Seven Surprisingly Useful Mac Apps You've Never Heard Of

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If your time on macOS is solely spent switching between the well-known apps that everyone uses—your web browser, Notes, Apple Music—then you're missing out. There are a host of more unusual and idiosyncratic apps for Apple's desktop operating system that are well worth digging into.

The apps collected in the list below fall under that description, and while they might not have been installed on millions of Macs or be particularly complex in what they offer, they're all quite useful. Give them a try and see how they can upgrade your macOS experience.

Scrolling isn't particularly hard on macOS, but what if it were even easier? ScrollPods teams up with a connected pair of AirPods to let you scroll up and down webpages, documents, and more with a tilt of the head. It works with anything on screen that can be scrolled.

The utility is simple to set up, and based on my testing, it works quite well. The default sensitivity is just right, with slight head tilts enough to nudge a page up or down, but you can adjust the sensitivity and set up custom gestures for the app through its settings.

ScrollPods (free)

Slidr

You can add some extra functionality to your MacBook trackpad with Slidr: It turns the left side of your trackpad into a brightness slider, and the right side into a volume slider, so you can quickly adjust these key settings without interrupting your typing and scrolling flow.

You're able to take advantage of a free trial before committing to the purchase, so you can see if it works for you. It couldn't be any more straightforward to use: The app runs from the menu bar, and there are options for adjusting the sensitivity and position of the slide gestures, and swapping over the brightness and volume sliders if you prefer.

Slidr (free trial, then $4.99)

Pipiri

A picture-in-picture mode can be very useful when multi-tasking, but it's not supported in every app—something Pipiri fixes. Once you've got Pipiri installed, any window on the macOS desktop can be put into a picture-in-picture mode, running on top of your other apps.

So, for example, you can keep an AI agent window or a social media feed visible on screen while you get on with something else. There are lots of options to play around with, too, including the refresh rate of the overlaid window, app hotkeys, and adaptive resizing.

Pipiri (free trial, then $9.70)

Haptyk

Haptyk takes advantage of the hidden accelerometer that's built into every Apple Silicon MacBook keyboard, figuring out how hard you're striking each key and adding appropriate audio. You get mechanical keyboard sound effects, with your existing MacBook keyboard.

I gave the app a go and it works really well: There's zero lag on the sound effects, and you get the same experience across every app. You've got 16 different keyboard sound packs to choose from, plus lots of configuration options (including volume, pitch, and gain).

Haptyk (free trial, then $8)

Stealthy

If you're a regular video caller, then you'll know that subtle feeling of dread that rises up whenever you're called upon to share your screen or to record something you're doing. What browser tabs do you have open? Is an embarrassing notification going to pop up?

Stealthy deals with this with the minimum of fuss, hiding your desktop icons, the desktop wallpaper, and the dock. silencing notifications, and clearing away open app windows you don't want visible on screen. It can also launch automatically when video calls start.

Stealthy (free trial, then $12.99)

Gestimer

There's nothing too revolutionary about Gestimer, but it does a simple job in an intuitive way, and is likely to come in handy more often than you might think. It lets you set timers and reminders by just dragging down the app icon from the macOS menu bar.

There's no messing around with opening up other apps or digging through calendars—it's just click and drag, with the length of the drag controlling the time that's set. There's a persistent countdown in the menu bar, and you get a notification at the appropriate time.

Gestimer (free trial, then $6.99)

Unclack

Unclack is both simple and useful: It mutes your microphone when you're typing (even more helpful if you've installed Haptyk, above). That means you no longer need to worry about your aggressive typing style distracting other people during video meetings.

It runs quietly from the menu bar and you don't need to do anything to enable or disable it—it just works, and you won't even know it's there. Should you need to talk and type at the same time, you can disable Unclack with a couple of clicks until you need it again.

Unclack (free)