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After winning the MacStories Mac App of the Year award for 2025, Lee decided he really needed to give Bloom a spin to see if the plaudits were well-earned. It's safe to say that when it comes to looking for a replacement for the macOS Finder, Bloom is a market leader. As well as configuring different layouts and saving them as workspaces, you can customise the inspector with custom one-click actions and show metadata information that is otherwise hidden.

On top of this, you can organise your files with custom workflows, rename them in bulk with a variety of parameters and regular expressions, and so much more. In this video, Lee walks you through Bloom in great detail.

Lazy is a macOS capture tool that lets you clip just about anything without context switching. Using a single keyboard shortcut, you can clip text, articles, tweets, videos, PDFs, and more into a central inbox and make connections with other notes (or cards) in your collection.

In this screencast, Mike demos how to use Lazy to clip things from various sources, how to make connections between your notes (or cards), how to use Lazy as a lightweight read-later app, and how to publish cards publicly to the web so you can share information with others.

In last week's show we laid the groundwork for this week's video by looking at the basics of Reminders, Apple's built-in task manager.

In this episode, Lee dives in a little deeper and walks you through organising your various lists using Subtasks, Sections and tags. He also shows you some example scenarios for using Smart Lists that you may want to adopt. You also learn how Apple Intelligence can help populate your lists with reminders on the fly.

Lee wraps up the series by showing you some useful automations using Shortcuts that may give you some inspiration for upping your Reminders game even more.

Reminders has undergone something of a renaissance in the last few years and is now a serious option for the majority of Apple users who want a tool for organising their tasks. For years, it was regarded as simplistic, however now there are features that are persuading some power users to make the switch from other task management apps.

In this first screencast of a two-part series, Lee walks through the basics of creating tasks directly in Reminders as well as externally. He also looks at strategies for creating groups and lists to keep your tasks organised. This lays the foundation for Part 2, where you will learn about Tags, Smart Lists and Reminders automation.

After covering Perplexity in show 1517, it was only a matter of time before their web browser, Comet, received Lee's attention. Comet attempts to take browsing to the next level by incorporating AI features to further improve the user experience, and it makes a solid fist of doing this.

This video is split into three distinct parts. In the first section, Lee looks at the regular web browsing features that warrant attention. It isn't a deep dive into how to use a browser, but rather a look at how Comet takes things like Tab Groups and makes them work differently to other products. In the second part, he show you the AI-agentic features such as summarising pages, ordering productions and looking at multiple tabs to get information. You may be surprised at some of the results! Lee then wraps up by looking at just a few of the settings that you may want to tweak to improve your experience. It's certainly a glimpse into the future of web browsing.

Have you ever wished a web service had a dedicated Mac app instead of staying in the browser? With Unite, you can create your very own. With 90 pre-built apps from popular websites for social media, shopping, news sites, and more, you may find the one you want right away. But Unite lets you create them from scratch, and you can also make what Allison calls "Super Apps" with multiple web services as tabs in the same Mac app. Join Allison as she shows you the ins and outs of Unite, with lots of useful examples and tips.

Unite runs on macOS 12 (Monterey) or later, and is available as part of your Setapp subscription (as of this video's release).

The more you use macOS, the more you can grow frustrated with the amount of manual intervention you have to take when it comes to keeping your file system organised. Whether it's keeping your Downloads folder tidy, looking for screenshots (you remember taking one, you just can't remember when…) or going through a huge array of different files on your desktop, well, that's not what you enjoy doing on your Mac.

With macOS Tahoe, Shortcuts gained the ability to automate actions on folders. In this video, Lee walks you through three different examples that may have a quick-win style impact on your workflows. Example 1 will keep your Downloads folder organised while the second will automatically resize image files for you when they hit a specific folder. In the third automation trick, Lee will guide you as you level up your scripting skills and stop screenshots from building up on your desktop at the same time.

This video was created on macOS 26 Tahoe.

The Clipboard on macOS can be a source of frustration, when it doesn't do what you expect. However, with a little bit of finesse, it can do some great things. In this video, Lee walks you through some of the basics of using your Mac's Clipboard as well as some functionality that you may not have known was there, such as copying and pasting edits in Photos.

Lee wraps up with two quick automations using BetterTouchTool and Keyboard Maestro to help you access your Clipboard history faster.

It's said that we are the sum of our habits so to improve as people, it's important to track them - whether positive or negative. Lee has been using Streaks for just over ten years and whilst there has been a smaller tip video on the app, it's iterated so much, he felt it's time for a deep dive.

In this video, Lee walks you through the app end-to-end, from the simplicity of setting up a task and editing properties, through to automation using the Shortcuts app to automatically start timers and mark them as complete.

It's a great app and we're thrilled to give it the attention we feel it deserves.

Streaks is currently $5.99 in the App Store on all platforms.

Finder alternatives are great because despite some recent improvements, the macOS Finder is still lacking in functionality. QSpace is a utility that can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Its main selling point is the multi-pane view for Finder windows, which is enough to make the app popular. However with the ability to do things like connect to cloud services, customise contextual menus, quickly launch apps, services and shortcuts, as well as tweak the app with page upon page of settings, QSpace is an app almost anyone can make use of!

In this video, Lee walks you through some of his favourite QSpace features.

