Keyboard shortcut to 'love' an Apple Music Song, after 3.5 years

The app Looking Glass - Music Remote in the Mac App Store is a menu bar app that allows you to control or skip music etc.

If you're in the menu bar, you can hit "Cmd L" but if you're in something else it doesn't work. There's a submenu in the settings that allows you to record a custom keyboard shortcut, so I set mine to Ctrl Opt Cmd L and it works from anywhere.

I previously tried doing this through Apple's system settings and that never worked. I tried a few specific methods.

This is all I wanted from Apple Music ever.

I'm not dumb, but I might be, and I just wish this functionality was native already haha.

https://redd.it/1os15cs
@macappsbackup

Anyone here tried Refbox for keeping visual notes or refs on screen?

I came across of Refbox app and it looks interesting
From what i get it lets you keep images or notes floating over other apps, basically like a small workspace for refs and reminders

Anyone here has tried it for real work?
Does it feel smooth or get buggy?
Im trying to find something light that helps keep visual stuff in view without switching windows all the time

https://redd.it/1os2q1f
@macappsbackup

App similar to "Findings"

https://findingsapp.com

Discontinued a few years ago, it looks like a notes organizer geared to scientific stuff. Wondering if anyone used it and what they replaced it with, if anything.

I'm researching for a writing project and something like this seems pretty cool.

https://redd.it/1os44s8
@macappsbackup

BETA I made a posture reminder menu bar app

https://preview.redd.it/gxoqs2fil50g1.png?width=2296&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6116c11c91029399f0c496e5a4b11c63bf9be0b

https://preview.redd.it/5c012ohql50g1.png?width=1838&format=png&auto=webp&s=104a1071693dfa8c7b6382dc41d969bbc14dad4b

I always end up slouching in front of my laptop so I made a posture reminder app that shows me how I look every 20 minutes.


You can customize the interval and see some nice stats on how often you were straight v. straightened up, etc.


TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Gtp7HEvd

https://redd.it/1os9a15
@macappsbackup

Does Betterdsipaly natively change DDC?

DOes betterdisplay natively change DDC, as in same as clicking the monitor's buttons to adjust brightness, contrast, etc? Also, if I can change brightness and volume with betterdisplay, I have DDC right? Idk what monitor model exactly, but I know it's an acer nitro VG something.

https://redd.it/1ose0zw
@macappsbackup

BuhoBarX

Another menubar management tool, it's nice and works ok-ish. The floating bar has some issues on my Mac, it should look like this...

https://preview.redd.it/25u4bneyo70g1.png?width=1108&format=png&auto=webp&s=08bf7a0781b9f04d2508645e0e6f76e5a0bce481

...but it looks like that

https://preview.redd.it/h2dlr2k6p70g1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=c27bddb823341c007f30c328dfed29cc88e3b4c6

https://www.drbuho.com/buhobarx

https://redd.it/1osghb2
@macappsbackup

Is there any way to get always on top clock for MacOS Mojave?

I want to see the clock while other apps are full screen. Is there any way to do it on MacOS Mojave?

https://redd.it/1osg6wh
@macappsbackup

My MacBook Setup - What else should I do or change or remove?

My Mac setup



Hardware

\--------

M3 Max MacBook Pro 48GB ram 1TB SDD with macOS 26.0

CalDigit TS4 docking station

SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD, 2TB External SSD connected to TS4

Synology DS423+ NAS





Apps

\---------

1Password - password manager and 2FA key manager

Active Backup for Google Workspace - Synology NAS app to back up my Google Workspace account files to my NAS

Aldente - helps prolong your battery's life

Alt-Tab, MissionControl+, WINS - allow you to manage and position your apps on screen

Amphetamine - prevents the mac from going into sleep mode

Arq - remote backup "just in case”

AutoMounter - to ensure that our NAS folders are mounted at startup

BackBlaze - another remote backup “just in case”

Barbee- an app that allows you to manage the ever-growing number of menubar app icons

BrewMate - handy UI for discovering, installing, deleting, and updating homebrew apps

Brightintosh - makes my macbook pro screen brighter

CarbonCopyCloner - makes scheduled backups to an external SSD or HDD

Caffeine - to provide a second layer of protection to make sure that my Mac does not go into sleep mode

Chrome - my primary browser - because that is what almost all of my clients and their customers use

