App Defaults 2025

It’s that time of year where I and others look back at the macOS tools that made us productive over the last 52 weeks.

I stayed relatively consistent this time around with the biggest change being my task management solution.

Category App
Mail Client Apple Mail
Mail Server iCloud Mail with custom domains
Notes Obsidian (with sync)
To-Do OmniFocus 1
Photo Shooting Apple Camera
Photo Management Apple Photos
Photo Editing Pixelmator Pro
Calendar Apple Calendar
Cloud File Storage iCloud & OneDrive
RSS NetNewsWire (iCloud sync)
Contacts Apple Contacts
Browser Chrome 2
Chat Apple Messages
Bookmarks Raindrop.io 3
Read It Later Raindrop.io 4
Word Processing MS Word / BBEdit
Spreadsheets MS Excel
Presentations MS Powerpoint
Shopping Lists Obsidian (with sync)
Budgeting & Personal Finance MS Excel/Bank Mobile App
News NetNewsWire (iCloud sync)
Music Apple Music
Podcasts Overcast
Mastodon Mona
Password Management 1Password
Code Editor BBEdit / VS Code
App Launcher Raycast

  1. I’ve returned to my first love productivity app on the Mac. ↩︎

  2. Yes, I know… Evil. It’s still the best browser for web development work. I am, however, giving Safari another try for personal browsing. ↩︎

  3. I’ve built up a pretty impressive list of links with this web app. ↩︎

  4. Ditto on things to read later that I may never get to… ↩︎