QuoteMug

QuoteMug puts one quote on your desktop and changes it every hour. Not a feed to scroll and not a notification to dismiss - a small card on the wallpaper with a line worth reading, and a new one waiting the next time you look up.

The quotes come from the web, but the library lives on your computer. QuoteMug keeps every quote it has ever fetched, so the card still turns over on the hour on a plane, on hotel wi-fi, or on a machine that has never been online at all.

Highlights

1. One quote an hour, and it stays put - the hour owns the quote, not the app. Close the widget and reopen it at 2:50 and you get the same line you had at 2:10; at 3:00 it changes on its own. Nothing flickers, nothing re-rolls behind your back.
2. Fresh quotes from the web - QuoteMug tops its library up on its own, and Get more fetches another batch whenever you want one. It tells you how many new quotes actually arrived rather than just spinning.
3. Works with no connection, fully stocked - more than 1,400 quotes from 89 writers, thinkers and leaders ship inside the app: about two months of hourly quotes before one comes round again. Everything fetched since is kept too. A laptop that is never online loses nothing but the top-ups.
4. Not in the mood for this one - one click gives you another quote for the rest of the hour, and that choice sticks too. Restart tomorrow morning and you get the quote you chose, not the one you skipped.
5. Keep the ones you like - star a quote and it goes to a saved list you can copy from or clear out. Saved quotes survive everything: they are yours, not a bookmark into someone else's library.
6. Copy in one click - the quote and the author land on the clipboard together, formatted and ready to paste into a message, a slide, or a journal.
7. A card, not a window - no title bar, no frame, no panel behind it. Drag it anywhere by the quote itself, drag a corner to resize, and keep it above your other windows when you want it in view while you work.
8. It stays where you put it - the corner you chose and the size you made it come back on the next launch, second monitor included. Unplug that monitor and QuoteMug comes back somewhere you can reach rather than off the edge of the desk.
9. Quiet until you need it - the controls sit faint at the edges of the card and come up under the pointer. What you see from across the desk is the quote.
10. Lives in the menu bar - no icon crowding your dock or taskbar. A small quotation mark up top shows the card, pins it in front, or puts the whole thing away.
11. Sized to read, not to squint - pick small, medium or large, and a long quote steps down from there on its own so it always fits the card instead of scrolling inside it.
12. Light or dark, and there in the morning - QuoteMug starts on whatever your desk is already set to and then leaves the choice to you. Open it at login and it is on the desktop before you are.

How it works

1. Open it and read - there is nothing to set up. A quote is on screen before the first fetch finishes, and the card tells you what time the next one arrives.
2. Put it where you will see it - drag the card by the quote to a corner of the desktop, resize it to taste, and turn on Keep on top if it should stay in front of your work.
3. Keep what lands - star the ones you want back, copy the ones you want to send, and skip the ones that miss.
4. Forget about it - the card changes on the hour by itself, and the library grows in the background whenever you are online.

Perfect for

1. A desk you look up from - one line to land on between tasks, instead of another tab to open.
2. Writers and speakers - a running supply of lines to save and paste, with the author already attached.
3. Anyone tired of motivational feeds - a quote an hour, in a card you can move and mute, with no stream to scroll and no account to make.
4. Screens that are always on - a second monitor, a studio display, a machine that never sleeps. Something worth reading in the corner of it.