CleanMyMac - all  in one system cleaner and tune up

Dato - menubar quick look at your calendar

HyperBackup - Synology NAS app to back up my Time Machine backup files from my NAS to an attached SSD

iGlasses - allows (some) control over the built in MacBook camera for Zoom

LanguageTool for desktop - grammar, spell checker, and style guide

Little Snitch - firewall

MalwareBytes - Malware protection

Parachute Backup - backs up your icloud data to a storage location somewhere else like an SSD or a NAS

PopClip - a huge timesaver, provides quick access to many functions when you select text on screen

Proton VPN (I only use it when I actually need to use a VPN though)

QSpacePro - an improvement over Finder, multiple finder panes

Raycast - a replacement for spotlight search that allows an amazing array of tools and ai assistance

RealVNC - for remote access from my other devices

Shottr - Much better for screenshots, especially annotating them 

Stealthly - automatically sets Do Not Disturb whenever your camera is in us, such as with zoom and facetime, to prevent messages from popping up in the top right corner of your screen

Sublime Text Editor

Supercharge - control over various parts of macos to make things work better

TimeMachine - built in mac app to backup your mac 









https://redd.it/1oslqtq
@macappsbackup

The best app for custom icons?

Wanna change default icons for my apps, the best app to handle it?

https://redd.it/1osmi7i
@macappsbackup

Calibre Gets Better With Every Update

https://preview.redd.it/t8tvkq9vw80g1.png?width=3702&format=png&auto=webp&s=7747ba578a69512e5a759cbc842d0a8d418e2820

The free and open-source e-book manager, Calibre, by developer Kovid Goyal, has been around for quite a few years now. It is multi-platform, with versions for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is somewhat homely, although it includes functions to customize its appearance. It definitely does not follow typical macOS interface standards, so if that's something you require, you might have to compromise if you want access to Calibre's features. However, for anyone with a moderate to large-sized collection of e-books, it is a must-have toolbox, and after using it for a decade, I am still finding new things it is capable of doing.

When you use Calibre to organize your collection of e-books, it can quickly show you all the books by the same author or in a book series or even books based around a specific set of topics if you take the time to tag your books when adding them to the app. It supports a huge number of formats (EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, PDF, TXT, CBZ/CBR comics, etc.) and has a built-in format converter if you want to standardize into something like ePub. The built-in viewer is perfectly fine for reading books on your computer. The Calibre database allows you to create your own fields with a list of data types that you can use. You can choose to display them or not, and organize your books accordingly. It's easy to dump your entire collection into a single logical organization but view different subsets as virtual libraries. You can group books by very specific criteria, such as books about baseball published in the 1990s with a four-star or above rating that you have already read and own a physical copy of.

Calibre has a robust collection of free plug-ins that are integrated with other services such as Goodreads, The Open Library, and Hardcover. You can tap into the review and book jacket databases of many different websites. If you are looking for a book that you do not own, you can search for it from within the Calibre interface using both free and paid websites. Calibre can perform many actions on individual books, such as page counts and determining reading levels. You can choose to have it index the contents of your entire collection of e-books, which will enable you to quickly perform full-text searches, a feature that can be invaluable when doing research. You can use Calibre to edit e-books and to join and split e-books, which is useful when you have an omnibus edition of a collection and you want to make individual files.

If you use an electronic reader of almost any type or vintage, you can use Calibre to add and remove content, especially file types that the native software doesn't handle well. If you want to read news articles and magazine articles on an e-reader, Calibre has built-in functionality to download and format them for you.

I keep my Calibre library in a couple of places: my always-on Mac and mirrored to my self-hosted server. I have local and remote access to it, allowing me to share books with other people via links and email and to read anything in my collection from a browser, no matter where I am.

# Strengths

Versatility
Conversion
Metadata and library management
Device and content server support
Open source and extensibility
Frequent updates and new features

# What Mac Users Don't Like

Non-standard interface
Poor handling of complex conversions (although to be fair, even expensive paid apps like Abby Fine Reader can struggle with these)
Complexity and learning curve
Limited support for older macOS versions - There are versions of Calibre that will work all the way back to OS X versions, but don't expect them to match the latest version feature for feature.

# What's New

If you used Calibre in the past but haven't checked it out recently, here are a few of the latest feature additions:

Native Kepub support for Kobo readers
"Connect to folder" capability to treat remote folders as if

Calibre Gets Better With Every Update

https://preview.redd.it/t8tvkq9vw80g1.png?width=3702&format=png&auto=webp&s=7747ba578a69512e5a759cbc842d0a8d418e2820

The free and open-source e-book manager, [Calibre, by developer Kovid Goyal](https://calibre-ebook.com/), has been around for quite a few years now. It is multi-platform, with versions for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is somewhat homely, although it includes functions to customize its appearance. It definitely does not follow typical macOS interface standards, so if that's something you require, you might have to compromise if you want access to Calibre's features. However, for anyone with a moderate to large-sized collection of e-books, it is a must-have toolbox, and after using it for a decade, I am still finding new things it is capable of doing.

