Mac Devs Building AI-Powered Tools

“echo-focus is a Mac menubar app with an AI character that stays in the background while you work. It senses what you're actually doing — when you've been deep in work, when you've drifted off to YouTube, when you've been idle too long, and checks in accordingly. It has a simple focus session timer, but the character is the main thing. It notices, and it comes to you. Core features: - Passive sensing (idle detection, distraction app detection) - A character you can name, give an a”

“I'm 17 and built Halo alone: a Mac app that turns the MacBook notch into a Dynamic Island (notifications from any app, hold-Fn dictation, music with lyrics, external monitor brightness, and a little face that shows when Claude Code is done). Honest numbers after 13 days: - 61 sales at $9.99 one-time, $455 gross - 1 refund - 44 of 60 keys activated What actually worked: - Emailing every buyer one question: "what annoys you?" Four answers became release 2.0.2 within days: the island”

“I wanted one modern Mac app for the small jobs that come up all day: decoding a JWT, formatting JSON, making a UUID, checking a color's contrast. And I wanted it to run on my machine, so tokens and API responses never get pasted into a website. Dojo is that app. It's free, and everything runs locally on your Mac. What's in it: - Formatters for JSON, SQL, YAML, XML, HTML, CSS, JS and GraphQL - Converters for JSON to YAML, CSV, TOML, XML and code, plus cron, dates, number bases and uni”

“Introduction Hi everyone! I'm a student from Singapore and have developed an app: Hopnotch that helps with navigating around your Spaces and Apps, while providing aesthetics to your Mac! Problem I was using my Mac and I just kept getting lost as I had many apps in full-screen, and it was a hassle constantly swiping around the trackpad or going to Mission Control just to see where everything was. This problem had been bugging and annoying me for longer than I'd like to admit, but I realis”

“I'm a solo dev. I make Tack+, a Mac app that lives in the notch. It has a small companion called Plus, a local AI assistant you can ask for things like "start a 25-minute timer" or "switch to dark mode". I can't do motion design and I didn't have the budget to hire someone. So I had Claude Opus 5.5 (in Claude Code) build the video for me. Since I posted it [on X / on my site], it has brought in a bit more than 10 paying customers [in N days]. Small number, but for”

“I'm Viorel, the person behind VPO Labs, and Widgetscape is our app. Widgetscape puts live widgets on the macOS desktop: clocks, calendar, weather, system stats, now playing, a git repo monitor, a token-usage chart for AI coding tools, and a calendar that docks to the edge of the screen as a dial. 31 widgets, a grid they snap to, up to eight sizes, four surface styles and 23 palettes. Rainmeter on Windows was the inspiration (not affiliated, and no skins to write). A few things I learned gett”

submitted by /u/DutyOnly4308 [link] [comments]

“Hey, I've been working on HyperNotch. It opens a small panel when you hover over your Mac's notch. It's based on the original NotchDrop repo by Lakr Aream (MIT license), so credit to them: https://github.com/Lakr233/NotchDrop There's clipboard history, saved text snippets, a file shelf, music controls and timers, along with a few other tools. You can search for text inside copied images too. You can turn off the tools you don't want and rearrange the rest. It needs macOS 26+.”

“Hi r/macapps , I'm Aqib, the developer of Notchet. Problem Whenever I needed a few things from one place, say a line of text, a link and a screenshot, and wanted them somewhere else, I'd copy one, switch windows, paste it, go back for the next one, and repeat. If I copied something new by mistake, the earlier copy was gone. I wanted my clipboard history somewhere I could reach without leaving what I was doing, and the notch was sitting right there doing nothing. What it does Notchet keep”

“hey r/SideProject , i'm justinas. i make clacky, a little mac menu-bar app. it started 12 days ago as satisfying click sounds for your mouse and trackpad, and it's grown fast because people keep telling me what they want. i build it with claude code and i'm not a swift developer. 2.5 came out today. what's new: demo studio (beta, macOS 15+) record your screen, press one button. it cuts the dead air, speeds up the waiting, zooms on every click and adds word-by-word captions. expor”

