Associate
Essential OS X Utilities
As a resource for all us OS X users in here, I decided to start a list of essential apps for your Mac
If you know of any other utilities, feel free to add them below with a link to where you can download the files!
Updates:
20 Feb - Added Konfabulator, Salling Clicker, iScroll2.
21 Feb - Added Mplayer OSX, Desktop Manager, Panic Transmit, Panic Candybar, Newsfire, Quicksilver, BBEdit.
22 Feb - Added SubEthaEdit, Goban.
23 Feb - Added BluePhoneElite, Skedit, Cyberduck.
27 Feb - Added CeePeeYou, Brickhouse, KisMAC, Pic2Icon, Temperature Monitor.
15 Mar - Added Synk, ElectropaintOSX, Carbon Copy Cloner, PandoCalendar, Alarm Thingy, Windows Media Player, Print Selection, and links to other guides.
18 May - Added Shapeshifter, Cleardock, SharePoint Automount, OnyX, Little Snitch.
AdiumX - http://www.adiumx.com
Submitted by Cybershot
It's a multi-protocol messenger, much like Trillian for the PC. I use it for MSN, and think it's a great tool, supporting display pictures, multiple accounts, plus I think the way it shows messages is quite nice. It's also customisable, with a choice of different interfaces - eg. I have a semi-transparent bubble-style contact list on my desktop. On the downside, they haven't got round to writing a full interface for file transfers for it yet - even though it does support them - so that's a bit of a grey area!
_______
Fink - http://fink.sf.net
Submitted by Cybershot
Fink adds the apt package management tool to your Mac, as found in Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu. It uses it's own repository of packages that work with OS X, which are available to view and search using the package browser here. It's pretty handy - especially if you want to use applications such as irssi.
If you haven't used apt before - to search for a package: use apt-cache search <packagename>, eg:
To install a package - apt-get install <packagename>, eg:
And finally, removing: apt-get remove <packagename>
Note - You'll probably have to use sudo with the install and remove commands - just type sudo before the command and enter your password when prompted!
_______
MenuMeters - http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/
Submitted by Cybershot
MenuMeters allow you to have a range of your system information displayed in many formats in your title bar. You can choose from a selection of CPU, Disk, Memory and Network statuses. Thanks to dirtydog and OllyM for introducing me to this one!
_______
Meteorologist - http://sourceforge.net/projects/heat-meteo
Submitted by Cybershot
Again, thanks to OllyM for this one - Meterologist allows you to have updated weather information straight to your dock or menu bar. Not only does it display weather conditions and temperature, but it also offers Humidity, Pressure and Dew point, plus an extended forecast over 3 days in advance!
_______
iStumbler - http://www.istumbler.net
Submitted by Cybershot
Does what it says on the tin! - Wireless Access point viewer, with a nice interface and also the options to pick up Bluetooth networks!
_______
VLC Media Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Submitted by Cybershot
I really like having this media player installed - it's especially useful as it plays most formats and offers playlisting and full-screen playback unlike Quicktime!
_______
Delocalizer - http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html
Submitted by Cybershot
Delocalizer removes all the unused international settings, keymaps, etc from your hard disk. On my iBook running 10.3, it freed up ~890Mb of hard disk space!
_______
Konfabulator - http://www.konfabulator.com - $24.95
Submitted by Andy C
It's quite a cool app for putting various info on to your screen in the form of widgets. Usually the widgets are well designed and wont look out of place on your OS X desktop.
Of course, Konfabulator will be pretty much obsolete when Tiger ships.
_______
Salling Clicker - http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Clicker/ - $19.95
Submitted by YYZ
Control a number of multimedia apps, including VLC, DVD player (and more importantly iTunes - view playlists) from a paired bluetooth mobile phone.
_______
iScroll2 - http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/
Submitted by Cybershot
A small replacement driver with a collection of shell scripts to enable two finger scrolling on Pre-2005 Powerbooks and iBooks.
_______
Mplayer OSX - http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
Submitted by Moredhel
A port of the popular mplayer app for Linux, I use this alongside VLC, I've yet to find anything it can't play except AAC audio which can be very quiet sometimes. I prefer the way you can skip through movies with the arrow keys. and the interface in general seems less clunky.
