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In Show 1541 Lee introduced you to Bloom, the Finder replacement that is full to the brim with features you never knew you needed. Well, the developer has kept busy with no less than ten incremental updates since then.

As that initial show was undoubtedly one of the most popular within the last year here at ScreenCastsONLINE, I'm sure there are some features you are going to love. They include improvements to Navigation and Search, the Inspector, Bloom's Appearance, Actions, and a lot more. Join Lee as he goes through several of them to you in this tip video.

PopChar from Ergonis Software is a Mac utility that gives you instant access to every character in every font installed on your Mac, all from a single click on a small "P" in the menu bar. Whether you need currency symbols, accented letters, arrows, mathematical notation, or typographic punctuation, PopChar puts them all at your fingertips without hunting through menus or memorising unusual keyboard shortcuts.

In this tutorial, Lee walks through everything you need to get up and running with PopChar. This includes inserting your first character, searching the full Unicode library, building a collection of favourites, as well as using the HTML insertion mode for web work. He also covers two power user features: finding which of your installed fonts support a specific character, and the Shape Finder for identifying characters you can see but can't name.

PopChar is available via Setapp. At the time of this recording, you can also purchase directly from the developer with a one-time payment of $39.99 for the current major version, or take up an annual subscription for $19.99.

Building on the folder automation foundations laid in shows 1528 and 1548, Lee brings you three new automations demonstrating just how versatile Shortcuts can be in macOS 26 (Tahoe). The first two work as a pair, both watching dedicated drop folders and automatically compressing incoming files into date-stamped .zip archives. The third moves away from folder triggers entirely, using the External Drive trigger to automatically back up a chosen folder every time a specific drive is connected to your Mac.

Together these three automations cover two of the most common file management headaches Mac users face: keeping archives tidy without cluttering up your folders, and making sure backups actually happen consistently. Open Shortcuts and follow along with Lee and build these useful shortcuts with him!

Alfred has been Lee's go-to app and file launcher since he first logged onto a Mac over 10 years ago.  During that time, it's continued to evolve with new features added on a regular basis. It can be a one-stop shop for creating automation workflows to make your Mac sing and dance, which can at times seem daunting.

For many of us though, the free version is more than enough to make you switch from, or use alongside Spotlight. Finding and opening files, creating custom web searches, and easily accessing many system settings is easy with Alfred.

In this video, Lee shows you how to make the most of this great utility without spending a dime (yet...).