Finder is the foundation that macOS is built on, and it has some cool features. You can display Finder windows as icons, lists, columns, etc. There’s Launchpad for launching apps, Mission Control for taking control of your desktop, and newer features like Desktop Widgets and Stage Manager.
But there are some features that Finder in the next macOS 15 update is crying out for. Things that we would all find useful when using our Mac desktop or laptop, but which simply don’t exist. With our help, you can download and install four excellent third-party apps that give you cool features that really should be included in Finder when the next macOS is revealed at WWDC on June 10.
More space for minulets
Are you frustrated that you don’t have enough room in your desktop menu bar for all your app and feature icons? This isn’t often an issue with a 24-inch iMac or similarly sized monitor, but if you’re using a current M3 MacBook Air, with its bulky notch around the camera, you might run out of space. This is where BarTender comes in.
Bartender 5 lets you take control of your menu bar, the strip above the desktop on your Mac’s main screen, grouping more menulets (as the menu bar icons are called) than it does. would otherwise be possible. This is achieved through a BarTender icon in the menu bar. Click on it to display a submenu displaying other available icons. It’s highly configurable; You can choose whether a menulet is in the main menu bar or the hidden menu bar, and you can even style the bar itself.
How to use Bartender
Click the BarTender icon to see the currently hidden menulets. Right-click on it for a menu that provides access to its Settings, among other things. You can search for your minulets here; great if you forgot what it looks like.
In BarTender’s settings, you can choose which menulets are always visible, which are hidden until you click the BarTender icon, and if there are menulets you never need, you can add to Always Hidden list.
You can even configure “Triggers”, which display a set of menu bar items when certain conditions are met, such as when the battery is powered or charging, when connected or disconnected from WiFi, etc. Create your own too.
Off-screen shelf space
No matter how big your screen is, space on your desktop is limited. It quickly becomes cluttered with files, folders and other similar icons. Wouldn’t it be great if you could store some on your desktop, on an off-screen shelf that appeared when you were summoned but disappeared when you wanted to continue something? Decluttering might be just what you’re looking for.
Unclutter lets you keep selected icons on such a shelf, which is revealed when you drag your pointer to the top of the screen and swipe down with two fingers. You can keep apps, data, and folders there, as well as aliases in case you don’t want to move something out of its current location. Clicking on an icon in Unclutter opens or launches its application, as if it were on your desktop, and you can also use Quick Look on Unclutter icons.
Besides being a great shelf for icons, Unclutter also stores your last ten clipboard copy-pastes. Click on one of them to restore it to your clipboard. You can even edit and add favorite items to this clipboard history. It also has a great Notes section, where you can create and save a short note without having to open your Notes app. Unclutter notes can be searched, listed and deleted.
How to Use Declutter
Open Unclutter by moving your pointer to the top of the screen and swiping down with two fingers. It also has a menulet that you can use to show and hide the Unclutter window, open Preferences and much more.
With Unclutter Preferences, you can change how you call the window, set where items stored in Unclutter are kept on your Mac, exclude apps from Clipboard history to keep sensitive data safe private and much more.
You can drag the dividing lines between the three sections of Unclutter to change their respective sizes. Additionally, when the window is open, you can hover over the tab at the bottom and click the cog that appears for a menu of options.
Stop your Mac from sleeping
When your Mac sits idle for a while, it goes to sleep to save power. In sleep mode, the screen is turned off, the processor goes into power saving mode, Bluetooth is disabled, and various other functions are suspended. But what if you want to keep it awake when you’re away from your keyboard? There is a quick and easy way to do just that.
Amphetamine sits in your menu bar, out of the way until you click on it. When you do, you get a menu that lets you start a new session, preventing your Mac from going to sleep. You can keep it until you turn it off, for a set period of time, or until the chosen application is closed.
How to use amphetamine
You can set Amphetamine to keep your Mac awake until you manually turn it off, for a set number of minutes or hours, or until a running application is closed . This is useful if you have an app running in the background that you don’t want to be interrupted.
Using Amphetamine settings, you can configure or disable notifications to notify you when an Amphetamine session starts or ends, set sounds for the start and end of a session, set reminders for current sessions, and much more.
When amphetamine is active, the horizontal line on its Menulet icon becomes vertical. Click on it to access a menu that allows you to turn it off and set whether the current session allows the screen to go to sleep or not.
Tear off this text
Nowadays, it is not difficult to copy text to your clipboard. If it is an editable document, there is no problem. You can extract text from a PDF quite easily, and even from a photo using Live Text. But what about places where you can’t highlight or copy text?
With TextSniper, you can copy text from anywhere on the screen. If you can read it, you can copy it. This includes places you typically wouldn’t be able to copy from, such as YouTube videos, images, online courses, screencasts, presentations, web pages, video tutorials, etc. You simply press SHIFT-CMD-2 on your keyboard and the pointer changes to a cursor. Click and hold the mouse button and drag the cursor over this text and it will be copied to your clipboard. Simple!
How to extract text
In addition to using a keyboard command, you can also activate TextSniper from the menu bar. Find the Menulet icon that resembles the crosshairs of a rifle sight and click it. You can also open Settings from here.
Using TextSniper’s settings, you can launch the app at login, set its primary language, configure custom words that the app might otherwise have trouble recognizing, customize its keyboard shortcuts, and more.
You can also use TextSniper to read text using text-to-speech. Choose the option from the Menulet menu. You can also use it to read barcodes and QR codes, always from the menu found by clicking on the Menulet.