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Twelve Mac apps worth installing sooner
12 Mac Apps I Wish I Installed Sooner
About this video
Thirteen minutes and twelve apps, framed as regret rather than enthusiasm: these are the ones worth having installed earlier. The list leans on the menu bar and the Dock — hidden icons, a zone bar, a launcher, window previews, a window manager — with a cleaner, a note app, a screen recorder, a document suite and a clock filling out the rest. Published at the end of November 2025.
The framing is a small thing that changes the whole list: not “apps I love” but “apps I wish I had installed sooner”. That is a claim about wasted time rather than about quality, and it pushes the selection towards utilities that fix an annoyance you did not know was fixable.
The first four entries all reorganise how things are reached. A zone bar, a way to hide icons, a launcher, and then DockDoor at 3:58 for window previews. That cluster is the argument of the video in miniature: the top of the screen and the Dock are where macOS gives the least room, and most people never reorganise either.
The middle is the paid territory. CleanMyMac at 5:44 is the one commercial app in the list and the one the description carries a discount code for — worth noting rather than criticising, because it is the only entry where the recommendation and the business relationship point the same way. Lasso at 6:43 is the window manager, RevBox at 7:33 a screen recorder, Affinity at 8:43 a document and design suite.
The tail is where the video relaxes. Paraspeech at 9:57, a clock at 11:20 and a pair of googly eyes at 11:52 are not productivity software, and putting them last is the right call: the useful entries have already made their case, and the last two minutes are there to be enjoyed rather than installed.
What it covers
- The first four entries are all about reaching things faster — a zone bar, hidden icons, a launcher and window previews in the Dock — which is where the video thinks the most time is lost.
- DockDoor at 3:58 and Lasso at 6:43 are both window management, one adding previews to the Dock and the other rearranging what is on screen.
- CleanMyMac at 5:44 is the one commercial app in the list and the one the description carries a discount code for.
- The last two entries, a clock and a pair of googly eyes, are jokes that happen to be apps, and they close the video rather than open it.
Chapters
Chapter times are the creator's own list, published in the video description.
