🔥Essential Mac Tools You can't Miss 2024
Tags: webdev, programming, discuss, productivity
Published: 2023-12-14 12:41:58

Adhering to the philosophy that a good workman must first sharpen his tools, I've explored various types of tools over time. Based on personal experience, I recommend some software that I find quite excellent.
As I cannot provide any pirated or infringing software, I'll stick to suggesting legitimate and useful tools for the average user.


## Efficiency Powerhouse

**[Alfred](https://www.alfredapp.com/)**

Alfred is a tool that allows you to ditch your mouse.
As the most powerful efficiency tool on Mac, Alfred enhances the quick launch and search functions built into Spotlight (MacOS X's built-in search and quick launch engine). It introduces powerful extension features like Workflows, making it a "tool platform" software with limitless automation potential. You can use it to implement almost any idea related to automation.

Alfred also supports quick commands like lock screen, shutdown, empty trash, and sleep. Some of my frequently used recommendations include:
- `lock 1s`: Locks the screen – time to grab a meal!
- `empty`: Instantly satisfies the compulsive need to have a clutter-free trash bin.
- `eject`: Ejects disks, storage cards, or virtual disk images like .dmg-mounted disks.

For temporary shell commands, Alfred allows you to input `>` in the wake-up box to launch Terminal and execute the command string following `>`.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/oimqdeqeagj3dfrtlrne.png)

[**ServBay**](https://www.servbay.dev)

ServBay is hailed as the lazy developer's essential tool. With ServBay, you don't need to spend 2 or 3 days setting up a [development environment](https://www.servbay.dev); you can download and use it immediately. It includes a range of commonly used web development service software and tools, covering web servers, databases, programming languages, mail servers, queue services, etc., aiming to provide developers with a convenient, efficient, and unified development environment.

Features:
- Supports simultaneous running of multiple PHP instances.
- Custom domain and SSL support.
- Startup on boot and quick menu bar operations.
- Command-line support.
- Unified service management.
- Supports Docker and Node.js.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/as4g83ksi6lk05eku4s2.png)


## Notes

[**Evernote**](https://evernote.com/)

Access, organize, and share notes anytime, anywhere, keeping inspiration with you.
Brings order to life, enhances efficiency at work, and facilitates convenient collaboration.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bdva5bzw7da59e260blz.png)


## Compression/Decompression

[**Keka**](https://www.keka.io/en/)

Keka meets the daily decompression needs on the macOS platform. It is compact, user-friendly, and offers fast speeds.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/d4uarf6fump0fd86ms4w.png)

## Calendar

**[Itycal](https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/)**

Itycal is a small menu bar calendar. To achieve the displayed effect, enter "E h:mm" in the input box, and then disable the system default time. It gives a neat appearance.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/gf1v3usuv4018t8q0ora.png)


## Terminal Tool

[**iTerm2**](https://iterm2.com/)
While the default terminal on macOS may not be the most convenient, iTerm2 is a relatively user-friendly terminal tool. Common operations include theme selection, syntax highlighting, auto-fill suggestions, hiding usernames and hostnames, and split-screen effects.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9h00z0ie9wsz6mqly4ua.png)


## System Monitoring

[**iStat Menus**](https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/)iStat Menus is the premier system monitoring tool for Mac. It provides real-time monitoring of CPU, GPU, memory, hard disk, network, temperature, battery, and system time in the menu bar. It is stable, resource-efficient, and considered essential software.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/fbserbi92snekaob0gnb.png)


## Screensaver

[**Fliqlo**](https://fliqlo.com/)
Fliqlo is a minimalist clock screensaver application for Mac OS devices.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/yqh9my1t1w1letatfg7i.png)