“I’ve been building J avvy, a voice assistant for macOS. Say “Hey Javvy” (or hold a key) and talk. What it does : Opens and quits apps, finds and opens files Volume, brightness, music, Do Not Disturb Minimise, full screen or hide any window by voice Reminders and calendar (“what’s on my calendar tomorrow?”), screenshots “Add this to my reminders” saves the page you’re reading Remembers things you tell it (“my work browser is Edge”, then “open my work browser”) Answers the weather and quick facts”

“I’ve been working on something called Wiqo, and the first version is finally on the App Store. The idea came from a simple frustration. Why do I need to open a remote desktop app, navigate through windows, and manually click around just to get something done on my computer? Why can’t I just tell my phone, “Find that document on my Mac” or “Close Chrome,” and let an AI agent handle it? That’s what I’m trying to build. Wiqo is an iPhone app designed to connect AI with real tasks. Instead of only a”

“launched my first mac app today. 6 downloads already (2 are me). already made my first mistake: there was no way to check for updates. fixed in 0.2.0 it's called munch. a tiny mac app that finds tabs you haven't touched, saves the links, then closes them (safari/chrome/brave): getmunch.site how do you handle updates when there's no account / no app store submitted by /u/Beginning_Many324 [link] [comments]”

Great man. Keep growing

submitted by /u/DutyOnly4308 [link] [comments]

“Hi everyone, I'm a solo developer from France, and this is Tack+, the app I've been building for macOS. The idea is simple: the notch is the one part of the screen that does nothing. So I made it open. Push your cursor against the top edge (or press ⌥ Space) and a small panel drops out of the notch. Move away and it folds back. What's in it: - **Music**: Spotify or Apple Music controls. When the panel is closed, the album art and an equalizer sit on either side of the notch. - **Mess”

“Hi sub, With the assistance of AI (Claude Code), I was able to develop and publish Drain , the battery monitor I always wanted for my mac. It lives in the notch and displays current key metrics in a compact format Gives you live watt or %/h consumption for each HW and SW process on your laptop Highlights hogs and lets you close them Highlights invisible issues eating your battery And also, it was a fun experience to build, get notarised and published. Now, I have no clue if there is a market for”

“Clicking “take a break” is easy. Actually looking away is the part that matters. I’m building Have You Rested for Mac. Its optional Pro mode uses the camera to check whether you’re looking away during a break. Look back at the screen and the countdown pauses. Look away again and it continues. Camera processing happens on your Mac. Frames aren’t recorded or uploaded, and you can have the camera run only during breaks. The basic timer is free and never uses the camera. Pro has a 5-day trial with n”

“What it does CoIsland lives in the notch and runs monitors on the tools you already use: a failed Vercel deploy, a red GitHub Actions run, a failed Stripe payment, an email from a specific sender, or a Snowflake query that returns rows. It supports 35+ connectors across dev tools, email, calendars, payments, and data. Each monitor checks on a schedule. When one matches, the notch shows the alert and what it found. From there, you can hand the alert to Claude Code, Codex, or Cortex Code. A card n”

Mid-task cutoff with zero warning is brutal, so I made UsageBar for macOS. It lives in the menu bar and shows remaining % + reset timers for Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode…

“Sure, go ahead. One suggestion: key the profile on the hints, not a tool list. All 92 tools carry MCP's readOnly/destructive/idempotent hints in four classes: read-only (verify, the views), add (import, cue_add), set (card_new, hold_under, export), edit (cut, hold_add, undo). A policy on destructiveHint + idempotentHint gets your split and stays right when the next tool ships. Two notes: the three sheet tools write a PNG to cache so they're set, not read-only, and you'd want those al”

“Hey everyone, I built Timelist because I wanted a timer that worked more like a task tracker or tiny to do list than a single countdown. It lives in the menu bar, lets you queue tasks, and it shows the current task in a small floating HUD. I made it to focus on one task at a time so that I don't get distracted. I’d appreciate any feedback! Download: timelistapp.com Happy to answer anything. submitted by /u/ouushii [link] [comments]”

