Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - June 2018

Apps developed for the Mac often don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we've been doing a monthly series here at MacRumors that highlights useful, interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and investing in.

This month's picks include apps for revamping your dock, finding duplicate files, keeping track of your copy paste history, tweeting quickly from the desktop, and more. Many of our highlighted apps this week were chosen by MacRumors forum members.

  • uBar ($30) - uBar is a dock replacement, app manager, and window organizer that's designed for the Mac. You can configure the uBar as a dock, with apps of your choice, or as a task bar for doing things like quickly accessing Finder options. Apps in the dock will let you know how many windows are open, and you can enable features like window previews. uBar is expandable, re-positionable, resizable, and supports multiple monitors. The app is $30, but a free 14 day trial is available.
  • Gemini 2 ($19.99) - Gemini 2 is an app from MacPaw that's designed to help you find and manage all duplicate and similar files on your machine. It is ideal for cleaning up your music library and your photo library to clear up space on your Mac. A free trial is available.
  • Paste ($14.99) - Paste is a copy paste manager that keeps track of and organizes all of the files, photos, website URLs, and text snippets that you've copied and pasted on your Mac and other devices. Paste is described as a sort of Time Machine for your clipboard, because it saves everything and offers robust search capabilities so you can always find what you're looking for. Pinboards give you access to things you copy and paste often, while custom shortcuts make it easier to copy and paste. Paste is a Mac App Store app, but a free trial is also available on the Paste website.
  • Tweetfast ($1.99) - Tweetfast is a Twitter for Mac client that's gives you a menu bar widget for quickly composing and sharing tweets on the social network without having to switch to a full Twitter client or the Twitter website. It's simple, quick, and has a dark mode so it's macOS Mojave ready.
  • Infinity Dashboard ($14.99) - Infinity Dashboard is a smart little app that's designed to let you track and monitor anything, from your wife's birthday to the weather at your upcoming vacation spot to the current price of Bitcoin. There are 35 built-in modules for tracking weather, travel times, website stacks, stock prices, social network metrics, and more, and you can also write your own custom modules. Some modules, like price trackers, support notifications, and there are several design themes to choose from. A free trial is available.

If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. Many of this month's app picks came directly from recommendations from our forum members, and it's these recommendations that have helped make this series useful.

For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

Popular Stories

iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
ios 26 1 liquid glass opaque

iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
maxresdefault

Here's How the iOS 26.1 Transparency Toggle Changes Liquid Glass

Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...

Top Rated Comments

Chester Stone Avatar
96 months ago
How about highlighting apps that actually let you create something rather than merely consuming? I really like the idea behind this series, but we really don't need to hear about yet another Twitter client, yet another file manager, yet another pastebot, yet another dock & bar extension...

How about something like...

* Scrivener that helps writers compose books & articles;

* Acorn that helps designers create icons for their apps;
* Aseprite for helping spriters create pixel art;

* Blocs for building websites WYSIWYG;
* Transmit for moving content to remote servers;
* PaintCode 3 for crafting animations and then translating them to code?


Focus on the creators for once, instead of more consumer crap. God forbid the world needing people to tweet faster... The world won't benefit from one more tweet, there is enough noise and chatter without it. >_>
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rrm74001 Avatar
96 months ago
A: "When did you two meet?"

B: "Here! Log into my web dashboard and you can track it in real-time!"

[A backs away slowly]

Also, how can an anniversary be more than 12 months away?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
96 months ago
* Infinity Dashboard ('https://fiplab.com/apps/infinity-dashboard-for-mac') ($14.99) - Infinity Dashboard is a smart little app that's designed to let you track and monitor anything, from your wife's birthday to the weather at your upcoming vacation spot to the current price of Bitcoin. There are 35 built-in modules for tracking weather, travel times, website stacks, stock prices, social network metrics, and more, and you can also write your own custom modules. Some modules, like price trackers, support notifications, and there are several design themes to choose from. A free trial ('https://fiplab.com/apps/infinity-dashboard-for-mac') is available.
A: "When did you two meet?"

B: "Here! Log into my web dashboard and you can track it in real-time!"

A: [backs away slowly]



Attachment Image
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolfactor Avatar
96 months ago
UBar appears to be $30 dollars rather than $15. $15 dollars is the upgrade price.
... and there's no way I'm paying even a single dollar to make my Mac look more like Windows with its Task Bar! :p
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RudySnow Avatar
96 months ago
Do people still use Macs?

Apple/Cook must be disappointed.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swingerofbirch Avatar
96 months ago
I love that there are these great Mac apps, but I don't purchase any because I've had all my needs met for a long time. I wish there were something that appealed to me because I'd like to support them.

I feel like there are a few things going on. The 1980s heralded desktop publishing. Then there was the Web age which came around the same time as the multimedia CD-ROM age. Then there were apps for MP3s (eventually iTunes), and apps for creating media (iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand) along with the apps for organizing/managing your devices (iTunes, iSync, iPhoto). But all those devices are now self-servicing. And all multi-media stuff can easily be consumed on the web, or can be shared/edited from the same mobile devices from which it's captured. Web-page creation is sort of now only for pros or it's done through blogging template sites (oh how I miss GoLive--one of my favorite apps of all time). There's no real big "era" of software right now filling a need on the desktop.

When I have had to send my MBP in for repairs, I've used a Chromebook and been able to play my music from Spotify, watch Netflix, and edit documents in Google Docs. The MBP is certainly nicer for those things, but the Web being so capable has probably made native applications less necessary than they used to be. In some cases even with media, I find the Web superior. For example, scrubbing video in QuickTime is a pain. I can more easily scrub video in YouTube. And selecting clips to trim in QuickTime is also bafflingly difficult (why doesn't the playhead remain in place when you drag the yellow sliders?).

Anyhow, after being so dreary about apps, my favorites are: Chrome (bloated but works well), Spotify (love the UI), EvoCam (simple to use, unfortunately no longer supported), Sleepytime (turns off music/sound in various apps after a certain time when you're going to bed), F.lux for my sensitive pupils, Chroma (for controlling my Philips Hue lights), OneDrive (my current online storage of choice--to be honest, Google Drive, OneDrive, and DropBox seem identical to me--just using this now because I have 1 TB free through my dad's subscription to Office), Microsoft Word (it's still the best for word processing), Pages (the best for page layout--I make pretty elaborate invitations, etc., with this--but it is wretched for word processing), Pixelmator (I generally use this for making titles in iMovie), iMovie (which I actually really don't like anymore--iMovie 6 HD was the last version I really enjoyed, but it's what I still use in spite of it seeming much less user friendly than it used to), DaisyDisk (for finding what is mysteriously taking up disk space), and Tidepool Uploader (an app that interfaces with tidepool.org and lets you upload data from various blood glucose monitors and continuous glucose monitors and has an infinitely better interface than ones included with the products--if you have diabetes you should give it a try).
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)