In today's age of automation, there's simply no reason you should spend precious seconds every morning brewing coffee when you could be catching an extra five minutes of ZZZs.
It seems as if 'automation,' 'productivity' and 'efficiency' are developers' favorite terms these days and thus new products meant to save time and effort are hitting the market at lightening speed. It can be head-spinning to keep up with all of these apps and decide which are actually worth testing out — so we made you a quick list of today's top tools for streamlining your life.
Fortunately, there are a few good Pomodoro apps for Mac. Depending on functionalities, UI and the whole impact on workflow, you can find the best one. In this article, we have listed some of the most popular and effective Pomodoro timer apps for Mac.
See also: The 9 best productivity apps for iPhone of all time
Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It’ll also give you access to advanced iOS shortcuts, tips and tricks, and lots more. Starting at $5/month, with an annual option available.
Apple Shortcuts is among the best productivity apps for anyone with an iPhone or iPad. This app lets you create automations, that is, a series of events that happens automatically when you trigger it.
If you're still stuck in the dark ages of manually jotting down grocery lists, below are 13 tools that can put your life on cruise control.
Ios Automation App
Work and productivity
The office is the primary place for productivity levels to either soar or stagnate. With an overwhelming inbox and a cluttered desktop, it's no wonder distractions abound. Below are a few easy apps and platforms for maximizing your workday.
Automate your life: Workflow, which has earned accolades such as the App Store Best of 2015 and the 2015 Apple Design Award, is a personal automation tool that allows users to create a countless combination of actions using an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch.
There are more than 200 commands available, including fun and efficient ways to manage contacts, calendars, maps, photos, music, social media accounts, Evernote and more. Create PDFs straight from Safari, easily select and save all the images on a web page, find your way around town more efficiently than ever before and more with this jack-of-all-trades productivity tool. Download the Today Widget for even easier access.
Learn all the shortcuts: For Mac users who still haven't fully mastered the fine art of keyboard shortcuts, 2016 is the year to finally get with the program. CheatSheet is a helpful way to learn the lay of the land and become fluent in shortcuts. This simple tool makes your every wish and whim your Mac's Command.
Never miss a meeting: We'd be remiss to exclude mention of the calendar, a platform that's equally reviled and depended upon in today's tech-driven workplace. Zeppelin air mac app. In truth, there's almost no workday faux pas more frustrating than missing a call due to time zone confusion or flubbing a meeting invite. Luckily, beautifully simple tools like Plan and Calendly can help make productivity sucks things of the past.
Digital detox: If your desktop looks like a minefield of miscellaneous Word documents and stale image files, it's time to do a little cleanup. Clean, a utility that automatically cleans your Mac's desktop once a day, organizes your files without deleting things you may later decide are relevant. Choose between daily or weekly cleanups depending upon how quickly your desktop accumulates clutter.
Home life, health and hobbies
Maybe you've got your office routine running like a well-oiled machine, but nobody can call themselves a true master of productivity if their streamlining practices don't extend to the home (or the gym, or the studio).
DO more: DO by IFTTT is a product that creates one-button actions for your iPhone or Android device, which function as shortcuts to the things you do most frequently. The DO Button, DO Camera and DO Note apps make the connected tools you use every day such as the Nest Thermostat, Slack, Google Drive or Philips Hue lighting system even more efficient and accessible. It's a simple idea, but a real game-changer.
Skip Starbucks: Morning coffee is an indispensable part of many of our morning routines, but coffee fiends are often faced with a serious dilemma: Sacrifice precious minutes of sleep in the morning to brew your own cup of joe, or spend hundreds of dollars a year buying morning lattes.
Enter the smart coffee maker, an ingenious solution to this very conundrum. There are both durable options and sleek, visually stunning models that run the gamut of price range, and easily connect to your smartphone for seamless automation of your morning brew. The smarter connected coffee maker or iKettle is a solid mid-range model for UK-based consumers and the Mr. Coffee Smart WiFi-Enabled model is a reliable option available in the U.S.
