A fresh Mac collects apps fast. These five are the ones still there a month later. Itsycal is the one I put back first: a small icon in the menu bar, and that is the whole reason it stays.

Itsycal

Itsycal is a tiny menu bar calendar. The icon is a small block with the day of the month in it. Click it and the month drops down. It reads events from Calendar.app, can show the ISO week number, and can stand in for the system clock if you hand it a date pattern.

I keep the small icon. The date is always there, the month is one click away, and Calendar stays closed until I need the full thing.

Hold ⌘ and drag the icon toward the clock. macOS hides the menu bar items it cannot fit, starting from the left, and the notch makes that easy. On macOS 26 the icon also needs the switch under System Settings → Menu Bar.

bash 
brew install --cask itsycal

Rectangle

Rectangle, by Ryan Hanson, moves and resizes windows. Drag a window to the edge of the screen and it snaps: the left or right edge takes a half, a corner takes a quarter, the top edge fills the screen. The same actions are keyboard shortcuts, and repeating a shortcut cycles through sizes. On first launch it asks for a set: the recommended one is ⌃⌥ plus an arrow, or keep Spectacle’s if your hands already know them.

It is the free, open-source app people moved to when Spectacle stopped, and it is built on Spectacle. Rectangle Pro adds more layouts. The free app is the one on my machines.

bash 
brew install --cask rectangle

Obsidian

Obsidian is where notes go. A folder of markdown on disk, linked the way a wiki is linked. The app is local. The files are mine.

The vault syncs with git. The machine-specific files under .obsidian/ will fight you across computers, which has its own post: a safe .gitignore for an Obsidian vault.

bash 
brew install --cask obsidian

Raycast

Raycast is the launcher. Open it, type, and you land in an app, a file, a calculation, a snippet, or an extension. Clipboard history lives there too.

It can snap windows as well. Rectangle stays installed beside it. Raycast is how I start something. Rectangle is how a window lands once it is open.

bash 
brew install --cask raycast

Stats

Stats, by exelban, is a system monitor in the menu bar. CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery, sensors. Click a module for the detail, and turn off the modules you never look at. If Stats itself starts to show up in the CPU list, turn off Sensors and Bluetooth first. Its own FAQ names them as the most expensive.

It sits next to the clock, so a loud build is visible there. Open source, MIT licensed, and the reading I want before I open Activity Monitor.

The README shows brew install stats. There is no formula by that name, so Homebrew installs the same cask.

bash 
brew install --cask stats

The short list

bash 
brew install --cask itsycal rectangle obsidian raycast stats

Homebrew gets them on disk. Each one still needs a minute of setup that a script can’t do:

  • Itsycal: allow Calendar access, then drag it next to the clock
  • Rectangle: grant Accessibility under Privacy & Security, and pick a shortcut set
  • Obsidian: open the vault folder instead of creating a new one
  • Raycast: set the hotkey during onboarding
  • Stats: turn off the modules you will never read

A calendar I can click, windows that go where I put them, notes in files I own, a launcher, and a monitor that lives next to the clock. That is the set I miss when it is gone.