When you use Calibre to organize your collection of e-books, it can quickly show you all the books by the same author or in a book series or even books based around a specific set of topics if you take the time to tag your books when adding them to the app. It supports a huge number of formats (EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, PDF, TXT, CBZ/CBR comics, etc.) and has a built-in format converter if you want to standardize into something like ePub. The built-in viewer is perfectly fine for reading books on your computer. The Calibre database allows you to create your own fields with a list of data types that you can use. You can choose to display them or not, and organize your books accordingly. It's easy to dump your entire collection into a single logical organization but view different subsets as virtual libraries. You can group books by very specific criteria, such as books about baseball published in the 1990s with a four-star or above rating that you have already read and own a physical copy of.

Calibre has a robust collection of free plug-ins that are integrated with other services such as Goodreads, The Open Library, and Hardcover. You can tap into the review and book jacket databases of many different websites. If you are looking for a book that you do not own, you can search for it from within the Calibre interface using both free and paid websites. Calibre can perform many actions on individual books, such as page counts and determining reading levels. You can choose to have it index the contents of your entire collection of e-books, which will enable you to quickly perform full-text searches, a feature that can be invaluable when doing research. You can use Calibre to edit e-books and to join and split e-books, which is useful when you have an omnibus edition of a collection and you want to make individual files.

If you use an electronic reader of almost any type or vintage, you can use Calibre to add and remove content, especially file types that the native software doesn't handle well. If you want to read news articles and magazine articles on an e-reader, Calibre has built-in functionality to download and format them for you.

I keep my Calibre library in a couple of places: my always-on Mac and mirrored to my self-hosted server. I have local and remote access to it, allowing me to share books with other people via links and email and to read anything in my collection from a browser, no matter where I am.

# Strengths

* Versatility
* Conversion
* Metadata and library management
* Device and content server support
* Open source and extensibility
* Frequent updates and new features

# What Mac Users Don't Like

* Non-standard interface
* Poor handling of complex conversions (although to be fair, even expensive paid apps like Abby Fine Reader can struggle with these)
* Complexity and learning curve
* Limited support for older macOS versions - There are versions of Calibre that will work all the way back to OS X versions, but don't expect them to match the latest version feature for feature.

# What's New

If you used Calibre in the past but haven't checked it out recently, here are a few of the latest feature additions:

* Native Kepub support for Kobo readers
* "Connect to folder" capability to treat remote folders as if

they were USB storage devices
* Interface changes in the Mac version to meet some Mac design specs
* Improved opening speeds for large ePubs
* Light/Dark mode for the display grid using book covers
* Metadata merging (including comments) for books
* Bulk operations improvement, including the ability to cancel remaining actions in a large queue without losing the actions already performed on the queue.

https://redd.it/1oslffp
@macappsbackup

EXIF Editor Tool 2.0 is here
https://redd.it/1osaw01
@macappsbackup

I made an app that will let you control your computer with voice

Hey guys!

First time posting here :)

I made an app that's like a voice powered executive assistant that lives right on your keyboard called Neutron. So you can click 1 button, ramble to your computer, and it will just write and execute tasks for you.

Think Wispr Flow but instead of literal dictation, it can write things, rephrase what you are saying, or integrate with your tools (like calendar) and execute actions for you

Examples:

1. It writes directly into any text box (ramble in, polished text out)

>"Write this reply to Jeff and tell him ... be polite but firm"

2. It can access files, write, organize, and more

>"Take this icon file and make 10 new files that are all the standard icon sizes"

3. We are rolling out integrations so you can say (this feature is active development)

>"Create a meeting on my calendar with x tomorrow at 10am"

Let us know which integrations are most important to you!

4. It can see everything on your screen, so you can get a second opinion

>"What do you think of this graph? Or is this message too pushy?"

The beauty is that you just need to hold 1 button and speak, and then the AI can do any of this stuff for you.

We're looking for early users right now to iterate on feedback quickly. If this seems like something you would be interested in, please let me know :)

PS: Used the "free" flair cause we have a generous free tier, but there is a paid version too

Check it out here: https://getneutron.com

https://redd.it/1osrsvi
@macappsbackup

Audio Hijack transcribe feature, only getting one timestamp

Hey everyone,

I’ve been testing out Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba, partially because I wanted to play around with the built-in transcribe feature.