Never miss a deadline or birthday: 100 million Americans deal with numbers on a daily basis.
Alright, so we made that one up. But the point is an immeasurable percentage of us are overwhelmed by the sheer number of numbers we deal with on a daily basis.Numerous is an app designed to help get your daily dose of digits under control. Dates, deadlines, debt — this app can manage whatever you need to track. It's available for both iPhone and Android.
Talk to your home: You've probably already heard of Amazon Echo, the all-in-one, voice-activated home control system brought to you by everyone's favorite on-demand drone delivery service (coming soon). But soon, these home systems will be prolific — and there's more than one option on the market.
The Ivee, for example, is a recently funded Indiegogo project currently available for pre-order that calls itself the 'the first multi-room voice assistant for the home' and connects with Spotify, Uber, Nest and other platforms you use daily.
Re-stock the kitchen with the push of a button: Speaking of Amazon, for Prime addicts who order their entire lives online, the Amazon Dash Button may become your new BFF.
The physical button, which attaches to your washing machine, fridge or any surface in your home, allows you to seamlessly re-order supplies when you're running low (think: dryer sheet, toilet paper).
Cook for the upcoming week: The gorgeous Prepd Pack lunchbox is a seriously next-level brown-bag lunch concept.
Instead of using valuable brainpower to plan lunch every day, this all-in-one kit does most of the work for you. The set pairs with an app that provides recipes easy pre-planning tricks for an entire week's worth of meals. Designed with nutrition in mind, the app's recipes have been developed with input from professional chefs and nutritionists, and can be adapted to a wide range of lifestyles and diets.
Prepd, which was fully funded on Kickstarter in just six hours, is set to start shipping to backers sometime in February 2016.
Quit counting calories: Another useful app designed to help easily manage and automate your diet is EatThisMuch. The platform automatically creates diet plans to align with your health or weight loss goals and generates grocery lists to let you know exactly what to pick up at the store (or order via Amazon Now).
Stay hydrated: Drinking enough water is one of the most basic necessities for functioning at full capacity, but it's also one of the most easily overlooked when balancing a busy schedule. HidrateMe is another Kickstarter product making a splash. The smart-water-bottle-plus-app combo is meant to manage your daily water intake with easy reminders and the bottle glows when it's time for you to take a swig.
For serious streamliners, the Fontus is a recently developed product that's actually a self-refilling water bottle (yes you heard that correctly). The device uses condensation in the air to science the heck out of your daily hydration routine. We're talking automation on a whole new level.
Your time is precious, and spending just a few seconds downloading an app may save countless hours in the long run — not to mention that, with the time you save on menial tasks, you're better able to focus on matters about which you're truly passionate.
Utilities • Updated on June. 28, 2020
There are some repetitive tasks that almost all of us do.
Sometimes, it’s arranging certain files. Sometimes, it’s typing the same old text content. And sometimes, it’s about renaming a huge bulk of images.
As it happens, you spend a lot of time on these tasks — and you could have spent the time productively.
Why Mac automation matters
Let’s state the obvious: repetitive tasks are boring. You don’t want to sit in front of your computer, select one hundred files and move them to a particular folder. Would it not be easier if you could click one button and got the job done for you?
Yes. Yes, it obviously would be.
According to Harvard Business Review, from a technical standpoint, work that occupies 45% of employee time could be automated by adapting currently available or demonstrated technology. And for 60% of existing US jobs, 30% of their time could be reduced by automation.
Automating your Mac can certainly save you a lot of time. Unlike what you think, you will be hours per week in keeping your Mac more organized and accessible. I, for one, spend several minutes a day in decluttering my desktop and arranging my files. So, that’s a win-win situation, I believe.
Trust me, automation is fun too. Imagine typing two letters to paste the letter template you attach with an email. You would not write something random because of the laziness to write the whole thing. And, you’d feel like a nerd when your desktop smartly organizes itself in a single tap.
Last but not least, automation is not just about maintaining your file system, but also about automating tasks to free up your time and attention.
