Customize Sierra with third-party apps
With third-party apps you can go further to create your perfect working environment
For all the changes Apple has made in Sierra, there are still plenty of ways you can enhance the system and its bundled apps.
A dedicated army of thirdparty app developers tirelessly works on utilities and tools that either plug the gaps in macOS’s feature list, or improve upon what it already offers.
Here’s our pick of four essential utilities, as well as a walkthrough showing you how you can define your own keyboard shortcuts to invoke menu items; this technique also enables you to change key combos that an app’s developer has picked if you find them difficult to remember.
HyperDock $9.99 bahoom.com
This tool brings one of Windows 10’s best features to macOS: window previews when you place the pointer over an app’s Dock icon.
HyperDock shows a preview of each of an app’s open windows, and you can pick the one you want rather than bringing the most recently used one to the front. You can minimize windows you don’t need into the Dock by “scrolling” down over their preview; they’re then overlaid with a gray no entry sign.
Hovering over iTunes’ icon lets you skip and rate tracks, and you can adjust the volume by scrolling. HyperDock really is a bargain for its low price.
Alfred Free alfredapp.com
Alfred provided keyboard access to your apps even before Apple came up with Spotlight, but despite now facing built-in competition, it’s holding its own due to its expanding feature set.
While some of its most compelling features, such as batch file processing, attaching files to emails and 1Password integration, require the $23 Powerpack add-on, its flexible core features are free.
Among the most useful are shortcuts for looking up keywords using Google, Wikipedia and Amazon. Alfred also provides quick access to results: ® or
ç+2, ç+3 and so on to pick from the first nine.
Affinity Photo $49.99 affinity.serif.com
Serif’s plucky Photoshop rival has already proved its worth as a standalone image editor. However, it’s also a first-class add-on for Photos, greatly extending the built-in features.
Under Photos In System Preferences’ Extensions pane you can click Photos, and pick which of six tools to make available: Develop, Liquify, Monochrome, Miniature, Haze Removal, and Retouch. Combining Affinity Photo’s best image editing tools with Photos’ organization tools does much to fill the gap left by Aperture’s demise, making a capable and affordable workflow if you don’t want Adobe’s Lightroom.
Fluid $4.99 fluidapp.com
If you often use web apps such as Gmail or Basecamp, you can turn them into standalone Mac apps using this neat tool; they’re still web apps at heart, but this means they don’t take up a browser tab and they can be placed in the Dock for instant access.
You only have to give Fluid four details: the site address, the name for the app it churns out, where to save that app, and what to use as the app’s icon. The last of those defaults to the site’s favicon, but you can pick one of your own.
Fluid isn’t only useful for web apps: you can also use it for news sites, sports and social networks.