However, I’ve noticed that the trannoscription output only gives me a single block of text with one timestamp (the start time) instead of breaking it up by segments or speakers.

I’m just using my MBPs built-in microphone as my input device, nothing fancy.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I’m wondering if it’s a limitation of the trial, something with my setup, or if I’m missing a setting somewhere.

Using the transcribe template also did not work.

Thanks!


https://redd.it/1osrwq8
@macappsbackup

Best free voice to text api

Hey guys, I was wondering what are some of the best free APIs that people use for voice to text, trannoscription, and dictation.

For instance, I know that Groq has a bunch of nice free APIs where you can use Whisper V3 large turbo model. But I was wondering if anybody knows any other great, preferably free APIs for different voice-to-text models.

Thanks in advance!

https://redd.it/1osuxl1
@macappsbackup

Building the AI Chat Client I Wish Already Existed (Native & Local First)

I’m building a fully native, fully local AI chat client for macOS. I know there are many out there already, but after spending a lot of time trying them all, I’ve found that each one is missing several key features that I consider essential. Below is the feature set I’m targeting. I’d love to hear what you think, and if there are additional features you’d want.


Core Features (standard)

Multi-model support
Bring Your Own Key (local + API models)
Knowledge base / document embeddings
Chat organization: projects, folders, grouping
Image generation support
Model parameter controls (temperature, max tokens, etc.)
Optional web search
MCP Support


New / Advanced Features

Advanced Conversation Management
Conversation branching — fork the conversation at any point.
Context editing — if a response is wrong, you can remove or rewrite individual messages so they don’t pollute future context.
Advanced Context Control
Context usage visualization — see how much context has been consumed, which messages contribute the most, and how much remains.
Smart context condensation — instead of simply deleting old messages, the client can summarize or extract only the information that matters, freeing up context without losing important details.
Cost tracking — shows token usage and estimated spend per conversation.
Advanced Prompt Library
Store structured prompt templates with three variable types:
Auto-Fill Variables — values automatically generated/fetched (e.g., date/time, system info, API data).
User-Fill Variables — cursor jumps to these fields for fast manual input, with tab-through.
Clipboard-aware insertion — when a clipboard pattern matches, the client auto-injects its contents.
Global shortcuts — launch a new chat with a specific template from anywhere.
Profiles
Separate profiles with isolated:
Chats
Settings
API keys
Prompt libraries
Model configurations

If there’s a feature you always wish AI chat clients had, something that’s consistently missing elsewhere, please share it. I’m especially interested in power-user workflow improvements, subtle UX refinements, and the “why doesn’t any client do this?” details that would make this your primary daily tool.

Also, I am genuinely terrible at naming things and haven’t settled on a name for the app yet. So if a name comes to mind that fits the vision, I’d really appreciate suggestions.

I’ll be selecting several people who contribute to this thread for early beta access, and a few of the most helpful participants may receive free lifetime access to the platform.

Looking forward to your ideas.

https://redd.it/1ossv73
@macappsbackup

IINA question - online-media plug-in

Does anyone here use the media player Iina - with the online-media plug-in? I can't figure out how it works. I seem to be prompted to put in a URL and then credentials.
I put in a YouTube video URL and my Google account credentials, but it always fails.

Am i missing a dependency? It seems like the plug-in comes with the ytdlp portion but maybe I'm wrong about that.

https://redd.it/1osxc55
@macappsbackup

The best file name search tool on MacOs is Everything via Windows and Parallels

Why do the file name search tools on MacOS all suck compared to Everything on windows? I tried bascially all of them (houdahspot, cling, profind, findanyfile, cardinal etc) and they are all limited in various ways (either slow, don't actually find all files, or have a stupid fuzzy search feature which produces random files or omits files) compared to Everything on windows. I have now started using Everything to search files via Windows using a Parallels installation and despite this ridiculous convolution, it actually is faster and better at finding files according to file names than any native macos app! this is a strange situation, i wish someone would finally build a proper Everything equivalent on MacOS that seaches file NAMES fast and does not use the spotlight index. Spotlight has its uses but most of the time i just want to find the name of a file, not search the contents of every document and pdf i have on my disk.

End of rant!

https://redd.it/1ot0fhz
@macappsbackup

Hidden File Cleaner: Updated for Tahoe (plus limited time discount)! Cleanup unnecessary hidden files like .DS_Store on your external drives and file shares automatically

https://redd.it/1ot0a4i
@macappsbackup