_______
Desktop Manager - http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net
Submitted by Cybershot
A virtual desktop manager for OS X which has some very very cool switch transitions!
_______
Panic Transmit - http://www.panic.com/transmit/ - $29.95
Submitted by Moredhel
A rather good multi connection FTP client, I prefer it to Finders FTP support as it does queuing.
_______
Panic Candybar - http://www.panic.com/candybar/ - $12.95
Submitted by Moredhel
A small app that changes all your system icons easily, can take iconpacks as well.
_______
NewsFire - http://www.newsfirerss.com/ - $18.99
Submitted by nick
Cool little RSS feed reader.
_______
Quicksilver - http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Submitted by nick
This app is great. One problem I had when I fully switched to Mac half a year ago was the hassle of opening the Applications folder to launch apps that weren't in my dock. Basically, you just press a "hot key" and a little window pops up, you begin typing the name of the file or application, and it instantly pops up with matches, then you can launch said app/file. I've assigned it to the "enter" button (next to the right apple button, left of the left arrow key... on my PowerBook anyway!) and it's the most useful app ever!
_______
BBEdit - http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml - $199.00
Submitted by nick
Very useful text editor.
_______
SubEthaEdit - http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
Submitted by nick
This is a text editor which lets you write collaboratively over a Rendezvous (now "Bonjour") network. Very useful... I sit in my lectures with my PowerBook and can write notes with 3 other Mac users in the room, all over Rendezvous without having any normal wireless network available in the lecture theatre. What's even better is that I just sit there and hardly make any notes... other people make loads of notes and I still get a copy!
_______
Goban - http://www.sente.ch/software/goban/
Submitted by E1mo
Fantastic native Mac Go program with built in GnuGo AI. Been playing all afternoon. Works over a 'Bonjour' (what an awful name) network as well.
_______
BluePhoneElite - http://www.reelintelligence.com/BluePhoneElite/
Submitted by Leigh
Basically you can use your mac as a call centre and send text messages from your mobile, via your PC. Definitely recommended!
_______
skEdit - http://www.skti.org/skEdit.php - $20
Submitted by gavsim
This app is great, it has built in FTP/SFTP allowing to work live on a domain, has auto code completion, tabbed windows and much much more. I highly recommend it, and best of all it is only $20!!
_______
Cyberduck - http://cyberduck.ch/
Submitted by E1mo
OS X Native, GPLed FTP/SFTP program with a really nice interface. It fully integrates with various editors including BBEdit and SubEthaEdit, has Bonjour support, it can auto sync chosen directories and also works nicely with keychain.
_______
CeePeeYou - http://www.unsanity.com/products/free
Submitted by Mat
Cee Pee You is a simple free menu extra to show CPU load in your menubar and, optionally, on PowerMate.
_______
Brickhouse - http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/brickhouse.html - $25
Submitted by Mat
BrickHouse is designed to make using the network firewall built in to Mac OS X quick and easy. By using BrickHouse to enable your computer's firewall, you can help prevent unauthorized villians from gaining access to your computer via your internet connection.
_______
KisMAC - http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10133
Submitted by Mat
isMAC is a free stumbler application for MacOS X, that puts your card into the monitor mode. Unlike most other applications for OS X we are completely invisible and send no probe requests. KisMAC supports third party PCMCIA cards with Orinoco and PrismII chipsets, as well as Cisco Aironet cards.
_______
Pic2Icon - http://www.sugarcubesoftware.com/sw/index.php?pic2icon
Submitted by Mat
Pic2Icon is a program that creates beautiful 128x128 Mac OS X icons for your pictures.
_______
Temperature Monitor - http://www.bresink.de/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
Submitted by Mat
Temperature Monitor is an application to read out all available temperature sensors in Macintosh computers. The program can display and visualize measured values in a large variety of fashions.
_______
Synk - http://www.decimus.net/synk/
Submitted by 28ten
Synk is software that synchronizes the contents of two directories, or backs up one directory to another. The typical uses are:
* Keeping your laptop's files in synch with your desktop's files
* Backing up your home directory (or entire disk) to an external drive or backup server
_______
ElectropaintOSX - http://www.lloydslounge.org/entry.php?id=1104393606
Submitted by Le Samourai
An old SGI screensaver clone and spins around in pretty colours.