The value of freeing up time and attention for things that actually matter can’t be overstated.
macOS built-in Automator & AppleScript
Yes, macOS has had a built-in automation solution for a long time. It’s aptly called Automator.
Automator allows you to create workflows, where you can add individual actions. For instance, one of these workflows may include actions to copy a file, rename it and save it with another extension. Now, any file to go through the workflow would be changed accordingly.
But, there is a catch.
I would not say Automator is bad, but it’s not the most usable automation solution for Mac. If you are not a Pro user, you may have trouble in setting up workflows and applications while using this utility.
At TheSweetBits, we believe in software that is easy to use. Apparently, Automator isn’t one of them. There is no difference in the case of AppleScript either. Both of them are capable, but only when you have time.
So, what would you do when you want easy automation in Mac?
Enter third-party automation tools for macOS.
The best third-party Mac automation apps
Unfortunately, you cannot find the ultimate third-party automation app for macOS. Nevertheless, we have found a total of seven software you can use for automating tasks in your Mac.
We are sure that you will love using them.
And, we have dedicated four of these apps for certain purposes.
Best for automating your file organization — Hazel
File Organization is perhaps the area that needs the maximum amount of automation. If you hate a cluttered desktop, you would be spending hours cleaning up stuff. Well, that’s not easy.
Fortunately, we have something like Hazel to help.
What is Hazel?
Hazel is an automation app that brings automated file/folder organization into your Mac. You can set up the tool to watch select folders on your computer for certain activities. Then, based on this information, folders and files would be modified. Let’s talk practical stuff to make things clear.
But, wait, that’s just the beginning.
Getting started with Hazel
Hazel is one of the easiest to use automation apps out there. Once installed, it becomes a part of your macOS Preferences pane. You can access it from the menu bar as well. As you can see, the interface is pretty simple and straightforward. First, you have to select the folder that you need to put under watch. Then, from the right pane, you will be able to choose the set of rules you want to impose. For instance, this rule will rename music files from Docs folder and move them to another folder named Music.
Once you hit OK, this rule will be active. So, whenever you add an MP3 file to Docs, it goes directly to Music.
Endless possibilities of automation
Ipad Home Automation App
As far as file management goes, the possibilities of Hazel is endless. You can set up multiple conditions and multiple actions with every rule. For instance, you can move the files to Music only if the MP3 file was created within a year. Similarly, you can add certain tags to the file before moving it to the selected folder.
There is so much you can do.
For instance, in the following rule, Hazel will sort the file into a subfolder if the file has not been modified in the past month. Not only that, Hazel will also add the date-created to the sub-folder name. Just so you know, it’s impossible to list out what you can do with the filing options in Hazel.
Trash management
Hazel can also keep an eye on your Trash folder. For instance, you can delete files from the Trash if they’ve been sitting in the Trash for a week/month/day. Hazel can also be automated to keep Trash under a specific size.
This automation app also offers some extra features like App Sweep and support for macOS technologies. It includes native support for Apple Script, Automator, macOS tags, Spotlight Integration etc. The whole deal of automation is as simple as it gets.
Availability & pricing
Hazel is available for macOS and you can purchase it from the official website.
A single license of Hazel costs you $32, but there is a 14-day trial you can check out. Best mac app.
So, if you want to automate file organization, go for Hazel.
Best for automating your complicated text typing — TextExpander
Typing the same stuff again and again is boring. At the same time, you can’t use random words or phrases in all instances. So, what do you do?
Enter text expansion, and we have the best tool — TextExpander.
What is TextExpander?
TextExpander is a text expansion app that you can have for your Mac. You can create snippets and when you type these snippets, TextExpander will replace it with the actual text. For instance, when you type signature, it will paste your actual signature. Doesn’t it sound awesome?
We had covered TextExpander in our best text expansion apps for Mac as well.
Getting started with TextExpander
It’s very easy to set up and start using TextExpander. Once installed, you can go ahead and create the very first snippet. As you can see on the screen, you have to type in the abbreviation as well as the content that you actually want on the screen. For instance, I’ve created a snippet for my sign. So, whenever I type ‘sign’ on my Mac, it would be replaced with the content that I’ve typed above. The best part is that you are not limited to plain text. You can also insert variables such as date, year, month, clipboard content etc.