“Hey r/SideProject — I made a small open-source macOS menu bar app: a floating pixel campfire on your desktop that reacts to local AI coding-tool usage (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, Pi, Amp). When you're burning tokens, the fire grows. When you stop, it settles into embers. Nothing is uploaded — it only reads local logs. Tagline: If you're burning tokens anyway, light a real fire. Site / download: https://tinyfire.createfun.ai/ Source (MIT): https://github.com/wdkwdkwdk/tinyfire Woul”

“Hey everyone, I’m building RecordMe, a native Mac app for recording quick demos, walkthroughs, and bug reports. You can record a screen or an individual window, include system audio and your microphone, and add a camera overlay. There’s a live preview before recording, and the result saves as an MP4 on your computer. some features: Trimming and styled backgrounds with padding, rounded corners, and shadows. Camera position, size, and shape controls before recording. Click highlights and automatic”

I’ve gradually ended up with a slightly weird coding setup. Claude Code runs on my Mac mini at home, but a lot of the time I’m controlling everything remotely from my iPhone.…

“Hey everyone, I've been building a native macOS app called Tucky and I'm looking for some feedback from Mac users. I found that opening a full-window notes app to write down a quick thought often breaks my focus, so I built something that stays completely out of the way until I need it. Here is what Tucky does: Edge-Docked: It sleeps as a thin stripe on the edge of your screen. You just slide it out, jot down your thoughts, and slide it back. Built-in AI Agent: You can interact with your”

“Hi r/alphaandbetausers , I’m looking for 10–15 MacBook users with a notch to test an app I’ve been building called Fide Island . Fide Island is a macOS 14+ utility that turns the empty space around the MacBook notch into a small interactive surface for things I normally keep switching windows for. It currently includes: media controls and Now Playing Apple Notes calendar temporary file shelf + clipboard history calculator + currency conversion on-device translation on macOS 15+ volume / brightne”

I kept opening Activity Monitor wondering what was eating my RAM, CPU or GPU. So I made ActivityLine. It’s one menu bar line that shows CPU, GPU, RAM and network activity, plus…

“Leaning into automation for tasks in my own life. Repurposed an old 2017 Intel MacBook to be an always on computer and for the moment it’s just fine*.Most of what I’ve done so far is deterministic and has no need for AI after it’s built. But wondering if I should explore OpenClaw next. I never leaned in when it was all the headlines last Home Assistant* interestingly, the one area I’ve had trouble was Home Assistant. The virtual computer I had to install to run it on cause the MacBook to overhe”

“As I understand it, rootshell currently exposes some basic automation functionality to Shortcuts through App Intents. If it's technically feasible, it would be great to have similar hooks available to AppleScript, and also have rootshell respond to AppleEvents. For example, BBEdit has a "View Go Here in Terminal" command which opens a shell at the location of the current document. I gather that behind the scenes it accomplishes this by sending an odoc AppleEvent. Similarly, in iTerm2—although it”

“Hmm, hate to break it to you, but Apple just added auto-naming of files based on content in Golden Gate beta. I actually don't like it myself. To be clear, I've seen this only on text files so far, though.”

“Hey everyone, I've been working on a Mac utility & productivity app called Arc, and the first version is finally out. The idea started because the things I use throughout the day are scattered: apps, folders, websites, Shortcuts, screenshots, clipboard tools, system actions. None of them are hard to get to, but doing it again and again adds up. I wanted to see if all of it could work through one interaction, which is where the radial menu came from. Getting the menu on screen was the eas”

“A year ago my Mac workflow was a pile of little tools: a clipboard manager, a drag-and-drop shelf, a window snapper, a screenshot tool, a pomodoro timer, a converter that uploaded my files to someone else's cloud, and a menu bar app to manage the other menu bar apps. Each one fine on its own, together a mess of subscriptions and settings. So I built Droppy. Without experience and never having touched Xcode before, I started my journey. It was a crazy experience, started out as a hobby but tu”

“I have been building Prelto for the last few months. It is a mac menubar app, and you use it by holding a key, and talking to it. It sees the context you are working with, the active app or any selected text and provides fast answers and can even insert text at your cursor. There are two modes, each bound to a separate key: 1. Answer mode: ask about anything on your screen: an email, an error, a clause in a doc. The answer streams in right there. Saying "reply that Thursday works" draf”

“I built a desktop cat for macOS and I'd really like people to actually try him. The part I care about is that he has a mind. He isn't running an animation loop, he looks at where your windows really are and decides what to do about them. Small gaps he steps over. Ones he reckons he can make he jumps. When it's too far he walks right to the edge, leans over and looks down, then thinks better of it and turns around. He'll climb the face of a window to get himself back up somewhere.”

