My essential websites and programs for MacOS

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I haven’t used a Windows PC since my first Macbook in 2012, and unless something dramatically changes I can’t see myself going back. Here are some of my essential websites and programs for my favourite operating system, in no particular order.

Although many of these programs will have Windows equivalents, this list will be strictly focussed on the MacOS variants. This won’t apply to the websites or Chrome Extensions of course, those will work in Windows too.

Google Sheets / Docs / Forms / Drive / Mail / Calendar

First of all - Google's online services are essential to my day-to-day work. The only exception is with Google Sheets, where sometimes Excel is required for crunching exceptionally large amounts of data. For anything less, Sheets is just perfect.

I keep everything saved in Google Drive. I have no fear of losing my laptop, (other than the £ cost, of course) as everything digital I own is backed up onto Google Drive.

Alfred

Alfred is like a beefed-up version of the existing built-in spotlight feature by Apple. Though there’s a ton that can be done with it, I use it mainly for two things: the clipboard history and snippets.

The clipboard history means I can freely copy + paste as much as I want, without worrying about overwriting what I last copied. Very useful for anything involving text: spreadsheets, code, notes, messaging etc. I can’t imagine using a computer without it.

Snippets are your favourite bits of the text, saved to be used again. For me, it’s a collection of SQL and Amazon Athena queries used for email campaigns and data analysis.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a very lightweight text editor that I use for HTML/CSS/JS - ideal for creating landing pages and emails. Once you familiarise yourself with a few shortcuts, it's also a very powerful text manipulator. With the rainbow_csv package, I even use it to quickly dive into large .csv files.

Apple Notes

The centre of my workflow is Apple Notes. I love it so much I even wrote an article about how I use it here.

Thyme

Thyme is a lightweight timer that lives in the menu bar. I use it as a simple way to focus for (usually) 25 minutes at a time - known to many as the Pomodoro technique.

Axure RP

I’ve used Axure RP countless times to create mock-ups for new features for Cornerstone.co.uk. Though the program is a little “heavy”, it’s a very complete product.

Mockups can be as light or as full-on as necessary for the project, and the sharing feature means it can be hosted online for easy sharing and user testing.

Dynalist.io

A very unique program - I use it like a text-only version of a spider diagram. Having used visual spider diagrams before, I find too much time is inevitably spent trying to make things look pretty. With Dynalist, there are no distractions to your next idea.

Bulkresizephotos.com

This site is simply the best for compressing images - an important consideration when building anything on the web. The faster a page loads and performs, the better.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop, the industry standard in photo editing.

Testi.at

Testi.at is a very cheap and effective way to test your email templates across a bunch of different real devices.

Chrome / Chrome Extensions

What makes Chrome great is its extensions and its built-in developer console - key for creating anything web-based. Here are some of my favourite extensions:

Hope you found something useful in this list! Happy mac-ing ❤️🍏

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