6 Mac apps that fixed annoyances I had stopped noticing

I am very good at ignoring small problems.

My battery sits at 100 percent for weeks. My clipboard forgets everything the second I copy something new. My menu bar looks like a junk drawer. I notice all of it, I sigh, and then I get on with my day.

Then one afternoon I fixed all of it with a handful of small apps. None of them is famous. All of them are still on my Mac.

I kept six that earned their place. These apps will help you:

• Stop wearing out your laptop battery
• Never lose something you copied
• Put windows exactly where you want them
• Clean up a crowded menu bar
• Watch HDR and Dolby Vision video on a Mac
• Take better screenshots without thinking about it

Let me start with the one I wish I had installed years ago.

1. AlDente: protect your Mac battery health

Stop your MacBook battery from living at 100 percent.

My MacBook lives on a desk. It has been plugged in for most of its life, and I never once asked what that does to the battery. Turns out a battery that sits full all day ages faster than one that rests lower.

AlDente is a tiny menu bar app that caps how far your Mac charges.

• Set a limit, for example 80 percent
• Sits quietly in the menu bar
• Lift the limit when you need a full charge before a trip

Price: free to start, with a paid Pro tier for extra features. Check the site for current details.

Checkout here: AlDente

2. Maccy: a clipboard manager for Mac

A clipboard that remembers.

I used to copy something, copy something else, and then realise I needed the first thing. You know that small drop in your stomach. Maccy removes it.

It keeps a history of what you copied and lets you search it by typing. That is it. It is wonderfully dull.

• Press a shortcut, see your recent copies
• Type to search the history
• Pin the things you paste all the time
• Keyboard first, no clutter

Price: free to download from its website, and also available in the Mac App Store. It is open source.

Checkout here: Maccy

3. Rectangle: a window manager for Mac

Windows that go where you tell them.

I used to drag windows around for a living, or at least it felt that way. Two documents side by side meant resizing by eye, badly, every single time.

Rectangle snaps a window to a half, a third or a corner with a keyboard shortcut. You can also drag a window to the screen edge and let it snap.

• Halves, thirds, corners, full screen, all on shortcuts
• Drag to an edge to snap
• Works the way you already think about your screen

Price: free and open source, with an optional paid Pro version.

Checkout here: Rectangle

4. Ice: hide menu bar icons on Mac

Hide the menu bar icons you never click.

Count the icons in your menu bar. Now count the ones you actually use. Completely unnecessary clutter, and I lived with it for years. On a MacBook with a notch it gets worse, because some icons simply disappear behind it.

Ice lets you tuck rarely used icons behind a small arrow and bring them back when you want them.

• Hide icons you do not need every day
• Show them again in one click
• Free and open source

Price: free.

Checkout here: Ice

5. Stoic: an HDR video player for Mac

Watch HDR and Dolby Vision video on a Mac without the washed out colours.

A quick disclosure first: I make this one. I am including it anyway because the problem is real, and I built Stoic to fix it for myself.

Here is the problem. You download a film, open it, and the colours look grey and flat. Or a file that should glow looks dim. Plenty of Mac players struggle with HDR, and Dolby Vision files are the worst offenders.

Stoic is a native HDR video player for Apple silicon Macs. It plays MKV, MP4, MOV and many other formats, and it reads HDR10, HDR10 Plus, HLG and Dolby Vision so the picture looks the way the file intends on your screen.

• Dolby Vision Profile 5 and 8.1, HDR10, HDR10 Plus and HLG
• Ten band equalizer and speed from 0.25x to 4x with the pitch kept
• No account, no tracking, your files stay on your Mac
• Picks up the subtitle file sitting next to your film, chooses your language, and fixes the timing against the audio when it is off

If you spend your day inside ChatGPT, Stoic also has a page there: Stoic in ChatGPT.

Price: $9, one time. One licence covers up to three of your Macs. Needs an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 26 or later.

Checkout here: Stoic

6. CleanShot X: a screenshot app for Mac

Screenshots that do not feel like a chore.

I used to take a screenshot, open it, crop it, save it somewhere I would never find it again. Every. Single. Time.

CleanShot X replaces the built in tool with something that gets out of your way. Capture, mark up, copy, done.

• Capture an area, a window or the whole screen
• Annotate straight after you capture
• Record the screen when a picture is not enough

Price: paid. Check the site for the current price and plans.

Checkout here: CleanShot X

Why one-time purchase Mac apps matter

Most of these apps come from small teams, and two of them are open source. That is exactly why they feel so good. Someone cared about one small problem and kept polishing the answer.

If you use an app every day, please pay for it, or sponsor it if it is free. A one time purchase means the app keeps working, the developer keeps building, and nobody has to sell your data to keep the lights on.

Now I want to hear from you. Which small Mac app fixed a problem you did not know you had? Tell me in the comments. I am always collecting new ones.

Thanks for reading :)