Rogue Amoeba, makers of powerful audio tools for your Mac, are back to sponsor MacStories. From professional podcasters to home users, their lineup of products can assist you with all your audio needs.

Making recordings with Audio Hijack is a cinch, and transcribing audio is even faster with version 4.5.

No need to record? Take advantage of SoundSource for amazing control of your Mac’s audio. You’ll have control of each app playing audio on your Mac right from your menu bar, so you can adjust per-app volume, apply audio effects, and even redirect playback to a different device.

And if you want to overhaul your microphone capabilities in audio or video calls, check out Loopback so you can make a virtual input device from inside the Mac: Target audio playing from apps running right on your Mac, like their fun soundboard app Farrago to bring in background audio or sound effect clips, and bring it together with your microphone without any loss in quality. You can even pair Loopback with Audio Hijack, to add effects for your microphone.

Rogue Amoeba’s software is always available to try for free, and recent updates have brought a dramatically simpler setup process. Visit their site to download free fully functional trials. MacStories reader you can save 20% on any purchase through their store, with coupon code STORIES2504 at checkout. Act fast, as that deal ends April 20!

Our thanks to the team at Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Fello AI is a native macOS app that unifies today’s top AI models into one streamlined chat client. Instead of juggling multiple subscriptions and clunky web tools, you can now access models like ChatGPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.0 Pro, Grok, LLaMA, or Perplexity all from a single interface.

Designed for professionals, students, and creatives, Fello AI simplifies everyday tasks such as coding, research, writing, and brainstorming. It can perform real-time web search to ensure that answers reflect the latest news and are up to date.

Fello AI is also a powerful tool for file analysis, letting you chat with up to 16 PDFs, documents, or images at once. Whether you’re summarizing reports, reviewing contracts, writing image captions or extracting key data, AI makes it effortless.

The app’s advanced interface includes a prompt library for saving frequently used commands, conversation pinning for quick access to important chats, and bookmarking to keep track of key insights—helping you stay organized and efficient.

Built natively for macOS, Fello AI delivers a fast, smooth experience that integrates seamlessly with your system. With features like drag-and-drop file uploads, keyboard shortcuts, and system-wide search, the app feels right at home in the Mac ecosystem.

Instead of paying hundreds of dollars per month to access multiple AI models separately, Fello AI brings them all together in one app for less than $10 per month. With a single subscription, you get unlimited messaging, file analysis, and access to all supported AI models—making it the smartest and most cost-effective way to use AI on macOS. Learn more about Fello AI.

Our thanks to Fello AI for sponsoring MacStories this week.

DEVONthink 3 is the all-in-one solution to organizing and retrieving documents across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. By supporting numerous file formats, it’s the perfect solution to bring your work together in one powerful hub.

What sets DEVONthink apart is its many information retrieval features. The app learns from the way you use it, so it can automatically classify and tag your documents. Plus, with advanced Boolean operators and smart groups of saved searches, it’s simple to create refined searches that you can return to whenever you need them.

DEVONthink has lightning-fast search, too. It uses advanced AI to go beyond simple keyword searches, finding the most relevant documents instantly.

The app is also the perfect companion for web-based research. You can automatically pull from RSS feeds, save webpages in a variety of formats, including Markdown, and then highlight, comment, and take notes. The app can even suggest connections between documents and provide contextual recommendations using its integrated AI.

With OCR technology built in, DEVONthink is also perfect for going paperless. Just scan in your documents, and DEVONthink takes care of making them text-searchable.

Everything in your DEVONthink database can sync between multiple Macs, as well as iPhones and iPads. The app also uses industry-grade encryption to secure your documents and offers easy export of documents in multiple formats.

There’s never been a better time to bring order to your information. DEVONtechnologies is offering 10% off on all versions of DEVONthink to MacStories readers for a limited time. Visit DEVONtechnologies’ website today to learn more about how DEVONthink can help you gain the upper hand on your data and to take advantage of this great offer.

Our thanks to DEVONtechnologies for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Introducing 1Blocker 6, the most powerful version yet of the trusted Safari content blocker. Now available for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro, this update marks almost a decade of innovation and dedication to creating a better web experience.