Similarly, you can create as many snippets as you want.
Smarter text expansion
TextExpander is surely one of the smartest automation apps you can find today. Not only does it save time, but it also makes suggestions. For instance, if you have been frequently typing some words, it would suggest you making a snippet. Similarly, you can engage with the community and download pre-set snippets. When you are in the industry, this would help you reduce the time you spend in typing. TextExpander also has an option to group snippets — making the learning process easier.
Unlike some of the basic text expansion apps, TextExpander offers ample customizability too.
Customizing the experience
There are so many options of customization within the TextExpander interface. You can decide how the text appears and when it appears. For instance, you can decide whether space should be there after the expanded word. TextExpander also offers almost complete control over appearance and accessibility. For instance, you can turn on and turn off the expansion service using a bunch of keyboard hotkeys. What’s more, TextExpander even shows you a Statistics bar, where you know how much time you have saved.
Availability & pricing
TextExpander is available for macOS, iOS and Windows.
It comes with a subscription that costs $3.33 per month. There’s a fully-fledged trial for 30 days though.
Long story short, TextExpander is a time-saver and a smart way to type.
Best for automating your text cleanup — TextSoap
Do you know what’s as boring as typing the same thing over and over again? Cleaning copies. I’m not talking about grammatical or spelling errors here, but rather issues like lack of capitalization, extra spaces etc.
And, it’s pretty impressive that we have TextSoap.
What is TextSoap?
TextSoap is a text cleanup software that is designed for macOS devices. You can use TextSoap to remove an immense variety of unwanted elements from a piece of document. It basically automates a task, which could have taken a few hours from your hectic schedule.
As it happens, there is more to TextSoap than simply removing extra spaces. Best mac app for remote desktop.
Getting started with and using TextSoap
Once the installation is done, making use of TextSoap is easier than you imagine. As you can see below, the tool has a standard text editor interface. On the right side, however, you can see a number of pre-set cleanup commands.
There are hundreds of pre-set cleaning commands to choose from. For instance, you can turn all characters to capital, capitalize sentences and even capitalize common technical terms. In this case, it easily capitalizes macOS in a proper way.
Is it a time-saver? Well, in every way possible.
Automation everywhere
If you write for the web, you know how hard it is to manage quotes and present them uniformly. At this point of time, tools like TextSoap would surely come in handy. All it needs is a single click to clean the entire text document.
By the way, if you don’t find the right pre-sets on the tab, you can make the new one. The Custom Cleaner is a great way to make your own clean-up algorithm. Just like we did in other automation tools, you can bring multiple tasks together and arrange them for continuous work.
Once you are done, you can preview and save the clean-up pre-set.
Other features
The latest version of TextSoap packs so many features that we love. For instance, there’s a wonderful text editor that you can count on. The interface is minimal and it does all the job. With some tweaks, you can use TextSoap for editing imported documents as well. TextSoap does an incredible job when it comes to Find and Replace. Compared to what Microsoft Word can do, there are more possibilities. There is also a Live mode, which makes it easier to keep track of the options and pick the right one.
Availability & pricing
TextSoap is available for macOS only.
The price starts at $45 for single user (up to 2 Macs), $65 for family pack (up to 5 Macs). You can get TextSoap via Setapp as well.
TextSoap would be a great companion for the editor in you.
Best for deeper automation — Keyboard Maestro
So far, we saw some of the dedicated macOS automation apps, right? This one, Keyboard Maestro goes a lot deeper into automation. If you want better control and customizability over automation, here you go.
Let’s delve into Keyboard Maestro then.
What is Keyboard Maestro?
Keyboard Maestro is one of the best macOS apps for deeper automation. It does not matter which task you want to automate; Keyboard Maestro will be there to help you. You can pick from a variety of triggers and assign one or many actions. Macros like these would be overseeing the whole automation ordeal.
