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# System prepended metadata

title: Mac "must have" software

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# Mac "must have" software

## Dev tools

- [iTerm2](https://iterm2.com) - Best terminal with tons of features
- [Homebrew](https://brew.sh) - Package manager for Linux / OSS tools
- [Docker Desktop](https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/)
- [Dash](https://kapeli.com/dash)* - Offline documentation browser
- [Sublime Merge](https://www.sublimemerge.com)* - Git GUI


## System tools

- [[Amethyst](https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst) - tiling window manager]
- [BetterTouchTool](https://folivora.ai)* - "Swiss army knife" of desktop utilities, shortcut manager, clipboard history, mouse / touch pad gesture features, windwo snapping and much much more
- [Tunnelblick](https://tunnelblick.net) - OpenVPN client

## Nice to haves

- [Bartender](https://www.macbartender.com)* - clean up cluttered menu bar icons
- [iStat Menus](https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/)* - System stats in the menu bar
- [Dropshare](https://dropshare.app)* - Quick screenshot / screencapture sharing / annotation tool

`*` = Paid software



## Notes

### Programming language version management

Although homebrew also has all mayor packages it's multi version support sucks (a.k.a. is barely existent) and it can also sometimes upgrade packages without explicitly asking (due to dependencies) and therefore isn't a good choice to use as the base for dev work.

I nowadays use [asdf](https://asdf-vm.com). However shim based version managers suck for various reasons, which is largely soved by [asdf-direnv](https://github.com/asdf-community/asdf-direnv).