For ten years, 1Blocker has been your companion in eliminating distracting ads, intrusive trackers, and annoying pop-ups. With version 6, the indie-developed app has released a compelling new design and reengineered architecture, paving the way for even more powerful innovations.

The app’s native design delivers a cleaner look, faster performance, and easier navigation. Enhanced blocking rules improve accuracy, while new granular filters let you customize your web experience like never before.

Download 1Blocker 6 for free to enjoy one free filter, with no restrictions on features or customization. Choose the filter that matters most to you and experience advanced functionality without limits.

Upgrade to 1Blocker Premium to unlock unlimited filters and enjoy the convenience of automatic, scheduled filter updates in the background. Plus, MacStories readers can get one month of 1Blocker’s Premium features for free, which is sharable with up to five family members. Don’t delay, though, this offer is only available until January 20, 2025. Use the code MACSTORIES or this link to take advantage of this great limited-time offer today.

Don’t wait, download 1Blocker 6 and discover the benefits of a cleaner, faster and more private web experience today.

Our thanks to 1Blocker for sponsoring MacStoris this week.

PowerPhotos is the ultimate toolbox for Photos on the Mac. It works in conjunction with the Apple Photos app, filling in missing features that Photos itself doesn’t provide. 

PowerPhotos allows you to work with multiple Photos libraries and store them wherever you want, including on an external drive or a network drive. Split up your giant library into smaller ones by copying photos and albums with a simple drag and drop, preserving metadata such as edits, titles, and keywords along the way. You can free up space on your laptop’s drive or save space on iCloud while still keeping all your photos handy in the Photos app.

Or, if you already have multiple libraries, use PowerPhotos to merge them together while weeding out duplicates along the way. PowerPhotos also features a powerful duplicate photo finder, a browser to let you see your libraries side by side in multiple windows, multi library search, advanced exporting, converting old iPhoto/Aperture libraries, and more.

PowerPhotos 2.0 can be downloaded for free from fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos and offers many of its features for free. Purchasing a license will unlock advanced features such as library merging, deletion of duplicate photos, and unlimited photo copying and exporting. Existing users of PowerPhotos 1.0 or iPhoto Library Manager can use their old license key to upgrade for 50% off the regular price, and MacStories readers can use the coupon code MACSTORIES25 to receive a 20% discount.

Our thanks to PowerPhotos for sponsoring MacStories this week.

WinterFest 2024: The Festival of Artisanal Software is back with a fantastic new collection of carefully crafted software for writing, research, and thinkings.

Innovative software often comes from small teams, fired with imagination and a vision of a better way to work. There are no bundles, games, or prices that are too good to be true: just fresh software with fantastic support at great, sustainable prices.

Software artisans from around the globe have come together for this time-limited event to bring you innovative systems to assist you with everyday knowledge work. This incredible catalog of productivity software includes:

• Avalanche:Photo catalog migration
• BBEdit: power tool for text
• Bookends: The reference manager you’ve been looking for 
• DEVONagent Pro: Your smart research assistant 
• DEVONthink: Your powerful information and knowledge manager 
• Easy Data Transform: Merge, clean, and reformat data without coding 
• Hookmark: Using links beats searching
• HoudahSpot: Powerful file search 
• HyperPlan: Flexible visual planner 
• ImageFramer Pro: Add creative borders and frames to photos 
• Nisus Writer Pro: The powerful Mac word processor
• Panorama X: Collect, organize, and understand your data
• Peakto: Media management for creatives
• Photos Workbench: organize and compare your photos
• Scapple: Quickly capture and connect ideas 
• Scrivener: Your complete writing studio 
• Take Control Books: Expert advice from leading tech authors
• Tinderbox: Visualize and organize your notes, plans, and ideas 
• Tinderbox 101: Learn to unleash your knowledge and insight
• Trickster: Your recently used files at your fingertips
• Yojimbo: Your effortless, reliable information organizer

These amazing deals don’t come around often, so act today to start 2024 off with the best software available from this terrific group of developers.

Visit the WinterFest website to learn more and for links to these amazing deals, or use the coupon code Winterfest2024 at checkout.