_______
Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Submitted by Mat
Drive backup and imaging tool.
_______
PandoCalendar - http://www.pandacorner.com/PandaSystems/PandoCalendar.html
Submitted by phate
This useful Mac-only program places a fully functional calendar on your desktop. The look is completely customizable.
_______
Alarm Thingy - http://stout.hampshire.edu/~bjk02/software.htm
Submitted by Rod Fryer
A free alarm that uses iTunes.
_______
Windows Media Player - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx
Submitted by Rod Fryer
Useful for playing those Windows Media only files!
_______
Print Selection - http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22665
Submitted by nick
Adds an option to just print the selected text in a Cocoa based app (Safari, Mail etc)... very handy when you've got a long webpage and just want to print a bit of it! Once it's installed, the 'Print Selection' option is found by clicking the application name in the menu bar, then selecting 'Services'.
_______
Shapeshifter - http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter/ - $20
Submitted by 28ten
Theming for OS X.
_______
Cleardock - http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/cleardock
Submitted by 28ten
Removes the Dock background.
_______
SharePoints AutoMounter - http://www.hornware.com/sharepointsautomounter/
Submitted by 28ten
An easy way to mount shares on startup.
_______
OnyX - http://www.titanium.free.fr/english.html
Submitted by nero120
OnyX 1.5.2 is a maintenance, optimization, and personalization utility. OnyX 1.5.2 works with all Macintosh computers running Mac OS X version 10.3.x (with BSD subsystem).
_______
Little Snitch - http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/ - $24.95
Submitted by ic1male
Little Snitch tells you when a program tries to send info to the internet so you can see whats going on in the background!
_______
Other lists of essential utilities...
http://mac.sofotex.com/Apple/
Submitted by deano
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/apps.php?sub=15&ft=0&f=
Submitted by Le Samourai
As a resource for all us OS X users in here, I decided to start a list of essential apps for your Mac
If you know of any other utilities, feel free to add them below with a link to where you can download the files!Updates:
20 Feb - Added Konfabulator, Salling Clicker, iScroll2.
21 Feb - Added Mplayer OSX, Desktop Manager, Panic Transmit, Panic Candybar, Newsfire, Quicksilver, BBEdit.
22 Feb - Added SubEthaEdit, Goban.
23 Feb - Added BluePhoneElite, Skedit, Cyberduck.
27 Feb - Added CeePeeYou, Brickhouse, KisMAC, Pic2Icon, Temperature Monitor.
15 Mar - Added Synk, ElectropaintOSX, Carbon Copy Cloner, PandoCalendar, Alarm Thingy, Windows Media Player, Print Selection, and links to other guides.
18 May - Added Shapeshifter, Cleardock, SharePoint Automount, OnyX, Little Snitch.
AdiumX - http://www.adiumx.com
Submitted by Cybershot
It's a multi-protocol messenger, much like Trillian for the PC. I use it for MSN, and think it's a great tool, supporting display pictures, multiple accounts, plus I think the way it shows messages is quite nice. It's also customisable, with a choice of different interfaces - eg. I have a semi-transparent bubble-style contact list on my desktop. On the downside, they haven't got round to writing a full interface for file transfers for it yet - even though it does support them - so that's a bit of a grey area!
_______
Fink - http://fink.sf.net
Submitted by Cybershot
Fink adds the apt package management tool to your Mac, as found in Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu. It uses it's own repository of packages that work with OS X, which are available to view and search using the package browser here. It's pretty handy - especially if you want to use applications such as irssi.
If you haven't used apt before - to search for a package: use apt-cache search <packagename>, eg:
Code:
mog:~ nik$ apt-cache search irssi
irssi - Modular IRC client
irssi-ssl - Modular IRC client
Code:
mog:~ nik$ sudo apt-get install irssi
Password:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
glib-shlibs
The following NEW packages will be installed:
glib-shlibs irssi
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 1772kB of archives. After unpacking 6398kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]And finally, removing: apt-get remove <packagename>
Note - You'll probably have to use sudo with the install and remove commands - just type sudo before the command and enter your password when prompted!
