the macOS 27 Golden Gate beta.)

# The potential gotcha

CaptionSnap has to be running in your menu bar when the meeting starts. It does not turn on captions in Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom for you, so that's your job too. CaptionSnap provides instructions for each platform. As long as you don't disable captions later, the setting should hold between restarts of each app, but verify it yourself. The worst version of this is finding out after the meeting that nothing was captured.

# Who this is for

This is for you if you take meeting notes on a Mac, you don't want a bot announcing itself in a client call, and you'd rather have a plain text file than a web dashboard. If you aren't fond of explaining to IT why you need an app with Screen Recording permission, CaptionSnap doesn't put you in that conversation.

# Who this is not for

This is not for you if you need the audio and not just the text, or if you work with people who never enable captions. Don't get it if you're on Intel or an older macOS, or if you want AI-generated action items and CRM sync. For that last one, this is deliberately the wrong tool and the subscription products below are the right ones.

# The alternatives

**macOS Live Captions.** Free, built in. Vanishes when you dismiss it, no speaker names, no timestamps, nothing saved. Useful in the moment, useless a day later.

**MacWhisper.** Free tier, or €64 one-time for Pro ([macwhisper.com](https://www.macwhisper.com/)). Transcribes local audio with Whisper and Parakeet, records Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, and Discord without a bot, and Pro includes automatic meeting start and end detection plus speaker recognition. Much larger tool, much larger job. It does the model download and the CPU work that CaptionSnap avoids, and in exchange it also handles interviews, lectures, podcasts, and system-wide dictation. If you need transcription generally and not just meetings, this is the one. I wrote about it in 2024: [MacWhisper - Transcription Powerhouse](https://appaddict.app/post/macwhisper-transcription-powerhouse).

**Granola.** Free Basic tier with limited history, $14 per user per month for Business, $35 for Enterprise ([granola.ai/pricing](https://www.granola.ai/pricing)). Also avoids joining as a bot, but it processes in the cloud and is built around AI-enhanced notes and team integrations rather than a raw transcript you own.

**Otter.ai.** Free tier at 300 minutes per month, Pro at $16.99 per user per month billed monthly or $8.33 billed annually, Business at $30 monthly or $19.99 annually ([otter.ai/pricing](https://otter.ai/pricing)). This is the thing CaptionSnap is reacting to: it joins your Zoom, Teams, and Meet calls as a notetaker, and everything lives on Otter's servers. I've used Otter for dictation, but not for meetings.

Unless otherwise noted, the alternate apps mentioned above are based on research and not individual testing.

# Price and verdict

Fourteen-day trial, no credit card, then $9.99 once for up to three Macs, with a 30-day refund policy ([CaptionSnap pricing](https://captionsnap.app/)). Ten dollars, paid one time, against $14 to $17 a month for the subscription notetakers.

This is Wes Stockfisch's first shipped app. I give developers the benefit of the doubt, but be aware, there's no maintenance track record here, and the macOS 26 plus Apple Silicon requirement means you need a current M-series machine. But the idea is right. The captions already exist. Reading them instead of recreating them is the kind of obvious move nobody made because, well, they mnight have been overthinking it on this..

One caveat before the verdict: I haven't been able to test this extensively. Retirees don't have a lot of Zoom calls. But in the testing I was able to do, CaptionSnap held up.

In my opinion, ten dollars to stop explaining a bot to clients is not a hard decision.

https://redd.it/1vkmkai
@macappsbackup

Mac Mouse Fix: Spaces & Mission Control broken on macOS 27
https://redd.it/1vlabtb
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Yes, it’s another clipboard manager — but Kept lets you edit images, videos and PDFs before you paste

Problem: I often copy something and immediately need to change it. An image needs cropping, a video needs trimming, or a PDF has a typo. That normally means opening another app, exporting the result and copying it again.

Comparison: History-first tools such as Maccy, Paste and PastePal are great at retrieving clips. Kept is built around a different workflow: edit copied text, images, videos and supported PDFs before pasting or exporting.

Kept 2.0 — Edit what you copy, then paste or export it.

Kept also works as a standalone PDF editor. You can open a document directly, edit supported text, add text, images or signatures, draw, highlight, rotate pages and export the result. Everything stays local on your Mac, with no account or cloud.

Pricing + App Store: I originally expected to release Kept for free or nearly free. After losing my job and seeing the editors grow into a much larger project, that stopped being sustainable. I still didn’t want a subscription, so Kept is a one-time $19.99 lifetime purchase. Current features and future Kept updates are included.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6772479708

Changelog: Version history is available on the App Store page above.

AI Disclaimer: [Human Validated\] — AI-assisted development was used, with manual testing on a real Mac and automated regression tests before release.

https://redd.it/1vla2o7
@macappsbackup

OS Rockxy 0.34.0 - Native macOS HTTP Debugging Proxy - $39 until Aug 16

v0.34.0

I’m Stephen, the developer behind Rockxy. Since first sharing it here, I’ve kept improving it from Reddit comments, GitHub issues, and developer feedback. Rockxy has now passed 500 stars and 500 commits, with v0.34.0 as the latest release.