Our thanks to Winterfest for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Have you noticed an increase in unwanted robocalls or texts? At best, spam calls are an annoyance and a total waste of time. At worst, they’re targeted attempts to scam you for money or collect data that can be used for fraudulent purposes.

Why You’re Getting Spammed on iOS

Your personal data is collected, traded and sold without your consent by companies like data brokers and people search sites. It’s eye-opening just how much information is collected with virtually no oversight: your name, email, home address, phone number, SSN, family status, and even credit score.

If you’ve suddenly received an influx of spam, chances are that your phone number (and more sensitive information) has been leaked, sold and uploaded to these unscrupulous databases. Traditional number-blocking techniques on iOS aren’t enough to stop them.

Incogni - Personal Data Removal Services

Personal data removal services can silence the harassment and get your sensitive information off the internet. Incogni’s personal information removal service will search out the data brokers most likely to be dealing in your personal data. Then, it sends out wave after wave of takedown requests on your behalf. Incogni does it all for you, letting you keep an eye on removal progress through your dashboard and regular privacy reports.

A great feature of Incogni is that it restarts removals every three months to ensure your personal info is kept out of circulation.

Take Back Control of Your Privacy, Year-Round

MacStories readers get an exclusive 58% off Incogni annual plans by using code MACSTORIES.

You can cancel at any time, and Incogni starts with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s really nothing to lose – apart from those annoying robocalls and suspicious texts.

Our thanks to Incogni for sponsoring MacStories this week.

BetterTouchTool is a powerful macOS application that enables users to completely customize their various input devices such as Keyboards, the (Magic) Mouse and Magic Trackpad, the Touch Bar, the Siri Remote or even things like the Stream Deck.

Today let’s have a look at a new feature that has recently been integrated into BetterTouchTool and is getting more powerful with every update: Floating Menus / Widgets.

Imagine them as highly flexible, widget-like menus that you can place virtually anywhere on your screen. You can attach them to specific positions in specific windows, to specific screens, the current mouse position and many more. You can specify whether they float on top, stick them to your desktop or have them behave like normal windows (and more). 
They can always be visible, expand on mouse hover or be shown/hidden via any trigger in BTT.

You can find various Floating Menu examples on https://share.folivora.ai. For example have a look at the Notch menu, which is invisible by default but expands from your Macbook’s Notch on hover.  Another nice example is the “Mini Emoji Menu” preset, it places a little transparent dot on the left edge of the focused window. When hovered it shows multiple custom emoji which you can insert by clicking.

The documentation for this new feature is available here and you can always visit our community page to discuss or request features.

Try BetterTouchTool now (45 day free trial) or go and purchase a license with this 20% coupon code: MACSTORIESBTT2023 at https://folivora.ai. BetterTouchTool is also included a Setapp subscription.

Our thanks to BetterTouchTool for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Having a calm and personal space in which to make sense of the world is crucial in the age of information overload. You must be able to capture what’s important to you and have a distraction-free place to process it. Capacities is a note-taking app that wants to be just that. 

A novel approach

Moving away from files and folders, Capacities groups notes by their type and facilitates connections with easy linking between notes. All of this is centered around a calendar, which is your anchor to lay out all your note-taking on a timeline. It acts like your inbox and starting point, giving you a simple go-to place when processing what you have captured.

Who uses Capacities?

Knowledge workers, CEOs of small and large company and professionals from various industries alike enjoy Capacities’ refreshing approach to organizing their thoughts and ideas.

Great media support

Capacities goes beyond just text: media such as your images, PDFs, audio recordings or bookmarks become part of your notes.

Cross-platform, seamless sync, powerful features

This experience is available cross platform, with great offline support and seamless sync behind the scenes on servers safely hosted in Europe. Capacities has pledged that its core will be free forever, with a simple one-click export functionality for all your content, but there is also a paid plan that unlocks extra features like an AI Assistant, powerful integrations and more.

Join a community of thousands of happy users

Thousands of happy users find in Capacities an intuitive tool where their minds feel at home. It’s a quiet place for you, amongst a very busy world.

Visit Capcities.io today to learn more and give Capacities a try.

Our thanks to Capacities for sponsoring MacStories this week.