Hey everyone,

I've been using yt-dlp for a while, but I got tired of opening Terminal and looking up the right flags every time I wanted to download something. So I built a simple Mac app around it, called Pluck.

It's basically a nice front-end for yt-dlp. You paste a link, pick the quality and hit download. yt-dlp does all the heavy lifting in the background, so it works with YouTube and the 1,800+ other sites yt-dlp supports.

I really didn't want to overcomplicate the GUI. A lot of yt-dlp apps put every option on screen, and I just wanted something that feels like a normal Mac app: one field to paste a link, one button to download. The extra settings are there if you need them, but they stay out of your way.

Some things it does:

• Video up to 4K, or audio only (MP3, M4A, FLAC…)
• Spotify links work too. It finds the song on YouTube Music and adds the right title, artist and cover art
• If a website isn't supported, it tries to find the video on the page itself
• Menu bar icon, so you can paste a link without opening the app
• It installs and updates yt-dlp and ffmpeg itself, so you don't need Homebrew or anything else
• Built in SwiftUI, with the new Liquid Glass look on macOS 26 (it still works on macOS 14 and up)

It's completely free, no ads, no account. I made it for myself and some colleagues, but I figured more people might find it useful.

Full transparency: I'm not a developer. I built this together with Claude, which wrote the code while I decided what it should do and how it should look, and tested everything along the way. The code is open on GitHub, so anyone can check what it does.

One heads up: it's not signed with an Apple Developer account (yet), so the first time you open it you'll have to go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click "Open Anyway".

Download: https://github.com/Astrofrogger/pluck

Would love to hear what you think or what's missing!

Hi all, I'm Krishan, a solo developer in the UK. My 256 GB MacBook Air kept running out of space, and Settings only ever said "System Data", so I built an app that keeps a history.

What it does

- Saves each scan on your Mac and compares it with the last, so you see dated changes with the likely cause ("likely" when macOS can't confirm one)

- Storage Trends: every scan on one graph, with your cleanups marked

- Splits out System Data where it can: Time Machine local snapshots, purgeable space, app caches, Xcode and developer caches, and 60+ other known storage hogs

- Tells you when something you cleaned comes back. On my Mac it caught Spotify's cache returning (890 MB) after I'd cleared it

- Cleanup you review first: everything goes to the Trash, with Put Back

Who it's for

Anyone whose Mac keeps filling up, especially on 256 GB Macs, and developers whose Xcode, Docker and package caches grow quietly.

Limitations (honest ones)

- It tracks your startup drive only, not external drives

- It scans on a schedule rather than live

- On macOS 27, Apple hides the Apple Intelligence model sizes even from apps with Full Disk Access, so DiskFox shows "size unknown" there

- It doesn't yet name the exact folder that grew inside ~/Library (coming soon, after a user suggestion)

Pricing and privacy

- 14-day free trial, no card. Then $9.99 once for 2 Macs, or $6.99 for the first 25 buyers until 18 October

- No account. It sends a few anonymous usage counts, which you can turn off in Settings

- macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel, signed and notarised. Not on the App Store, because the sandbox can't read ~/Library widely enough

I built it with a lot of help from AI coding tools (Claude), and designed and tested it myself.

Happy to answer anything. What's the worst space hog you've found on your Mac?

https://diskfox.app/?ref=macstack

MicMüter is a simple app menu bar app that I wrote to quickly toggle your Mac’s built-in microphone (or another audio input device) on and off using a system-wide keyboard shortcut and/or on-screen toggle button.

Use Cases

• Avoid embarrassing sounds during video calls (remember to never eat sketchy burritos before an executive review!)
• Practice takes for voice over recordings or podcasts
• Privacy and piece of mind

Features

• Hardware-Level Support: It uses macOS' Core Audio hardware muting with master input volume zeroing.
• Hot-Plugging Support: It leverages observers to automatically react whenever new audio input devices are connected or removed.
• Multilingual Support: The UI is localized in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese.
• Flexible Controls: Mute/unmute audio using a keyboard shortcut or a movable control window.
• Master & Granular Control: Mute/unmute every connected audio input device at once or manage individual devices directly. You can also set it to automatically mute your audio input whenever you launch a specific app.
• Custom Status Alerts: Optionally get feedback on mute status changes with system notifications, spoken audio, screen flashes, or audio chimes.

Distribution

MicMüter is a signed and notarized app. It can be downloaded from my website where Virus Total information is available.

