked refund.

All processing happens locally on your Mac (macOS 14 or newer), and the developer states that no data is collected. If you want to dig deeper, the developer provides comprehensive documentation on the website.

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I posted my 500th app review this week. If you keep typing long enough, this is what happens. It makes me super happy and I hope I have helped some of you find apps that you've grown to use and love. If I have, please leave a comment, it will be motivating and appreciated. I want to give a shout out to r/MacApps for all the support and feedback I've gotten there. I also want to thank Scribbles, the blogging platform I've used the entire time.

I recently added a way for developers to alert me to their apps. If you know anyone who has an app that could use some exposure, please let them know they can request a review here.

AppAddict is just me, one old guy with a laptop and a decades old predilection for clicking the download button on just about every app I see. This is my hobby, not a side job. I do it because I enjoy it. I can't tell you how thrilling it's been to interact with developers of some of my favorite apps. I still have a big streak of fanboy.

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I’m always impressed when an out-of-the-box thinker builds an app unlike anything I’ve seen before. Iterating on proven concepts is fine, but after testing enough clipboard managers and voice-to-text apps, they all start to blur together. Give me something new, clever, and useful, and I’ll happily change my workflow to make room for it. a year ago, DoubleMemory caught my attention with its interesting feature set and it's done nothing but improve since then.

DoubleMemory

I sometimes worry that one day my brain will run out of capacity for new hotkey combinations. When that happens, any app that relies on them will be off the table. DoubleMemory neatly sidesteps that problem by baking the instruction directly into its name.

Press ⌘C twice quickly, and the app captures either the webpage you’re on or the text you’ve highlighted. It then drops that content into an aesthetically well-designed, searchable, Pinterest-like interface with some surprisingly useful capabilities.

There’s a setting that allows DoubleMemory to save everything you copy, but I’d advise against leaving that on all the time. It’s not a clipboard manager in the sense that Raycast or PastePal are. For example, it doesn’t capture images.

Where it shines is with URLs. Highlight the URL of any webpage you’re on and press ⌘C twice. DoubleMemory downloads the page content and stores it locally, making it as much a read-it-later tool as a bookmark manager. In practice, it works well as either.

Saved content can sync via iCloud, which means your collection is accessible on your iPhone, iPad, and other Macs.

DoubleMemory also doubles as a lightweight notes tool. Highlight a passage of text anywhere, press ⌘C twice, and it’s saved to your board. From there you can add your own commentary and organize the entry with tags. There’s even optional AI-powered auto-tagging if you want help categorizing things.

One detail I appreciate: DoubleMemory doesn’t require an account, and you don’t need to install a browser extension. If you routinely save URLs from different sources on a specific topic, you quickly end up with a clean, searchable database that works offline.

It’s also refreshingly lightweight. The app uses roughly 10 MB of RAM during normal use. For automation fans, it supports Apple Shortcuts, the macOS share sheet, and drag-and-drop to the Dock (if you enable the Dock icon).

Interesting Features

• Bookmark Imports
  If you want to migrate an existing read-it-later list or bookmarks from another service (for example Raindrop), DoubleMemory includes solid import tools.
• Active Roadmap
  I’ve been following the project for about a year, and development has been steady. Planned features include image and screenshot support and automated imports of saved searches. Personally, I’d love to see it pull in my saved Reddit posts.
• Approachable Developer
  The developer is easy to reach and actively engages with users. There’s a Discord, a Substack newsletter, an active Reddit presence, and a well-maintained website with an up-to-date changelog.
• Freemium Model
  The free tier already allows unlimited saves, notes, bookmarks, and tags. The Pro plan mainly adds more than three saved searches and supports the developer. Future premium features are expected to focus on advanced retrieval, AI-powered organization, and richer content consumption tools. I have some 50% off subscription codes. Use the comment tool below if you want one.

DoubleMemory has a lot going for it. It’s easy to understand, genuinely useful in daily workflows, and feature-rich without feeling bloated.

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If you rely on iCloud but don’t have a true backup of that data, BackiGo is one of the simplest ways to create one.

BackiGo is an iCloud backup app I can recommend for anyone looking for an alternative to Parachute. Parachute is a well-known iCloud backup utility that was recently acquired by a company with a solid reputation, but also a history of price increases and subscription transitions.

Who This Is For

BackiGo is particularly useful if you:

• Store large amounts of data in iCloud Drive or iCloud Photos
• Use Optimize Mac Storage, meaning your Mac does not hold full local copies
• Want an off-Apple backup copy of your iCloud data
• Need to back up iCloud data to a NAS, external drive, or another cloud provider

Why You Need an iCloud Backup

Sometimes Apple’s logic escapes me. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the opaque world of iCloud.

If you don’t have a method for keeping a versioned backup of your iCloud documents and photos, you should set one up sooner rather than later.

The simplest approach looks like this:

1. Use a Mac signed into iCloud.
2. Turn off “Optimize Mac Storage” for both iCloud Drive and Photos.
3. Allow all files to download locally.
4. Let Time Machine back up that Mac.

This works because Time Machine will keep historical versions of those files.

Unfortunately, that approach isn’t practical for everyone. If, like me, you pay for 2TB of iCloud storage but your Mac has a much smaller internal drive that can’t be upgraded, downloading everything locally simply isn’t feasible.

Experienced Mac users already understand the core issue: iCloud is a syncing service, not a backup.

If you overwrite a file, the new version replaces the old one everywhere. If you delete a file, it disappears everywhere. If a file becomes corrupted, that corruption syncs too.

Even with Time Machine running, you still won’t have copies of many files if Optimize Mac Storage is enabled, because those files never existed locally on your Mac.

The core idea is simple: get a second copy of your iCloud data somewhere Apple’s sync engine can’t touch it.

One more thing - you can find multiple stories of people permanently losing access to their iCloud accounts through ID theft, malware and Apple’s own policies.

BackiGo Features

This is where BackiGo comes in. The app lets you create a copy of your iCloud data and store it in a variety of locations:

• External drives (USB or Thunderbolt)
• Other cloud providers with versioned storage, such as Dropbox or Google Drive
• A NAS on your home network
• A shared folder on another computer (including Windows machines)
• An FTP server
• WebDAV support is planned

Some of the features I’ve found useful:

• Universal app that runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
• Flexible photo organization; mirror your Apple Photos structure or export into folders by device/year/month (for example AmerpieMBA/2026/04)
• Selective backups; back up documents but skip photos, or back up only specific albums
• Multiple cloud destinations, including Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, pCloud, and Backblaze
• Incremental and full backups
• Scheduled backups based on time, frequency, and backup type
• Local Photos library support for people who use Photos without iCloud
• Live Photo and shared album support
• Built-in photo viewer to visually confirm what’s included in a backup
• Detailed reports of backup and restore history, exportable as HTML or CSV

Recent Updates

Added backup encryption(optional). While iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) already encrypts data on Apple’s side, the app now adds client-side encryption, meaning your data is encrypted before it’s written to the backup destination. This helps protect your data even if the storage drive is lost, a cloud service is compromised, or an account gets leaked.

Also added iCloud archive restore support: Restore iCloud Contacts and iCloud Drive documents Search your iCloud documents and restore specific files

Privacy Policy

No data collected.

Developer Website

BackiGo – Complete iCloud Photo backup and restore solution for iOS and Mac

Price

• Free trial (limited to 500 images)
• $14.99 lifetime purchase
• $6.99 annual subscription
• $0.99 monthly subscription

Available on the Mac App Store with Family Sharing enabled.

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