My laptop is brimming with downloads which relate to my wellbeing and sanity as a developer. Like an extension of keyboard shortcuts.

Many times I’m shouting to anyone who will listen that they need this app in their life. Other times someone might lean over my shoulder and ask hesitantly “what is that?”.

Well I thought a buzzfeed list (and title) might be of use to others, and myself when setting up a new laptop :)

Items free unless stated

F.lux – A must have. This changes the screen temperature to match the time. Meaning no more blue screen at night. Wellbeing is A++ after installing f.lux.

Moon (Free trial) – Snap and resize windows, just like Windows functionality.

Dash (Free trial) – Stores docs offline so you can search for that function without having to visit the frameworks website over and over. Bonus wellbeing when hooked up with Alfred.

Alfred (Free / £17) – Talking about Alfred, I’m afraid this might be a bit irrelevant as OSX El Captain has improved the spotlight functionality to be much closer to what Alfred has been for years. Still, Alfred remains leaps and bounds better than Apples offering and is at least worth looking into.

Hemingway Editor (Web App) – I’m currently writing this post on Hemingway. It’s a nifty editor to help structure writing, ensuring your text has the effect you desire.

iTerm + Oh My Zsh – I was neglecting iTerm until a colleague demanded I installed it, and I’m glad I did. These apps work very well together, improving the terminal experience drastically.

Don’t be scared to play around with these 2 as there are plenty of themes, plugins and extras out there.

Little snitch (€30) – A reverse firewall, it asks permission every time data leaves your network. In the days of the NSA, perhaps this is more state of mind rather than state of security but still…

1Password – A good password manager is worth it’s weight in gold if used properly.

Dropbox – Again when used often and correctly, it can be an invaluable tool. There is a great way to manipulate AdWords to maximise Dropbox’s referral scheme, well worth the effort!

So these are just some of the non-dev tools I use for my Mac OSX environment. The list grows and shrinks with every new machine and every OS update but these are a good start.

A great place to keep a check on is github.com/explore and reddit.com/r/webdev.