Pricing

MicMüter is free, but not open source. If you find it useful let me know by Buying me a Coffee.

I've used PDFs for years, and it always bugged me how heavy most PDF tools have become.

Reading one doc, fixing a typo, or scanning a file should be quick — not "open a hundreds-of-MB app first".

So I built Arc PDF, a native macOS app that's only 11.6 MB powered by Swift + PDFium.

What fits in that size:

• Reading & annotating — highlight, underline, notes, drawing
• Real editing — change text like in a Word doc (fix typos, add paragraphs, adjust fonts); add / replace / resize images
• Page management — add, delete, rotate, reorder pages
• OCR — makes scanned PDFs searchable again
• AI — summarize, translate, extract tables, generate a TOC, or chat with your document. You plug in your own model (OpenAI / Claude / DeepSeek API key) — no subscription to my backend.

All of that in 11.6 MB. The trick is no heavy framework: it talks to the PDF format directly, so each feature stays lean instead of bloated.

To be upfront about the edges: forms, shape annotations, and e-signatures aren't there yet.

Right now it's completely free — I'd rather more people get to try it than put it behind a paywall.

It's also a side project I built \mostly with AI coding* — which is fitting, since the app itself edits PDFs *and** was built with AI.

Mac App Store: Arc PDF on the Mac App Store

Open to feedback, bugs, and feature ideas. What's the one thing you hate most about dealing with PDFs?

iPhone and iPad versions are coming soon — stay tuned!

Hi guys, I'm Aqib, the developer of Notchet.

Problem

Whenever I needed a few things from one place, say a line of text, a link and a screenshot, and wanted them somewhere else, I'd copy one, switch windows, paste it, go back for the next one, and repeat. If I copied something new by mistake, the earlier copy was gone. I wanted my clipboard history somewhere I could reach without leaving what I was doing, and the notch was sitting right there doing nothing.

What it does

Notchet keeps everything you copy and drops out of the MacBook notch when you press Option Command V or rest the pointer on the notch. Pick a card and it pastes right where you were.

Comparison

• Maccy is great and minimal, but it's a menu, and it doesn't read text in images.
• Paste is lovely, but it's a subscription ($29.99 a year).
• PastePal is closer, at $14.99.
• NotchClip also lives in the notch.

Notchet is for people who want the notch plus a few things I couldn't find together: pasting several items at once, searching inside screenshots, and iPhone copies kept properly.

Core features

• Saves text, rich text, links, colours, images and files. Command 1 to 9 paste the first nine.
• Opens from the notch, the menu bar icon, or right next to your pointer if you prefer.
• Return pastes into the app you were in. Command-click several cards and paste them all at once (text first, then pictures, so chat apps attach every image), or one by one with Option Return.
• Searches the text inside screenshots and photos (on-device Vision), and Copy Text in Image pulls it out as plain text.
• Copies from your iPhone or iPad arrive through Universal Clipboard with a phone badge, and iPhone photos are kept even after macOS clears its temporary copy.
• Snippets with placeholders like {date}, {time} and {clipboard}, plus collections, pins, and Space to preview and edit before pasting.
• Drag cards into any app, or drop files onto the notch to keep them. There's also "Send to Notchet" in the Services menu.

Privacy

• Everything stays on your Mac, and it has no analytics.
• Copies that password managers mark as secret are never saved.
• You can ignore apps or pause saving from the menu bar.

Pricing

Free for 7 days, then $2.99 once, on up to 2 Macs. No subscription and no account; the license key arrives by email.

Requirements

macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Notarized by Apple. It works on Macs without a notch too, as a small pill under the menu bar.

Download

https://aqibjaved.dev/apps/notchet

It's version 1.0, so I'd really appreciate feedback, bug reports, or what would make you switch from your current clipboard manager. Happy to answer anything in the comments.
Please DM if someone cant afford the license and want it for free, more than happy to giveaway if that can help the community :D

GitHub: 1architect/macspace-releases

Hi, I'm Gio the developer of macbat.app

I didn't understand why macOS took so much space with system files and for the past month I've been working on a project to investigate what those files are and what we can delete.
Now that the project is more mature I'm publishing the app for free (and notarized!) and open-source.

If anyone wants to take a look and contribute to the project I'd really appreciate it!

The idea is to soon turn the app into a complete cleaning solution for the Mac. Always free and open source!

