The Best Mac Apps I’m Actually Using in 2026

A lot has changed in the last year. I’ve always been a designer and creator first. But ever since Claude Code and Codex came along, I’ve found myself building things. Websites, apps, tools. Stuff I never thought I’d make.

These are the apps that make my setup work right now.

Eagle — My Inspiration Library

Every designer needs somewhere to save the things that stop them scrolling. Eagle is that place for me.

You drag images, videos, screenshots, and GIFs into it. Organise them into folders. Tag them. Then they’re just there whenever you need them.

The feature that got me is the video hover preview. Hover over a saved video and it just plays. No clicking, no loading. I save clips from Instagram, X, YouTube — and I can skim through all of them instantly. Genius.

You can share the library with your team through Dropbox or Google Drive too, because it’s essentially just a folder of files. Anyone with Eagle installed can load it up and see everything. One place for all your inspiration.

I’m also picky about what I save. If I’m saving it, I genuinely think it’s amazing.

Ship Studio — Development With a Designer’s Brain

I only found this a few weeks ago. Already started two projects in it.

Ship Studio takes the terminal and gives it a proper workspace. Agent, terminal, live preview, assets, branch — all in one window. No switching context, no switching apps.

The bit I love most is the visual editor. Click on any element in your preview and a panel opens on the right that looks exactly like Figma or Framer. Change the padding, margin, size — all visually. No typing instructions to an AI asking it to move something a few pixels. I just move it myself, then push the changes.

You can also run multiple agents on the same project at once. Claude Code, Codex, whatever. All in the same window.

And it’s free. Actually free.

Hermes — A Private AI That’s Always On

Hermes isn’t a replacement for Claude or ChatGPT. It’s more like a harness for them. It uses those models as the brain, but handles everything else — the memory, the history, the context. And crucially, all of that stays private. It doesn’t live on someone else’s server.

I’ve installed it on a Mac Mini in another part of my house, with Tailscale connecting everything together. So now I have a dedicated AI computer that’s always on, even when my MacBook is in my bag.

I’ve connected it to Telegram too, so I can message it from my phone. Ask it to summarise my emails, run automations, whatever — it just handles it.

I haven’t pushed it to its full potential yet. But the setup alone is already really useful.

Sleeve — The Tiny Music Player in My Corner

People always ask about the little music player in the corner of my screen whenever I post my setup.

It’s called Sleeve. It shows whatever is playing on your Mac — album art, track name, artist. That’s it.

I’m always listening to music when I’m at my desk. And I’m always on Discover Weekly, finding artists I’ve never heard of. Being able to glance at the corner and see what’s playing without switching windows is just really nice. Simple app. Does one thing well.

Dia — The Browser I Fully Switched To

I’m not on Safari. I’m not on Chrome. Dia is my browser now.

It’s built on Chromium, so all your Chrome extensions still work. But the design is just cleaner. And the vertical tabs make so much more sense — most websites scroll vertically, so why do tabs sit horizontally at the top? Once you switch, you can’t go back.

The auto tab grouping is the other thing I love. Open a few tabs from the same place and Dia groups them automatically. Collapse them, expand them, close them all at once. It’s the kind of thing you wonder why no other browser does.

You can also drag two tabs side by side. Two pages, one window.

My only complaint — no mobile version yet.

CleanShot X — Screenshots Done Properly

I’m actually using CleanShot X to record the video this is based on, so I can’t show it running on screen. But I use it for everything.

It replaces the built-in Mac screenshot tool entirely. Annotate, blur, highlight, upload to the cloud and share a link — all built in. The blur tool especially. Share a screenshot publicly, blur out anything private, done in seconds.

Screen recording is excellent too. Set your resolution, aspect ratio, audio input, and go.

If you take a lot of screenshots for work, this is the one.

Dock Door — Alt+Tab, but on Mac

Windows has had Alt+Tab for years. It shows thumbnails of every open window so you can jump between them fast. Mac never had anything like it natively.

Dock Door adds it. Press Option+Tab and every open window shows up as a thumbnail. Click and you’re there.

It also works with the dock. Hover over any app icon and you see thumbnails of all its open windows. Hover over Spotify and your playback controls appear right there.

Small app. Genuinely useful once it’s in your muscle memory.

Usage — A Health Check for Your Mac

Usage shows you what your Mac is doing. CPU, memory, battery health, network, disk — all of it.

I mostly just keep the menu bar widget running. A few small numbers sitting in the top bar. Everything I need at a glance without opening anything. Way better than digging through Activity Monitor every time something feels slow.

Raycast — Spotlight, but Actually Powerful

This is the one I’d miss most if it disappeared.

Raycast replaces Spotlight — the search bar that pops up when you hit Command+Space. But it does way more. Clipboard history, window management, emoji picker, calculator, AI tools — all out of the box. Then you connect it to your apps. Linear, Spotify, 1Password, Slack, Zoom. They all live inside Raycast.

Track a flight, convert units, find a file, run a script, translate something. All from the same bar. The extensions store has hundreds more things you can add on top.

Once Raycast is part of how you work, going back to regular Spotlight feels genuinely painful.

Everything Else

Beyond those, I keep it simple. Claude for AI, ClickUp and Notion for staying organised, Spark for email, Spotify for music.

I try to use as few apps as possible. Every extra app is something else pulling your attention. The goal is always fewer tools doing more.