My go-to mac OS Apps 
Tags: beginners, productivity, webdev
Published: 2019-11-25 23:19:31

---
title: My go-to mac OS Apps 
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/8q1pa43d7syy7hyy8plk.jpg
published: true
description: Here are some of my favourite apps to use for mac os. I have thrown in some apps i use for development, productivity apps and personal favourites based on my other interests :)
tags: #beginners #productivity #webdev #discuss 
---
Hello, there fabulous people and our ai overlords 👋. Here are some of my favourite apps to use for mac os. I have thrown in some apps i use for development, productivity apps and personal favourites based on my other interests :)

Inspiration for this thread is from {% link https://dev.to/azure/the-first-10-macos-apps-i-install-in-2019-2bba %}

### 1. VS-Code

I started my dev career with Dreamweaver 💀, moved to notepad ++, atom, then finally settled with vscode 😇

I use a lot of Extensions from Sarah Drasner. I love listening to her speak about design and vue. 💖

#### Extensions

* [Night Owl Theme](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sdras.night-owl&WT.mc_id=twitter-social-sdras)

* [Vue VS Code Extension Pack](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sdras.vue-vscode-extensionpack)

* [Discord Presence](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=icrawl.discord-vscode)


### 2. iTerm

Love this Terminal it's very customizable and comes with a load of features you always wanted.

* [iTerm](https://iterm2.com)

### 3. Transmit

For FTP, A GOD. here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwtaJRWvuSU&feature=emb_title) that will make you go wow, Its also made by the same company that made the macOS port for Firewatch and the untitled goose game! 🦆

* [Transmit](https://panic.com/transmit/)

### 4. Mamp 

I use Mamp for developing WordPress sites locally, Does the job perfectly 👌

* [Mamp](https://www.mamp.info/en/)

### 5. Pichi

Pichi is great when working with images as you can easily just drag and drop images to optimise and resize them.

* [Pichi](https://pichiapp.com/)

### 6. Alfred

Makes searching, launching apps etc easy and fast 🚀 

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


## Moving on now to some more general leaning apps


### 7. Discord

You probably all know about this one. If not where have you been for the past few years 😱 Discord be popping and wumpus is sad you haven't dropped on by 😭

* [Discord](https://discordapp.com/)


### 8. Firefox Developer Edition 🦊

I use to be an avid chrome user but switched to firefox as its much more privacy orientated. In my opinion, it also has far greater developer tools then chrome.

* [Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/developer/)

#### Extensions

* [Vue.js devtools](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/vue-js-devtools/)

* [Wappalyzer](https://www.wappalyzer.com/download)

* [Privacy Badger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

* [uBlock Origin](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin)

* [OneTab](https://www.one-tab.com/)

* [Notion Web Clipper](https://www.notion.so/web-clipper)

* [Grammarly](https://app.grammarly.com/)

* [Honey](joinhoney.com/ref/do6kcme)


### 9. Tor 

I mostly use tor for OSINT, I like to dabble in Investigative journalism so having a secure and privacy-oriented workspace is literally a lifesaver. I use tails OS and parrot OS for more heavy investigations 🕵️‍♀️

* [Tor](https://www.torproject.org/)

### 10. Telegram 

Again not very dev related but it's great for gathering information for journalism, A lot of "rebel groups" in war zones and even protestors in Hong Kong have been using it to organise and establish secure communication to participants and media. 

* [Telegram](https://telegram.org/)

### 11. Mullvad or Proton VPN

I was a pia user up until the recent sad news of them getting bought by CyberGhost a company with a very bad track record. Although in recent years they seem to have become more trustworthy there reputation is pretty ruined.

Mullvad is now the only VPN i trust to not keep logs which is very important for the journalism work i do.

Proton VPN is also an interesting choice, its currently being independently audited so we shall see the results of that soon :)

* [Mullvad](https://mullvad.net/en/)
* [Proton VPN](https://protonvpn.com/)

### 12. Keybase 

Great for verifying yourself across different platforms.

* [Keybase](https://keybase.io/)

### 13. Notion

Notion changed my life 🙌. It's amazing for organising your life. I love using Ali Abdaal's Resonance Calendar you can see a great overview [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKYBB-Uw1IM) 

* [Notion](https://www.notion.so)

### 14. Bitwarden 🛡

I use Bitwarden for storing all my account usernames/passwords etc. I used Keepass before but never liked the maintenance it required, Bitwarden is much more User-friendly 👍  

* [Bitwarden](https://bitwarden.com/)

### 15. Krita 👩‍🎨

Been using photoshop for a long time and recently decided to switch to Krita. I find it to be much more suited to what i need, photoshop always randomly crashed for me and i haven't had that problem with Krrita it also free so win-win. The only downside is the UI is not as nice as photoshop but you get used to it and im starting to like it more than the photoshop UI as everything is just in front of you rather than being hidden behind loads of menus etc

* [Krita](https://krita.org/en/)

### 16. IINA

A Free and open-source video player that has everything you need, love it ❤️ 

* [IINA](https://iina.io/)

### 17. Davinci Resolve

My go-to video editing software. I've only ever used sony vegas before so don't have much to compare it with. The learning curve can be a bit steep to start with but once you got the basics down its fun to use.

* [Davinci Resolve](https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/)


## whew, finished! 

I hope these apps can give you as much joy as they gave me. If you have any questions or other recommendations please do share :D

If you would like to follow me then you can do so on dev.to or twitter 

[@jrdngill](https://twitter.com/jrdngill)

❤️💛💚💙💜