QSpace requires macOS 10.15 or later.

In this episode, Mike explores the latest features in MindNode, one of his favorite brainstorming tools.

Discover its handy iOS widgets, Shortcuts integration, and Apple Watch companion app. Mike also demonstrates real-time collaboration using the newly launched MindNode Next.

MindNode requires macOS 15 and newer, iOS or iPadOS 18 or later, and watchOS 9 or later.

Lee is passionate about using hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts to get to actions quicker when using his Mac. Remembering them all, however, can be a tricky affair. Not so if you use Ergonis' KeyCue, a highly customisable utility that allows you to view a list of application and system hotkeys with the touch of a button.

In this video, Lee shows you how to configure KeyCue not just to view hotkey combinations, but also files and folders, Typinator (Lee's preferred text expansion tool) abbreviation sets, emoji tables, lists of URLS, and more.

KeyCue requires macOS 10.12 and newer.

Ever wish you could have Notion-like databases inside of your plain-text Obsidian notes? Well, now you can. With the release of the Bases core plugin in version 1.9.10, you can now use property metadata to filter and sort your Markdown notes using different views.

In this screencast, Mike helps you get up and running with Bases and shows you all of the different ways you can use this game-changing feature inside of your Obsidian vault.

In this video, Darcy introduces you to Doneit, a full-featured project management tool, available across every Apple device, including Apple Watch. This app allows you to grow into your own style by only choosing the elements that work best for how you like to capture and organise your tasks. Like other apps in that category, it incorporates tagging, statuses and priorities, but with a degree of customisation that makes them fit neatly into your projects.

Join Darcy as he builds a project and related tasks around going on holiday. You learn about Doneit's interface and its many components along the way, and you see it in action on iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch in this video.

Doneit will run on iOS and iPadOS 17 or newer; macOS 14 or newer; watchOS 10 or newer.

A lifetime Premium license costs $19.99 USD. See all pricing information in the Resources section below.

Whilst working from his web browser this week, Lee was trying to capture some text from an image that wasn't playing ball…He then discovered a workaround that he wanted to share.

This led him to creating this short video covering Live Text on macOS and how you can use it to capture information. At the end of the video, Lee fires up Shortcuts and creates a simple shortcut that automates this process for you!

The feature shown here will work on a Mac with an M1 chip or newer running macOS 12 or later.

After a lengthy beta testing period, DEVONthink 4 is out and in this video, Lee kicks the tyres of the best new features that come with it. It will come as no surprise to users of DEVONthink that AI is now a core addition to the feature-set, however unlike other applications, it's not forced upon you at every turn. In fact, you can install the latest version and not even realise that AI is available -  which is a good thing. It can be used in a small capacity, or as the main framework behind all of your work -  the choice is yours.

Lee will walk you through how to configure DEVONthink to use a 3rd party AI engine for basic queries, summarisation, transcriptions, advanced queries with multiple documents, even writing scripts with the built-in Script Assistant! Not all features are AI-centric. DEVONthink 4 now introduces Audit-Proof Databases, which prevent modifications to ANY files contained within, we have automatic versioning for documents that are edited within DEVONthink as well as the ability to add a Table Of Contents to any PDF file. It's a solid update.

When Bear v2 came out in the second half of 2023, we released two shows covering the changes as it had undergone some major updates, which were extremely well received. Well the team at Bear hasn't rested on its laurels and has been providing its users with incremental feature updates since we discussed them last. In this video, Lee gives you a tour of the new additions you can enjoy in Bear.

He walks you through how to use Quick Open, open notes in Read-Only mode, enjoy new cosmetic changes, as well as his favourite feature: Callouts within notes. Bear is certainly one of the most aesthetically pleasing applications on the market today.

Bear runs on macOS 12.4 (Monterey) or newer; iOS and iPadOS 15.6 or later.

In Show 1414, Lee looked at the Option key on macOS and how it can be used in conjunction with other keys on your keyboard to get to commonly-used actions quickly. There was a lot there, however it's not the only key with hidden talents; The Globe key (also known as the Function key) performs a similar role. In this video, Lee shows you some of the useful functionality it's hiding that might very well be of use to you when spending time at your Mac.As a bonus, you also get a brief look at BetterTouchTool, a wonderful utility that Lee used to remap one of the top-row function keys.

It's time to get a little geeky! When it comes to using Mail daily, lots of tasks can become repetitive and whilst it may not seem like a lot of time is wasted on these actions, when you add up the time involved, it soon builds up. Now lots of these tasks can be automated with a little bit of AppleScript and in this video, Lee walks you through three simple examples that will help create new message templates, download files to a specific location as well as move messages and change their flagged and read status.

You can also download the text files Lee uses as examples, from the link below.

Proton Mail is part of a growing suite of privacy-focused applications developed by scientists who met at CERN. Designed with security and freedom as core principles, Proton Mail not only offers robust encryption—it also delivers a clean, user-friendly interface.

In this video, Lee guides you through everything you need to know to get started. You’ll learn how to set up different types of Proton Mail accounts, compose encrypted emails, and see what it’s like for someone without a Proton account to receive a password-protected message. Lee also covers how to forward emails from Gmail into Proton Mail—and even how to migrate your entire Gmail account if you’re ready to make the switch.