Problem
Browser DevTools stop at the browser. Rockxy is a native macOS proxy for inspecting and modifying HTTP/HTTPS, WebSocket, GraphQL, mobile, CLI, AI API, and JSON-RPC traffic across a wider development workflow.

What changed
Rockxy now includes capture and inspection, breakpoints, Map Local/Remote, rules, network conditions, scripting, replay, comparison, HAR/OpenAPI export, certificate management, iOS device setup, and a free local MCP server.

Rockxy Assistant has also shipped. It can investigate selected requests, explain the workspace, present supporting evidence, and open relevant workflows while keeping actions under user control.

I’m also running early integration experiments with several AI product teams. Names will only be shared when those partnerships are ready to be public.

Comparison
Charles Proxy and Proxyman are mature products. Rockxy’s direction is open source, native Swift, auditable, local-first by default, and designed for modern AI-assisted and MCP workflows.

The free tier remains genuinely useful for capture, inspection, local MCP, and lighter debugging. Pro is for developers who need the full or heavier workflow.

Ecosystem
Babylon 1.0.0 is now public on the Swift Package Index. It sends debug-only HTTP/HTTPS, WebSocket, gRPC, and runtime trace data from an app to Rockxy through an encrypted local connection.

Rockxy CLI is under internal development, beginning with read-only app, proxy, certificate, version, and JSON status commands.

Rockxy iOS is actively being developed around session inspection, replay, import, redaction, and controlled sharing. Deeper capture still requires signed-device testing, security review, and stable organization and App Store distribution setup.

Rockxy Android is at an earlier internal stage and does not have a public release date yet.

Team Workspace remains a major focus, including members, seats, devices, and shared debugging assets. Shieldxy and Tracexy are also being developed as separate open-source products in the Rockxy ecosystem.

Pricing
Free remains available.

Standard: $39, returning to $79
Personal: $59, returning to $109
Team: $9/seat/month, billed yearly

Founding pricing ends Sunday, August 16, 2026. Regular pricing begins August 17. Existing purchases are unaffected. Standard and Personal remain perpetual licenses with 12 months of updates and support.

https://github.com/RockxyApp/Rockxy
https://rockxy.io
https://rockxy.io/pricing
https://swiftpackageindex.com/RockxyApp/Babylon

If you try Rockxy, I’d appreciate honest feedback about what works and what still needs improvement.

If you’re interested in testing Pro, leave a comment or message me with your debugging workflow. I’ll personally send a developer discount code where it fits. It is not conditional on an upvote or positive review.

https://redd.it/1vlbzr4
@macappsbackup

Most devs lose money on international pricing set by Apple, I made a Mac app to solve that
https://redd.it/1vldhdi
@macappsbackup

YouTube Premium kills the ads but doesn't solve the real problem. Here's the stack I use to do that.
https://redd.it/1vlf3u8
@macappsbackup

I built Murmur, a local AI voice studio for Mac [Giveaway: 5 Lifetime Licenses

https://redd.it/1vl8ty0
@macappsbackup

[OS] LayoutLock: Save and restore your Mac workspace, including apps, tabs, and window layouts
https://redd.it/1vliee5
@macappsbackup

FlipCloc: A gorgeous clock, pomodoro, timer, stopwatch. Productivity app & screensaver

https://redd.it/1vljt8t
@macappsbackup

TabLinker - Save & restore browser sessions across browsers, now with Shortcuts & Siri

https://redd.it/1vlfj7w
@macappsbackup

VisionTagger: Local AI for Photo Tagging
https://redd.it/1vlnkv2
@macappsbackup

I built App Archiver to save space without deleting apps

https://redd.it/1vlqb24
@macappsbackup

Any Finalist users here?

Hey all,

I just saw a sponsored MacStories article (via NetNewsWire RSS) about Finalist, a daily planning app that brings different elements of daily planning - reminders, calendar events, notes habits and journals - together in one place. I find it to be a very interesting concept, and I'm gonna give it a try.


I was wondering if anyone here has used it before? or is anyone using it now? How do you like it so far?



Original article: https://www.macstories.net/sponsored/finalist-a-paper-inspired-daily-planner-with-notes-for-iphone-ipad-mac-and-now-apple-watch-sponsor/

App website: https://www.finalist.works

https://redd.it/1vlry5n
@macappsbackup

Problem: Grammar Checking Dictated Text (looking for FOSS)

So, I'm visually impaired and I dictate a lot of text using FluidVoice. However, occasionally, that text is not grammatically correct--well not exactly. I'd like a free and open source tool that can help me do that. Most of the paid tools are, frankly, too expensive for what they do. And I know there are some options out there. So if any of you could provide any direction or discussion, I would really appreciate it.

https://redd.it/1vlled3
@macappsbackup