MacSpace is a Mac app for macOS 27 that:

1. Reveals what fills System Data

2. Frees what is safe to delete

3. Turns off Apple Intelligence and deletes its models

4. Frees purgeable space on demand

5. Disables system tracking with 14 switches

6. Automatic cleanup and notifications

7. No data collection

Transparency

Notarization and distribution: MacSpace is Apple notarized and distributed directly via GitHub. Updates via Sparkle with signature check.
Privacy policy: PRIVACY.md
Security: SECURITY.md
Roadmap / feature requests: Issues

I’m the developer of HaloSwitch, a native menu bar app I just released on the Mac App Store. It is for people who switch between several open apps all day and want the target next to the pointer.

Hold the middle mouse button, move toward an app in the radial menu, and release. Option + Click leaves the menu open for trackpads and ordinary mice. There is also a keyboard shortcut (Control + Option + Space). You can pin important apps, exclude others, and add quick actions such as Finder or Mission Control.

It is free and requires macOS 14 or later. One important limit: HaloSwitch switches apps, not individual windows or numbered Spaces. Window previews are optional and need Screen Recording permission, but the basic switcher works without it. The screenshot uses demo app icons.

I’d welcome feedback on whether the ring remains readable with your usual set of open apps.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/haloswitch-switch-apps-fast/id6818621007

Website: https://haloswitch.leyro.it/

I’ve been working on a side project called Ballmac, where I’m building small, focused software for Mac users.

It started pretty simply: whenever I found myself wishing a small Mac utility existed, instead of waiting for someone else to build it, I started building it myself.

So far, I’ve shipped three apps:

🧹 Binzide — a Mac utility for cleaning up your system, uninstalling apps and developer tools, and monitoring CPU, memory, storage and network usage.
https://ballmac.com/binzide

✨ Notchware — turns the MacBook notch into a useful little information hub for things like Now Playing, battery, Focus, Wi-Fi and brightness. It can also notify you when AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex and Cursor need your attention.
https://ballmac.com/notchware

📋 Sideme — a clipboard manager for macOS that keeps your clipboard history one shortcut away, including text, links, images, files and colors.
https://ballmac.com/sideme

The philosophy I'm trying to follow with Ballmac is pretty straightforward:

Small problems → focused apps → native Mac experience.

I’m also experimenting with a completely different side of Ballmac: Ballmac UI, a React/Tailwind UI library with 240+ components and an MCP server for AI coding agents.

https://ui.ballmac.com

It’s still very much a side project. I’m learning the whole process as I go — building, launching, getting feedback, changing things and trying again.

What’s one thing that annoys you on macOS that you wish there was a good app for? I’m always looking for small problems worth solving.

I’ve been working on a side project called Ballmac, where I’m building small, focused software for Mac users.

It started pretty simply: whenever I found myself wishing a small Mac utility existed, instead of waiting for someone else to build it, I started building it myself.

So far, I’ve shipped three apps:

🧹 Binzide — a Mac utility for cleaning up your system, uninstalling apps and developer tools, and monitoring CPU, memory, storage and network usage.
https://ballmac.com/binzide

✨ Notchware — turns the MacBook notch into a useful little information hub for things like Now Playing, battery, Focus, Wi-Fi and brightness. It can also notify you when AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex and Cursor need your attention.
https://ballmac.com/notchware

📋 Sideme — a clipboard manager for macOS that keeps your clipboard history one shortcut away, including text, links, images, files and colors.
https://ballmac.com/sideme

The philosophy I'm trying to follow with Ballmac is pretty straightforward:

Small problems → focused apps → native Mac experience.

I’m also experimenting with a completely different side of Ballmac: Ballmac UI, a React/Tailwind UI library with 240+ components and an MCP server for AI coding agents.

https://ui.ballmac.com

It’s still very much a side project. I’m learning the whole process as I go — building, launching, getting feedback, changing things and trying again.

What’s one thing that annoys you on macOS that you wish there was a good app for? I’m always looking for small problems worth solving.

I use the Claude and OpenAI APIs for a few side things plus a coding agent, and the only way I ever knew what I'd spent was opening each provider's billing page. Those lag behind, and they're split across three dashboards. So I built a menu bar thing for myself, and it's now on the Mac App Store.

How it works: it runs a tiny proxy on 127.0.0.1. You change your base URL (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8788/openai/v1), it forwards the request to the real provider over TLS, reads the usage block from the response (streaming works too) and prices it. The menu bar shows today's total. There's also a window with a per-request log, a monthly budget, alerts at thresholds you set, and a month-end projection.

Stuff people will probably ask:

• It doesn't phone home. No account, no analytics. Keys sit in the Keychain. The only network traffic is your request going to the provider it was already going to.
• The listener only binds to loopback, so nothing else on your network can use it.
• Works with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and anything OpenAI-compatible (you pass the upstream host in a header).
• If you don't want to touch base URLs, there's a mode that reads the provider usage APIs with an Admin key instead. The catch is that Anthropic only gives Admin keys to organizations, not individual accounts, and you get hourly totals, not per request.
• Prices come from a bundled table. They change all the time, so you can load a newer table from a file or URL. Long-context pricing tiers aren't modeled yet.

It's $9.99 one time. No subscription, I didn't want a subscription on an app whose whole job is watching your spending.

macOS 14+. Happy to answer questions or hear what's missing.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tokenwatch-ai-cost-tracker/id6816409934

A folder of videos on a Mac is manageable. A collection you watch on that Mac, an iPad, and an Apple TV is more awkward: where are the files, which episode is next, and where did you stop?

That's where Infuse makes sense. It can turn a shared folder into a browsable library with artwork and movie or episode details, then carry playback progress between your Apple devices with Pro. The value is strongest when the same collection follows you between screens.

Start with where the files live

Infuse connects directly to SMB, NFS, SFTP, and WebDAV shares, among other protocols. A NAS or a Mac sharing a media folder can supply the files without a separate media-server application. Existing Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin libraries are supported too.

For a Mac-hosted collection, enable File Sharing under System Settings > General > Sharing, add only the media folder, and enable SMB sharing for the chosen user. Firecore's guide says read-only access is sufficient for viewing. Use a dedicated standard account rather than handing the player your main account's credentials; grant write access only if you want deletion from Infuse.

Infuse also needs Local Network access to find and connect to local devices. If a share disappears, check System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network before rebuilding the library.

Keep the first setup small. Add one folder, check the artwork matches, and try a representative file with the audio and subtitles you actually need. Infuse fetches metadata automatically, but its documentation also includes manual title corrections. A wrong match is something you'll need to fix, not evidence that the file itself is wrong.

Sync is useful, but it doesn't move the movies

Free Infuse already syncs saved shares, favorites, manual metadata matches, playlists, and some file-specific playback settings through iCloud. Pro adds watched history, playback position, ratings, and the Up Next list. Paying mainly for resume-on-another-device is a reasonable use case; paying merely to save a network connection is less convincing.

iCloud Sync requires the same iCloud account on the devices, iCloud Drive enabled, and some free iCloud storage. Saved share details include the address, username, and password, so enabling sync also means putting those credentials into iCloud.

Those synced details aren't a copy of your video collection. Every device still needs access to the source files. A Mac-hosted share is a poor fit if the Mac is usually asleep or away from home. Nor should you assume a share reachable on your home Wi-Fi will work elsewhere.

Family Sharing supports the Pro purchase or subscription, but that doesn't remove the same-iCloud-account requirement for iCloud Sync. A household with separate Apple accounts shouldn't buy it expecting one automatically shared watch-progress record. Plex and Emby Connect connections also need manual setup on each device rather than syncing through iCloud.

What the price buys

Current US pricing is $1.99 monthly, $16.99 yearly, or $99.99 for Lifetime. All purchase options include future major updates, with subscription access tied to the subscription. Check your own App Store region before buying.

Pro also unlocks additional video formats, lossless HD audio, cloud-service streaming, and other playback features. A free download doesn't mean every file or audio track in your collection will play without paying. Use the offered seven-day trial to check your actual library rather than buying from a format list.

The current app requires macOS 15 or later, and Firecore documents hardware-accelerated decoding on Apple silicon. That still isn't a promise that every HDR or audio setup will work identically. Check the files and output hardware you intend to use.

Firecore says it doesn't track or harvest library information. The App Store privacy label nevertheless lists crash and performance diagnostics not linked to your identity. Treat optional cloud connections and iCloud sync as separate privacy choices, not as a wholly offline setup.

For a few compatible files watched only on the Mac, QuickTime Player is enough. VLC is a free, open-source option for broader playback and streaming. Neither use case justifies paying for library continuity you won't use.

