Default Apps 2026

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Apps I’ve been using regularly this year. This is my second year doing this. Here is last year’s list. Inspired by Jeff Triplett and catalogued by Robb Knight’s App Defaults.

What changed since 2025

AI took over a big chunk of my day. Pi is my core harness, I live in Pi Web, and I’m trying Pi Pocket on the side. Agents now do most of my version control too.
Arc → Zen for work. Close to Arc, well maintained, no feature bloat. Safari stays for personal browsing.
iTerm2 → Ghostty, a thin layer over herdr, a multiplexer built for AI agents. Setup in my dotfiles: Ghostty config, herdr config, and notes on how I use herdr.
Raycast → Tinycast, a tiny native launcher. Alfred is gone too.
Cursor is out. Mostly Zed now, with its AI turned off.
Edison Mail → Apple Mail, plus Gmail on the web when I need it.
Photoshop and Lightroom → darktable and GIMP.
Pages → Google Docs. I hardly open Pages anymore.
Perplexity → Hacker News and Newsboat, next to NetNewsWire.
Raindrop.io is gone. My TIL and personal wiki replaced bookmarks.
New: a tiling window manager (OmniWM), dictation (Wispr Flow), and Tailscale in place of Zscaler.
More small Mac utilities: Mole for cleanup, UsagePal for AI limits, Thaw, Amphetamine, and AlDente.
Todoist joined and jj joined lazygit. Bullet Journal use dropped a bit.

The list

Mail Client: Apple Mail, Gmail in browser
Notes: Obsidian, Simplenote
To-Do: Todoist, Bullet Journal
Photo Shooting: iPhone, Canon 6D
Photo Editing: darktable, GIMP
Calendar: Notion Calendar, Google Calendar on the web
Cloud File Storage: iCloud + Google Drive
RSS: NetNewsWire, Newsboat in the terminal
Contacts: Apple Contacts & Google Contacts
Browser: Zen for work, Safari for personal
Chat: Apple Messages, Slack, Discord, Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram
Bookmarks: none. My TIL and personal wiki replaced them
Read It Later: Safari Reading List
Word Processing: Google Docs
Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
Presentations: Figma
Shopping Lists: Amazon
Budgeting and Personal Finance: paisa, with ledger underneath
News: NetNewsWire, Newsboat, Hacker News
Music: YouTube Music on the web, not much
Audiobooks: Audible
Password Management: 1Password and Apple Passwords
Code Editor: Zed with AI disabled, plus T3 Code and others now and then
AI Harness: Pi, Pi Web, trying Pi Pocket
Dictation: Wispr Flow, Muesli for local transcription
VPN: AdGuard, Tailscale

Bonus Items

Important enough to include here, ordered roughly by how often I rely on each.

Launcher: Tinycast
Window Manager: OmniWM, trying out TrellisWM
Ad Blocking: AdGuard
Terminal: Ghostty + herdr with zsh and Starship
Search Engine: DuckDuckGo and Google
Version Control: lazygit and jj, trying Hunk for diffs. AI does most of it now.
Screenshots: CleanShot X
Mac Cleanup: Mole, a CLI that cleans caches, uninstalls apps, and frees up disk
AI Usage Tracking: UsagePal, a menu bar app that tracks my AI subscription limits
Menu Bar: Thaw to hide the clutter
Keep Awake: Amphetamine
Battery: AlDente to limit charging
Local Dev: OrbStack, Bruno for APIs
Mastodon Client: Mastonaut
Code Repositories: GitHub
Reading: Kindle
Writing: WriteText, Obsidian, Zed
Design: Figma, GIMP
App + Server Monitoring: Sentry
Brainstorming: Obsidian
Video Calls: Meet, Zoom
Snippet Sharing: GitHub Gist
Project Management: Linear, Jira

Default Apps 2025

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Update: see my Default Apps 2026 for this year’s list.

Apps I’ve been using regularly this year. Heavily inspired by Jeff Triplett. Catalogued by Robb Knight’s App Defaults

Mail Client: Edison Mail and gmail in browser
Notes: Obsidian, SimpleNotes
To-Do: Bullet Journel
Photo Shooting: iPhone, Canon 6D
Photo Editing: PhotoShop, Gimp
Calendar: Notion Calendar
Cloud File Storage: iCloud + Google Drive
RSS: NetNewsWire
Contacts: Apple Contacts & Google Contacts
Browser: Arc, Zen Browser and Safari
Chat: Apple Messages, Discord, Slack
Bookmarks: RainDrop.io
Read It Later: Safari Reading List
Word Processing: Apple Pages
Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
Presentations: Figma
Shopping Lists: Amazon
Budgeting and Personal Finance: paisa
News: Perplexity.ai, NetNewsWire
Music: Youtube Music
Password Management: 1Password and Apple Passwords
Code Editor: Zed & Cursor
VPN: AdGuard, Zscalar

Bonus Items

Important enough to include here, ordered roughly by how often I rely on each.

Launcher: Raycast
Ad Blocking: AdGuard
Terminal: iTerm 2 with ZSH
Search Engine: DuckDuckGo and Google
Version Control: lazygit
Screenshots: CleanShot X (also trying out Xnapper)
Mastodon Client: Mastonaut
Code Repositories: GitHub
Reading: Kindle
Writing: Obsidian, Zed
Design: Figma, Gimp
App + Server Monitoring: Sentry
Brainstorming: Obsidian
Video Calls: Meet, Zoom
Snippet Sharing: Github Gist
Project Management: Linear, Jira

Default Apps on Saurabh Kumar

Default Apps 2026

What changed since 2025

The list

Bonus Items

Default Apps 2025

Bonus Items