_______
MenuMeters - http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/
Submitted by Cybershot
MenuMeters allow you to have a range of your system information displayed in many formats in your title bar. You can choose from a selection of CPU, Disk, Memory and Network statuses. Thanks to dirtydog and OllyM for introducing me to this one!
_______
Meteorologist - http://sourceforge.net/projects/heat-meteo
Submitted by Cybershot
Again, thanks to OllyM for this one - Meterologist allows you to have updated weather information straight to your dock or menu bar. Not only does it display weather conditions and temperature, but it also offers Humidity, Pressure and Dew point, plus an extended forecast over 3 days in advance!
_______
iStumbler - http://www.istumbler.net
Submitted by Cybershot
Does what it says on the tin! - Wireless Access point viewer, with a nice interface and also the options to pick up Bluetooth networks!
_______
VLC Media Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Submitted by Cybershot
I really like having this media player installed - it's especially useful as it plays most formats and offers playlisting and full-screen playback unlike Quicktime!
_______
Delocalizer - http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html
Submitted by Cybershot
Delocalizer removes all the unused international settings, keymaps, etc from your hard disk. On my iBook running 10.3, it freed up ~890Mb of hard disk space!
_______
Konfabulator - http://www.konfabulator.com - $24.95
Submitted by Andy C
It's quite a cool app for putting various info on to your screen in the form of widgets. Usually the widgets are well designed and wont look out of place on your OS X desktop.
Of course, Konfabulator will be pretty much obsolete when Tiger ships.
_______
Salling Clicker - http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Clicker/ - $19.95
Submitted by YYZ
Control a number of multimedia apps, including VLC, DVD player (and more importantly iTunes - view playlists) from a paired bluetooth mobile phone.
_______
iScroll2 - http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/
Submitted by Cybershot
A small replacement driver with a collection of shell scripts to enable two finger scrolling on Pre-2005 Powerbooks and iBooks.
_______
Mplayer OSX - http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
Submitted by Moredhel
A port of the popular mplayer app for Linux, I use this alongside VLC, I've yet to find anything it can't play except AAC audio which can be very quiet sometimes. I prefer the way you can skip through movies with the arrow keys. and the interface in general seems less clunky.
_______
Desktop Manager - http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net
Submitted by Cybershot
A virtual desktop manager for OS X which has some very very cool switch transitions!
_______
Panic Transmit - http://www.panic.com/transmit/ - $29.95
Submitted by Moredhel
A rather good multi connection FTP client, I prefer it to Finders FTP support as it does queuing.
_______
Panic Candybar - http://www.panic.com/candybar/ - $12.95
Submitted by Moredhel
A small app that changes all your system icons easily, can take iconpacks as well.
_______
NewsFire - http://www.newsfirerss.com/ - $18.99
Submitted by nick
Cool little RSS feed reader.
_______
Quicksilver - http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Submitted by nick
This app is great. One problem I had when I fully switched to Mac half a year ago was the hassle of opening the Applications folder to launch apps that weren't in my dock. Basically, you just press a "hot key" and a little window pops up, you begin typing the name of the file or application, and it instantly pops up with matches, then you can launch said app/file. I've assigned it to the "enter" button (next to the right apple button, left of the left arrow key... on my PowerBook anyway!) and it's the most useful app ever!
_______
BBEdit - http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml - $199.00
Submitted by nick
Very useful text editor.
_______
SubEthaEdit - http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
Submitted by nick
This is a text editor which lets you write collaboratively over a Rendezvous (now "Bonjour") network. Very useful... I sit in my lectures with my PowerBook and can write notes with 3 other Mac users in the room, all over Rendezvous without having any normal wireless network available in the lecture theatre. What's even better is that I just sit there and hardly make any notes... other people make loads of notes and I still get a copy!
_______
Goban - http://www.sente.ch/software/goban/
Submitted by E1mo
Fantastic native Mac Go program with built in GnuGo AI. Been playing all afternoon. Works over a 'Bonjour' (what an awful name) network as well.
_______
BluePhoneElite - http://www.reelintelligence.com/BluePhoneElite/
Submitted by Leigh
Basically you can use your mac as a call centre and send text messages from your mobile, via your PC. Definitely recommended!