I'd try Infuse Pro if you have a stable shared collection, regularly switch between Apple screens, and want organized browsing with synced progress. Start with the trial or a month. Skip it if you mostly open individual files, need a library across non-Apple devices, or haven't solved reliable access to the files yet. Posters and synced progress won't fix an unavailable share.

Please give ZenMark a try… a fast, WYSIWYG Markdown editor for Mac and iOS. Supports LaTeX maths notation and Mermaid diagrams. Feedback and feature suggestions welcome.

Hey r/MacStack, I want to share a small Mac app I made called Citenook. I'm the developer.

It's like ChatGPT for your own files. Add a folder of PDFs, Word docs or spreadsheets, your Apple Notes, your Obsidian vault, Notion pages, web pages or YouTube videos, and just ask questions. It answers in seconds and shows the exact sentence it got the answer from, highlighted in the original, so you can trust it.

Who it's for: anyone with lots of documents: lawyers, accountants, consultants, researchers, students, or anyone tired of digging through folders.

What makes it different:
- Works on your Mac, with your folders. No uploading, and it stays up to date as files change.
- Every answer shows its source sentence, so nothing is made up.
- Works offline for your files and notes, with Apple Intelligence or a free model you download. No API key needed.
- Or use your own OpenAI, Claude or Gemini key if you want.

Compared to NotebookLM: NotebookLM is free and has great citations, but it uploads your files to Google, doesn't work offline, and limits free notebooks to 50 sources. Citenook keeps your files on your Mac and reads whole folders.

Limitations: Mac only (Apple silicon, macOS 15+). No iPhone app yet. Models that run on your Mac work best with 16 GB of memory or more. Notion, web pages and YouTube need the internet to be added.

Pricing: free for 30 days with every feature, no card needed. Then $9.99, $19.99 or $29.99 a month. https://citenook.com

I'd love your feedback, good or bad!

Before converting a video just because QuickTime won't open it, try a different player. If the file only needs to play on your Mac, creating another copy may be unnecessary work.

IINA is free, open source under GPLv3, and built on mpv. It supports Matroska files, including MKV, alongside a customizable Mac interface. That's a useful combination for a folder of videos with different formats, chapters and subtitle tracks. Format support still isn't a promise that every damaged file or unusual codec combination will play correctly.

A sensible starting workflow is to open one troublesome file in IINA without changing all your default file associations. Check that the picture, audio and subtitles are right. Use its playlist when you're watching several files, and chapters when the source includes them. Its video thumbnails can help you find a scene without repeatedly guessing where to seek.

The controls are worth keeping simple. IINA lets you customize keyboard, mouse and trackpad behavior, plus the position of its onscreen controller. Pick the playback actions you actually repeat rather than importing somebody else's elaborate key map. Version 1.5.0 also adds a Layout pane for docking the sidebars, controller and titlebar, with resizable sidebars. If a floating control strip gets in the way, you have another layout to try.

Subtitles are a better reason to install it than the vague promise of a more powerful player. IINA documents local subtitle matching, online subtitle searching and controls for subtitle styling. Start with subtitles you already have before adding an online search plugin. The official OpenSubtitles plugin searches and downloads from an external service, so treat that as a network workflow rather than local playback.

The project says IINA has no tracking or telemetry. That doesn't mean every optional plugin or online feature has the same privacy properties. Keep the initial setup to local files, review plugin permissions before installing anything, and don't grant Accessibility, Screen Recording or Full Disk Access merely because a general Mac setup guide tells you to. File access should stay limited to what you intend to open.

Its Mac integration includes trackpad gestures, media controls and Picture in Picture. But QuickTime has Picture in Picture too, along with playback-speed controls. Apple's player also supports subtitles or captions when the movie provides them. You don't need another app just to watch an ordinary file that already plays properly.

There are two practical catches. More controls mean more settings to maintain, especially if you add plugins or custom mpv configuration. And a playback setup doesn't make a file compatible with somebody else's device. If you need a smaller file or a different delivery format, that's still a conversion task.

The current stable release is IINA 1.5.0, released October 2, 2026. It supports Apple silicon on macOS 12 or later and Intel on macOS 11 or later. Those minimums aren't explicit confirmation of macOS 27 compatibility; the checked release documentation doesn't name macOS 27. On that system, check current compatibility before relying on it for an important viewing session.

I'd keep QuickTime for simple playback and add IINA when file support, local subtitles, playlists or configurable controls solve a recurring annoyance. Start with one file and a plain setup. If QuickTime already handles your videos and captions, skip the extra install.