Mac Applications I cannot work without anymore 🍎
Published on 06/07/2026
It all started when my co-workers’ made scripts that only worked for Mac e.g., Bash scripts which do work in Windows with some workarounds. Which kept failing for me because of the complexity. So, after that I had to switch to a MacOS machine. Windows was not an option anymore.
Looking back, I can say that I like the hardware of the Mac, way more than the Windows machines we used to get. Long battery life, good screen, good speakers, etc. Nothing to complain about, except the software/usage of the tiling manager (or lack there off when I started using my new Mac) and other Windows habits.
But working with the software has some desires and quirks that made me itchy. So, I started looking for solutions on MacOS. Quickly I found that other people on the internet are exactly in the same boat, when they switched from Windows to MacOS.
- BetterCMDTab
- Before this I would say, use Alt+Tab, but you now need to buy the builds for 10 euro’s (single time, which I still respect, but seeing my job on my Mac was going to end soon, I didn’t want to pay 10 euro’s for software I cannot even use anymore in 1-2 months, so I opted for BetterCMDTab after the updates). BetterCMDTab makes the alt tabbing the same experience as on Windows (or at least as close to/configurable), there is no option to make it flip between all open windows including the same application that is open in MacOS. An example being Intelij. Let’s say you have 5 windows open in Mac because you have 5 open projects. You need to use Command + ` in order to switch between open windows of the same kind. That means that if you use Alt + Tab you are never going to go to the same application but then another window. BetterCMDTab fixes this issue and adds more customizability which is super helpful.
- Rectangle
- This makes the Window management work better with hotkeys over multiple windows and comes with more configuration. A must have for having multiple windows, or just a better replacement than what MacOS provides nowadays, even after they updated the window management a bit. I am also not happy with the new option menu to close applications as well. Just to have it different? It worked good before… Now I need to click twice to close an application and, on a submenu to boot. Just remember that most windows can be closed with Command + Q.
- LinearMouse
- LinearMouse is a requirement, one of the things is that the scroll direction is a single setting for the whole Mac, not per device or touchpad/external mouse. So when plugging in a new mouse the scroll wheel is inverted. Super annoying! And it comes with some nice other perks as well, custom key binds for scrolling horizontal that wasn’t available before with the regular Mac software with an external mouse. I just cannot live without LinearMouse as well. As well as configuring scrolling differently and even making it possible to scroll horizontal with a mousewheel when pressing another button on my keyboard, I really love LinearMouse.
- Warp
- This is a way better replacement then the default terminal included in MacOS, but to be fair I also tried out iTerm2, but I wasn’t really a fan of it. It just makes more sense, has autocomplete out of the box and more, yes others have it as well, I know I know! But the key bindings and all other things can be changed in the settings and that’s what makes me like Warp. But I am still open to other suggestions, as this is not Open-Source Software as far as I know.
All in all, a small but welcome list, of course this is just software to make MacOS more like Windows (Or at least configurable so I can change both Windows and MacOS to my preference). And as a side note, I use lots of other software as well.
- Bruno (Good Postman alternative)
- Cyberduck (Generic file server client)
- Docker (Containers for local development)
- Draw.io (Making architecture designs)
- Edge (Work browser)
- Firefox (Private browser)
- Jetbrains Intellij & Toolbox (Main code editor & update tool)
- Krita (Image manipulation)
- Logseq (Keeping notes and daily diary)
- OBS (Recording video in a professional way)
- VSCode (Quick start-up file editor, but I am switching to Zed)
- Zed (Quick start-up file editor, yes this is written in Rust)
Of course everything can be easily installed with Brew so far, only thing is that for most things admin mode is required. But luckily at my current company that I work at we have access to that as developers. Any recommendations? Check my socials below, I might try it out.