●Notes from building things
Blog
What I learn making small apps — the problems that started them, and the ones I still haven't solved.
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Mac Menu Bar Clock: Show Seconds, Date, and 24-Hour Time
Show seconds, the date, the day of the week, or 24-hour time in your Mac menu bar clock, where Clock Options moved in macOS 26 and 27, and which apps fill the gaps.
Nov 9, 2026
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31 postsMar 24, 2026
Free Mac File Organizer: Rules vs AI (2026)
Every file organizer for Mac now advertises AI. The question worth asking first is cheaper than that: how much does a free, rule-based organizer already cover, and what is the actual point where paying, or handing your filenames to a model, starts to earn its keep?
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Jan 25, 2026
Ornix 1.1.1: Now You Can See Where Your Files Went
Ornix 1.1.1 adds History tab, extended conflict options, folder numbering, and category management. Track where your files go and organize your Mac automatically.
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Jan 11, 2026
Free Mac Ambient Lighting: What You Get Without Paying (2026)
The most common question we get is whether there is a free way to do this. There is, in three layers: what macOS already does at no cost, which free third-party tools actually fill the gap, and the exact point where $2.99 starts to make sense.
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Jan 10, 2026
Where Did My Files Go? Undoing Automatic File Moves on Mac
Guides about automatic filing all explain the setup. None of them explain the morning you cannot find the file. Here is how to locate something an app moved, what Finder's undo really covers and what nobody has documented, when Time Machine can and cannot help, and the four failures that keep showing up in support forums since 2015.
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Built an app out of most of these.
Every post here started as a problem I hit. Some of them turned into apps you can download.
See the apps →