Utilities & Tools

Every tool is a single key

A for arrows, R for rectangles, T for text, S for numbered steps, B to blur something out - the editor opens on the shot, so a bug report takes seconds. It is an annotator, not an image editor; deeper work hands off to Pixpresso.

OCR and pin in the same window

Pull selectable text straight out of a capture, or float the shot always-on-top to copy from while you work. OCR only sees what the screenshot resolved - a shrunken window reads worse than a full-size grab.

Set the shot up before you take it

A 3 or 5 second timer, a frozen screen and hidden desktop icons are what make menus and hover states capturable at all. On a multi-display setup you pick the screen before you drag, which is one extra beat per grab.

Per-core, and labelled

Efficiency and performance cores are told apart rather than averaged into one number, and the processes behind the load are right there - click one to quit it. Nine modules also means nine widgets; on a 13-inch screen you will want to switch some off.

Battery and sensor detail you normally need a second app for

Cycles, condition, SMC fan and temperature readings, plus the levels of paired accessories including AirPods left, right and case. Accessory levels depend on what the device reports over Bluetooth, so some only appear while connected.

Each module in the style that suits it

A module can sit in the menu bar as a sparkline chart, a bar, a pie or plain text, and the dashboard cards drag to reorder the icons. Getting the bar the way you want it is a few minutes of fiddling up front.

Drag or shortcut, both work

The palette appears when you grab a title bar and the target area lights up before you let go; halves, thirds and quarters also sit on ⌃⌥⌘ keys for the keyboard route. It needs Accessibility permission once on first launch.

Custom zones for the splits presets miss

Draw a 30/70 or an off-centre pane on a grid, name it, give it a shortcut, and it joins the palette like a built-in. This is the feature that decides whether a window manager fits your monitor or not.

Follows you across displays

The palette follows the cursor from screen to screen and a window snaps on the display you dropped it on, at any scale. Windows move through macOS Accessibility, so anything the system cannot resize will not snap either.

The zooms are already there when the editor opens

No placing keyframes by hand - every zoom arrives as a block on the timeline that you drag, stretch, or simply leave alone. Recording is done at full display detail, so going in 2x shows real pixels rather than a blur.

A camera that does not get seasick

Zooms close together merge instead of yo-yoing, and the frame only pans once the cursor genuinely leaves the middle. You steer the feel with four dials rather than frame-level control, which is the trade-off it is making on purpose.

Finished-looking output, in one file

Gradient backdrop, padding, rounded corners and shadow are baked into the export, and system audio and microphone land in the same video already in sync. Baked means baked: change your mind about the backdrop and you export again.

Nothing is touched until you say so

Categories expand into groups you can eyeball item by item, so you clear the caches you recognise and leave the rest. That is the opposite of the one-button cleaners that make a Mac worse.

The headline number is honest

Exploration-only categories are kept out of the reclaimable total, so it doesn't inflate itself with space you were never going to free. Rare enough in this category to be worth saying out loud.

Finds the real hogs, not just the crumbs

The uninstaller sorts installed apps by disk usage and Large Old Files surfaces anything over 100 MB, biggest first. It looks through your personal folders, so junk parked elsewhere on the disk stays invisible to it.

Play before the download finishes

The player streams straight from the incomplete file, and seeking ahead just makes the stream catch up. This is the whole point of the app and it is the part that works best.

Plays the formats that usually mean opening VLC

MP4 and WebM run natively and MKV and AVI go through a bundled helper, with one set of player controls across all of them plus picture-in-picture. Subtitles next to the file load on their own, with size, offset and delay adjustable while watching.

Remembers where you stopped

Per-file resume survives a restart, and favourites and named collections keep a long watchlist navigable. Everything is local with no account, which also means watch progress does not follow you to another machine.

Nothing to install on the phone

Scan the QR code and a web page handles both directions - the phone sends files to the computer and takes files back. That is what makes it usable with someone else’s phone, not just your own.

Transfers stay on your network

Files go device to device over the LAN and never reach a server, so a multi-gigabyte folder moves at network speed and stays private. Both ends have to be on the same Wi-Fi - this is not a way to send something across town.

Open pool, or locked with a PIN

A shared pool lets anyone on the network drop files in and pull files out, and a PIN closes it when you are on café or office Wi-Fi. Received files land in a folder you choose, each with a one-click reveal.