By Philip Michaels
July 17, 2026 1:57 PM PT
Just ahead of WWDC 2026, Jason Snell noted that he gets a lot of pitches about Mac apps, attributing the sudden boom in macOS offerings to vibe coding aided by artificial intelligence. Regardless of how apps are getting built — be it with AI tools or the more conventional developer kits that Apple offers — it’s certainly true that a lot more macOS apps seem to be popping up, extending the capabilities of your hardware. And some of those apps deserve a little extra attention.
And that’s what I’m hoping to do with these app spotlights for Six Colors. We’ll profile some interesting new apps for the Mac (and maybe the odd iOS offering every now and again), and explain why you might want to give it a download.
Do you have an app you’d like to bring to my attention? Simply drop me a line at apps@sixcolors.com
with a brief description of your app, and we’ll take it from there.
With that housekeeping out of the way, here’s what I’ve been down lately.
Park Shelf #
Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but for most of us, our Mac screens are an unholy mess. Open windows clutter up the view, adding another layer of complication to multitasking. An app called ** ParkShelf** from Digital X Design looks to bring some order to the chaos with a handy place for storing open windows instead of placing them in the dock or relying on your Mac’s App Switcher to jump between windows.
Instead, ParkShelf features a floating bar you can position anywhere on your screen (though there is an option to pin it to a specific area if you prefer). That way you need to call up a particular window, it’s just a matter of heading over to where you’ve stashed it in ParkShelf and summoning what you need. The rest of the time, you’ve got a clean, uncluttered workspace so that you can focus on the task at hand.
I’ve been trying out the free version of ParkShelf, where you can store up to three different windows at any one time. For unlimited storage, you’ll need to pay a one-time fee of $6.99 for the Pro version. In addition to the unlimited storage, the Pro version also gives you the ability to customize a hot key that sends an open window into ParkShelf’s waiting arms. (In the free version, option-P serves as the default hot key.)
For my purposes, ParkShelf works best when I’m focusing on a specific project. If I’m on a writing assignment, I can use the app to stash a window of notes, a browser page I’m using to research the topic, and data sheets in PDF form while I type away in my text editor. When I need anyone of those windows, I can turn to ParkShelf to look something up, but otherwise, those windows are out of sight and out of mind. I’d like it better if I could store multiple web pages or notes, but ParkShelf seems to treat each app as its own window. For instance, even when I have web pages open in Safari for multiple windows instead of tabs, ParkShelf stores the whole kit and caboodle. Still, the free version of Park Shelf is certainly worth trying out if you’re looking for a way to better manage all the open windows on your screen.
Other apps #
lets you control scrolling on a Mac by tilting your head. The free utility works with 3rd-gen AirPods as well as any AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and Beats Fit Pro models. Install the app, turn on a switch, and a tilt of your head lets you scroll through emails, web pages and other windows. Mastering just the right tilt takes a little bit of practice, but this is a pretty clever accessibility tool that takes advantage of an accessory you probably already have on hand.ScrollPods - is a $5 app that serves as a sleep timer that lives in your Mac’s menu bar and lets you time shutdowns after 15-, 30-, 60- and 120-minute intervals; you can also have your Mac go to sleep at a very specific time. The 3.0 release adds Liquid Glass support, recurring bedtimes that automatically start themselves, a floating alert that can even appear over full-screen apps, and a live menu bar countdown.Sleepr - is a $5 image utility that lets you convert among JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF and PDF files. The recent 1.2 update added the ability to drop images onto a preset in the full window for instant conversions, while dropping a file now immediately starts the conversion process using current settings.Senqu Image Converter
[* Philip Michaels has been writing about technology since 1999, most notably for Macworld and Tom’s Guide. He currently finds himself between jobs, so if you need someone who can string a few sentences together (or make your sentences read a lot better), drop him a line.*]
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