_______
skEdit - http://www.skti.org/skEdit.php - $20
Submitted by gavsim
This app is great, it has built in FTP/SFTP allowing to work live on a domain, has auto code completion, tabbed windows and much much more. I highly recommend it, and best of all it is only $20!!
_______
Cyberduck - http://cyberduck.ch/
Submitted by E1mo
OS X Native, GPLed FTP/SFTP program with a really nice interface. It fully integrates with various editors including BBEdit and SubEthaEdit, has Bonjour support, it can auto sync chosen directories and also works nicely with keychain.
_______
CeePeeYou - http://www.unsanity.com/products/free
Submitted by Mat
Cee Pee You is a simple free menu extra to show CPU load in your menubar and, optionally, on PowerMate.
_______
Brickhouse - http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/brickhouse.html - $25
Submitted by Mat
BrickHouse is designed to make using the network firewall built in to Mac OS X quick and easy. By using BrickHouse to enable your computer's firewall, you can help prevent unauthorized villians from gaining access to your computer via your internet connection.
_______
KisMAC - http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10133
Submitted by Mat
isMAC is a free stumbler application for MacOS X, that puts your card into the monitor mode. Unlike most other applications for OS X we are completely invisible and send no probe requests. KisMAC supports third party PCMCIA cards with Orinoco and PrismII chipsets, as well as Cisco Aironet cards.
_______
Pic2Icon - http://www.sugarcubesoftware.com/sw/index.php?pic2icon
Submitted by Mat
Pic2Icon is a program that creates beautiful 128x128 Mac OS X icons for your pictures.
_______
Temperature Monitor - http://www.bresink.de/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
Submitted by Mat
Temperature Monitor is an application to read out all available temperature sensors in Macintosh computers. The program can display and visualize measured values in a large variety of fashions.
_______
Synk - http://www.decimus.net/synk/
Submitted by 28ten
Synk is software that synchronizes the contents of two directories, or backs up one directory to another. The typical uses are:
* Keeping your laptop's files in synch with your desktop's files
* Backing up your home directory (or entire disk) to an external drive or backup server
_______
ElectropaintOSX - http://www.lloydslounge.org/entry.php?id=1104393606
Submitted by Le Samourai
An old SGI screensaver clone and spins around in pretty colours.
_______
Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Submitted by Mat
Drive backup and imaging tool.
_______
PandoCalendar - http://www.pandacorner.com/PandaSystems/PandoCalendar.html
Submitted by phate
This useful Mac-only program places a fully functional calendar on your desktop. The look is completely customizable.
_______
Alarm Thingy - http://stout.hampshire.edu/~bjk02/software.htm
Submitted by Rod Fryer
A free alarm that uses iTunes.
_______
Windows Media Player - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx
Submitted by Rod Fryer
Useful for playing those Windows Media only files!
_______
Print Selection - http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22665
Submitted by nick
Adds an option to just print the selected text in a Cocoa based app (Safari, Mail etc)... very handy when you've got a long webpage and just want to print a bit of it! Once it's installed, the 'Print Selection' option is found by clicking the application name in the menu bar, then selecting 'Services'.
_______
Shapeshifter - http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter/ - $20
Submitted by 28ten
Theming for OS X.
_______
Cleardock - http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/cleardock
Submitted by 28ten
Removes the Dock background.
_______
SharePoints AutoMounter - http://www.hornware.com/sharepointsautomounter/
Submitted by 28ten
An easy way to mount shares on startup.
_______
OnyX - http://www.titanium.free.fr/english.html
Submitted by nero120
OnyX 1.5.2 is a maintenance, optimization, and personalization utility. OnyX 1.5.2 works with all Macintosh computers running Mac OS X version 10.3.x (with BSD subsystem).
_______
Little Snitch - http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/ - $24.95
Submitted by ic1male
Little Snitch tells you when a program tries to send info to the internet so you can see whats going on in the background!
_______
Other lists of essential utilities...
http://mac.sofotex.com/Apple/
Submitted by deano
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/apps.php?sub=15&ft=0&f=
Submitted by Le Samourai
Last edited: