This video is brought to you by SetApp. - The paramount collection of top-rated apps
A month ago I showed you how I set up a new M1 Mac including prepping and installing some
of my go-to apps that go hand in hand with any new computer of mine. (LINK BELOW) In
continuation of this video, today I will show you some of my new app discoveries and potential
candidates to join my list of evergreen recommendations. Most of these apps are paid and some of them
are honestly quite expensive, but a bit further down the video I'll show you how you can access
almost all of them at a fraction of the cost. Hey, Iskren here, but feel free to call me
E and let's start with some productivity tools. The first one is called CleanShot X. This
app replaces the default Mac OS screenshots capabilities, making them a lot more functional
and frankly easier to use. The app lives in the menu bar in case you need to access it
and uses the exact same MacOS shortcuts like CMND + SHIFT 3 or 4. For starters, whenever
a screenshot is taken, that screenshot doesn't go away after few seconds giving me time to
choose if I actually want to keep it or do something more specific with it, like markup
or my absolutely favourite area pixelation. Before, if I wanted to hide some sensitive
information, I would have to open the screenshot in a more advanced photo editing app and such
a quick mask would taken longer than it should. With CleanShot X, I can do that in seconds
and it's a lot of fun. The behaviour of the app is very simple, making the entire experience
a joy...like adding multiple shapes and arrows for example. Also, with it, video screen recording
is a breeze and something that I have been missing for the longest of time is here and
that is the ability to record GIFs...or GIFs. Basically, any portion of my screen can become
a gif allowing me to create the animated frame by frame image on top of any content - like
a grab from a video or just simple instructional movements...crazy useful for tutorial website
content. That's not all. With CleanShot X I can also capture scrollable content, like
a long conversation for example or a website. This is a bit tricky because it is basically
making multiple screenshots that it stitches together and the precision relies on the smoothness
of your scrolls, but this is definitely a huge time saver.
I'll put a simple calculation in the corner as I go through the apps, showing you how
much each one cost and how much you can potentially save at the end. This fantastic app on its
own is normally sold for $29. To spice this list up a bit, let's deviate
for a second and talk about a very relaxing and pleasant to use app called Magic Window
Air which is actually a screen saver. The app works like any other screensaver and can
take you to over 200 aerial locations showcasing spectacular 4K aerial shots totalling more
than 4 hours of footage. From Alabama hills to Big Sur to Zion, it is definitely my new
favourite screensaver. Think of it more like Apple TV's screen saver, but on your Mac.
You have space to customize the experience by adding a clock and even your own videos,
which gives me ideas to dust off my DJI Mavic this time around. This app normally costs
$20 Espresso is my next app on the favourite list
which is a web editor for Mac. It is very powerful yet very minimal and easy to use.
It has everything I might need when it comes to HTML and CSS tasks and what I enjoy most
is how well it mimics and integrates into macOS. The left is my asset management, the
code is in the middle, and navigation on the right. It is ideal for any new project because
it saves tons of time by providing boilerplate information necessary to start a new project
or page. Live preview when editing is greatly appreciated as well since I don't need to
tab back and forth between the app and my browser...which at the end of the day I will
still probably do when I need to cross-browser test.
Espresso runs for a one time purchase of $99 Let's talk about file sizes and two optimizing
applications which work fantastic. First off, there's Squash. Squash is an image optimizer
that can reduce the file size of pretty much all popular formats in a beautiful manner.
Having the proper size image files is not only good for optimizing storage, but it is
sometimes important for work as well. For example, YouTube's thumbnails should not exceed
2MB in files size whether that's JPG or PNG and with Squash, it is a matter of dragging
and dropping the file to reduce it to a whopping 40% or even smaller without any visible loss
of quality when it comes to JPEG's. Next up is the PDF Squeezer which serves
a similar function to Squash but for PDF's. Depending on your preferences, you can easily
reduce a PDF file size just by dragging a file into the clean interface of the app and
get results as good as a 90% reduction. Of course, all file savings are based on how
bad the embedded images will look, but I would definitely classify this app as a huge time
saver. The alternative of course would be to use Mac OS' native Preview, but it's not
as quick to use and it may become a bit cumbersome at times. PDF squeezer is normally 11 Euros
or around $13 and squeeze is another $15 bucks. Textsniper has been a channel sponsor before
and it is perhaps the app of the year for me. TextSniper is a text recognition software
that lives in your menu bar and can be triggered by using the shortcut Cmd+Shift+2 which brings
the cross-hair (sniper) cursor ready to take a screenshot of any text, image, video, scanned
document, pretty much anything that has text baked into it. With this app, you have the
ability to convert any text, for example - taking a picture of an entire book page and convert
your photo in to ready to copy and paste, selectable text. Textsniper is criminally
cheap coming to you at around $7. Luminar is the next app that I'd like to
turn your attention to. This is version 4, not to be confused with Luminar AI, which
is a lot simpler app. Luminar 4 is amazing because it offers a complete image library
and photo editing solutions, sort of like Lightroom where you have your library of images
and tools to manipulate them with. Just like Luminar AI, it allows you to create some really
magical fake, yet real looking results that would make even the dullest photo look out
of this world. With powerful AI-enhanced tools like Sky replacement, object add-ons and plenty
of other even more professional controls, the sky is the limit. Luminar normally costs
around $100. So far we are at a bill of $282.99 for the
apps that I have listed and I am not done yet, but instead of paying almost $300 at
this point, you can use today's video sponsor Setapp which is an app curator that gives
you access to the above-listed tools and over 200 others for a monthly subscription fee
of $9.99. Think of Setapp as your App Store but subscription-based, giving you the option
to install and remove flagship apps at your convenience, without having to risk and spend
extra on software that you might not like. With Setapp you can install as many apps as
you want and what I like most is how easy it is to install or remove an app, all with
a simple click of a button. Each of the apps on Setapp are carefully curated by the platform
and are of great value to those who need them, so check out the first link in the description
below to sign up for SetApps free trial. The next app that I want to talk about today
is called Short Menu. This is a very simple yet powerful app that lives in the menu bar
and helps me shorten URS's. My favourite part of it is that it can do that automatically.
Here's how it works. Let's say I want to share a news article to someone. Normally, I would
select the URL and paste it, which is exactly the case with Short Menu, but notice what
happens when I paste the URL. It shortens it automatically which is great. Imagine preparing
a document where you have dozens of links. You know how messy things may get...well not
anymore. Short menu can also work with popular shortner services like bit.ly so it definitely
stays on my list. Short menu costs around $8.50 and I think it's worth every penny on
its own. Mindnode is an app that I had purchased myself
a long time ago and it is something that for some reason I had totally forgotten about.
While preparing this video I reminded myself why I invested in this tool way back when.
Mindnode is mind mapping and brainstorming software that helps me organize any ideas.
Throughout the years I had used it on numerous occasions to illustrate the journey of a project
to clients but it's just as good to be used for personal projects as well. When you throw
all your ideas into mindnote, including the minute details, your perspective changes,
because you can truly grasp the potential of something. Mindnode is subscription based
and it's around 2.50 per month. If I throw in my other favourite apps that
I talked about in my How I setup my Mac video like Bartender, CleanMyMac X and others my
bill can easily exceed $500. When I put it like that, knowing how much I have invested
throughout the years in apps and software I feel kind of sad not having found Setapp
earlier. So, Which are your favorite new app discoveries,
let me know in the comment section below. As always, if you have any questions, feel
free to list them in the comments or ping me on Twitter and
As always, it's been an absolute pleasure. This is E
Over & Out