“I’m testing a Mac app that you talk to while you’re stuck inside Blender, Figma, Xcode, or another app. It looks at the current screen, answers out loud, and tries to point you to the control you need. The project started as a fork of Farza’s open-source clicky: https://github.com/farzaa/clicky I added tutor mode, a realtime voice pipeline, reusable skills, courses, and automatic language detection. Our version is open source too. I’m not looking for polite feedback. I need a few Apple Silicon M”

“Hi everyone, I’m looking for a few macOS users to test Tapquence, a visual mouse and keyboard automation app I’ve been building. I started it because many macro tools work, but feel dated or unnecessarily difficult to use. Tapquence lets you build sequences with mouse movement, clicks, key inputs and fixed or random waits. It also has grouping, hiding actions while testing, templates and a separate Auto Clicker. The public beta is free. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, and macro content”

“I am a developer who has been coding for a good while lol. When I was using my MacBook, I couldn't help but realize that there was nothing for switching volume per-app, which Windows has natively. So, I made it using Swift and it works really well! There is also a nice hotkey, I configured it to option + space so that its really easy to use. Here is the link (I just made it, so it would be great if you could star it to build some credibility) https://github.com/thewimpykid/faderonmac s”

“0.3 is a full UI redesign, it drops out of the notch now. mainly want to know: how the fall animation feels on your hardware, and whether the no-notch fallback (same drop, under the menu bar) reads ok or looks like a bug. https://tintpad.com https://github.com/sorkila/tintpad Free, MIT, signed and notarized: https://tintpad.com Source: https://github.com/sorkila/tintpad submitted by /u/inspectorjawa [link] [comments]”

“Meet VibeMenu. It keeps your Mac awake while your coding agent is working—then lets it sleep when the task is done. Free. Open source. Local-first. Stop babysitting your Mac: https://github.com/Kirill-Chistov/VibeMenu https://reddit.com/link/p1q3t0u/video/zc0vrzbm6fhh1/player”

“I’m looking for people who actively use Claude Code, ChatGPT Work, or Codex to test VibeMenu v1.0. VibeMenu is a free, open-source macOS menu-bar app that keeps the Mac awake while a supported coding agent appears active and releases the sleep assertion when the work finishes. It also provides: recent session states for Claude, Codex, and ChatGPT Work; truthful sleep-prevention ownership; optional Claude Needs approval and Done notifications; optional Claude and ChatGPT usage limits in the menu”

I’ve just shipped VibeMenu v1.0, a free and open-source macOS menu-bar app for people using Claude Code, ChatGPT Work, or Codex. I originally built it because I wanted to walk away from…

“Every app I use has ten shortcuts I cannot remember and three things that have no shortcut at all. The usual answer is to buy a piece of hardware that sits on your desk doing nothing most of the day, or to rent a subscription for what is fundamentally a grid of buttons. I had a phone sitting right next to my keyboard doing nothing, so I built the control surface into that instead. Coast is an iPhone and iPad app plus a free menu bar app on the Mac. They talk over your local Wi-Fi and the Mac pos”

“I've been building a panel that hangs from the MacBook notch. It does music, calendar, todos and notes, keeps a shelf for whatever you're holding, and you can talk to it. Quick disclosure: solo dev, this is my own app. SwiftUI + AppKit, about a year of nights so far. The original itch was that everything I glance at all day was scattered across five menu bar utilities. Music here, calendar there, my coding agent stuck on a permission prompt in a terminal somewhere behind everything. So,”

“I used to treat it as a bug when someone used my thing in a way I didn't intend. Then I started actually watching people use it (session recordings, a couple of real screen-shares), and the "wrong" usage turned out to be the most useful signal I had. They weren't misusing it. They were showing me what they thought it was for, which was often not what I built it for. Concrete version: my thing is a small Mac tool for putting emphasis on your screen while you record or present (i”