Compared to Automator, however, Keyboard Maestro is very easy and more powerful.
Getting started with Keyboard Maestro
You can get started with Keyboard Maestro in less than a few seconds. Right after installation, the app would show you a fully-fledged tutorial. From the menu navigation of the interface, you can select the Global Macro Group and add macros as you like. Once again, this involves choosing a trigger and corresponding actions. The difference is that there are many options to choose from. Not only that, the whole process is easier than Automator would ever be. We are not exaggerating when we say Keyboard Maestro can automate almost anything.
And, there are additional features too.
Deep automation, every day
Keyboard Maestro has been designed to take full leverage of your Mac hardware and software. It’s one of the very few third-party software that would allow you to launch applications through touchpad gestures or hotkeys. You have several types of triggers to choose from. In addition to this, you can customize each trigger as per your needs. For instance, if a USB device is the trigger, you can choose the specific device as well. And, when you come to actions, there is a LOT to choose from. From opening files to starting new Incognito windows in Chrome, you can assign almost any action.
Additional features
There are some built-in macros in Keyboard Maestro that turn out to be cool features. For instance, it comes with in-built clipboard storage. Everything you copy would be stored by Keyboard Maestro. Similarly, you can use the tool for text expansion as well.
As we said earlier, Keyboard Maestro brings total system control as well. You can, for instance, control iTunes playback, manipulate windows, record macros and even generate notifications. You just have to pair all the tasks to the right triggers.
Availability & pricing
Keyboard Maestro is available for macOS only.
You can get it from the official website for $36, and it comes with a free trial too.
On any day, Keyboard Maestro is the epitome of Mac automation.
Other apps that worth mention
There are also some other cool automation apps you can find for macOS. However, most of them are a bit more focused. We have chosen three of the best options out there.
Alfred is a hidden gem for Mac users. It comes with a lot of features and many people use it as an alternative to Mac Spotlight. First things first, you can use Alfred to search for everything on your Mac. When you go premium, with the Powerpack, however, there are more features like text expansion and clipboard history.
If you have Powerpack, you can also take control of music playback, Workflow creation, hotkey management and snippet expansion etc. The big sell is that Alfred has a library of community workflows created by other users to perform a variety of different tasks. You may not even have to build the workflow yourself!
We really love how minimal Alfred is, despite the native performance. Once set up, the app becomes an integral part of your Mac. If you have the premium versions, you can even get web search results on your Mac, without opening anything. Alfred is free, but the Powerpack costs you £23.
If you have a Mac with a touchpad or Touch Bar, you may want to consider getting BetterTouchTool. It is a customization tool, but can be used for automation purposes as well. This automation tool actually provides you full control over input devices of your macOS device, including mouse and keyboard. It means you can set up keyboard shortcuts and assign certain actions to it. You may already have understood the catch here. In BetterTouchTool, you can set triggers based on input devices only. For instance, you cannot set triggers based on system situation or a particular application. On the other hand, if you are looking forward to maximizing your trackpad, touchpad or keyboard, you must take a look at it.
BetterTouchTool standard license costs $6.50 and you can get it via Setapp.
Last in the list, Script Debugger is recommended only if you have a developer’s enthusiasm. It isn’t technically an automation tool, but something that helps you understand and comprehend Apple Script well. Not only that, Script Debugger would help you in crafting scripts that would automate your Mac. The Explorer section is where you start the journey.
Despite all the claims of easiness and transparency, we cannot ignore that Script Debugger is an IDE. If you’re not familiar with the basic conduct of development, it won’t be a nice experience. On the other hand, if you are good with code and want advanced development settings, Script Debugger is the right option. As the name says, it would help well in debugging too.
Script Debugger costs $99.99 but it offers Lite version and Free Trial that you can check out.
The bottom line
Using these automation apps on your Mac can not only save your time but make your life easier. Personally speaking, Hazel seems to save several hours from my schedule. When we view things from the perspective that time is money, spending for these macOS automation apps is an investment indeed.