This week MacSparky is sponsored by a killer Mac utility, TextSniper. TextSniper is a Mac OCR app that can extract text anywhere on your Mac’s screen and automatically save it to your clipboard, so you can paste it anywhere you need it. It can even read the text to you. The whole thing works a lot like the built-in screen capture on the Mac, just way more powerful. You know those websites that won’t let you copy text? With TextSniper, you can. Do you know the pain of getting a phone number out of a document? It’s easy with Text Sniper.

That’s not all. With TextSniper, you can:

• Quickly get text from PDFs, Zoom calls, Presentations, and Videos. 
• Read QR codes and barcodes.
• Get text out of just about any image format, including JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP.

I use this app often. It’s made by a developer who spends much time making it the best capture utility on the Mac. You can even use your iPhone or iPad camera to take a photo for TextSniper to perform its magic.

Moreover, in an era where so much software is more about data mining than giving you a service, TextSniper doesn’t collect your data. The text recognition is processed on your Mac and does not require an internet connection. 

I personally use this app multiple times a week. My uses for it in the last week include: getting a UPS number without a link for package tracking (hooray!), getting a different number out of a “locked” PDF for my accountant to help pay my taxes (ugh.), and grabbing some clever chisel sharpening instructions from an ancient website that POSTED TEXT IN A JPG IMAGE! TextSniper can be just as helpful to you.

TextSniper works with macOS Catalina and later and also works with Parallels Desktop

Get TextSniper now and enjoy the fastest way to copy uncopyable text, wherever you find it. Use promo code TSMS2023 to get an additional 25% off.

Do Not Disturb was nifty little sign you could hang on the doorknob of a hotel room to let other people know they weren’t supposed to knock on your door or enter your room. You can also stick out a Do Not Disturb sign on your inbox with the help of this week’s MacSparky sponsor, SaneBox. SaneBox helps you keep your email sanity, and with Do Not Disturb, you can keep the distraction of email at bay when you don’t want to be disturbed and want to concentrate on what you need to do.  

Do Not Disturb is a feature you turn on. You choose a start and stop time, and during this time, emails won’t appear in your inbox. It’s like they saw the sign hanging on your doorknob that said, “Do Not Disturb,” and they didn’t disturb you. Where did they go? The emails that you were supposed to receive during your scheduled quiet time are moved into a Do Not Disturb folder. And this is all customizable, so you can set your desired start and end dates and times.  You can also set up delivery exceptions so that if you have someone or something important you need to get through, you can enable exceptions.

Manage your inbox and reduce the interruptions throughout the day with SaneBox. See if it works for you with a free 14-day trial, and if you decide you like it, you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Spend less time on email and more time on what really matters. 

Is your inbox fit and trim? SaneBox, MacSparky’s sponsor this week, will help you clean out your inbox. With their Deep Clean feature, you can trim your inbox in no time. 

Email Deep Clean quickly sorts and deletes unnecessary emails in bulk. You don’t have to go through your emails individually to delete them. SaneBox’s AI will look for emails older than a date you have decided on, and you’ll get an analysis on the senders that take up the most storage. You can decide what is no longer relevant and choose what goes in the trash. Declutter your email and get some storage space back. 

Clean up and free up your inbox with SaneBox. Sign up for a free trial and give it a try. As a friend of MacSparky, you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Spend less time on email and more time on what really matters. 

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Unite 4, the best app for turning websites into apps. These days, many of us are using web services that require us to navigate a website to interact with them. This creates all sorts of issues. When you close your browser, you are closing your tools. When you want to jump straight to the tool, there is no easy way. Some of them are Electron-based and use up your Mac’s resources. Moreover, they often don’t follow conventional macOS standards.

You can fix all of that with Unite 4. Unite 4 takes a website and turns it into an app. It’s dead simple. You type in a URL, and you get a Mac app. It even creates an attractive Mac-friendly icon. 

Of course, people use Unite 4 for productivity apps like Gmail, Hey, Slack, Basecamp, and every other web-based productivity app. But you can also make entertainment apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Disney+. Unite 4 goes a step further with the ability to put these apps in your status bar (which, by the way, is an excellent place for Slack) and create floating windows. It also lets you take a “slice” of a website and put it in your Dock for quick reference.

Best of all, MacSparky readers are getting 20% off this week. Stop going to web pages to get your work done. Check out Unite 4.

I often hear from listeners/readers looking for a research solution in the Mac ecosystem. My favorite app for this, without a doubt, is DEVONthink

. DEVONthink is the most professional document and information management application for the Mac. It’s the one place for storing all your documents, snippets, or bookmarks, and working with them.

The Integrated A.I. assists you with filing and searching, while the extensive search language with advanced Boolean operators.

DEVONthink features a Flexible sync system that supports many cloud services – or lets you synchronize over the local network too – with everything securely encrypted. This gives you the choice for however syncing works best for you!

It has Smart rules and flexible reminders that let you automate all parts of your workflow and delegate boring, repeating tasks. Let DEVONthink automatically organize your data with rules you define!

DEVONthink’s AppleScript dictionary is one of the largest on the Mac. There’s no part of DEVONthink that can’t be automated. Extend DEVONthink’s functionality with your own commands by adding them to its Scripts menu.

Even templates can have scripts inside and you can set up new documents with data from placeholders, or inserted by your own AppleScript code.

And, of course, there’s so much more, from an iOS companion app, email archiving, scanning, or even an embedded web server for sharing your data securely with your team.

I find DEVONthink’s combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink..

How are you doing with email storage? It’s not that you meant to hoard your emails. You were going to deal with them … some day. But time has passed, and these old emails are piling up and taking up space. If you’re thinking about clearing out some space and cleaning up your inbox, SaneBox, this week’s sponsor at MacSparky, has a new feature that could help you out. 

With Email Deep Clean, you can free up space and declutter your inbox. You choose a date, and SaneBox will scan for emails older than that date. SaneBox will analyze the email in your account and send you an analysis of the biggest offenders: what contacts, newsletters, stores, and/or websites are taking up storage. SaneBox will also come up with the senders that are no longer relevant, and you can choose if you want to delete to them. 

If you find that your email account is slower than it used to be, it could be because it’s bloated. Use SaneBox’s Email Deep Clean to trim the clutter from your inbox and get it back in shape. You can try SaneBox out for yourself by signing up for a free trial, and, as a friend of MacSparky, you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Get rid of inbox clutter and focus on the email that matters with SaneBox.

With Audio Hijack, you can record any audio on your Mac. Save audio from individual applications such as Safari or Zoom, record from hardware audio devices like microphones and mixers, or even capture the audio output of the entire system. Whatever you need to do with audio on your Mac, Audio Hijack can help.

• Record conversations from Zoom, FaceTime, and other VoIP apps
• Save streaming audio from the web
• Create podcasts, both remote and in-studio
• Digitize vinyl
• And so much more

Audio Hijack 4.2 just shipped with three powerful new effects, Speech Denoise, Parametric EQ, and FIR Filter, to enhance your audio, alongside over two dozen improvements. Check out on the latest version of the award-winning Audio Hijack today.

I use Audio Hijack daily. I’ve used many audio apps over the years, and Audio Hijack is both the most innovative and reliable in its class. That’s not an easy trick to pull off, but Rogue Amoeba just continues to do so.

And through the end of June, MacSparky readers can save 20% when you purchase with coupon code SPARKY20. Learn more and download a free trial on the Audio Hijack site.

It’s a new year gang, and I’m guessing over the holidays you took a few pictures. How’s your Photos library doing? If it’s anything like mine, it’s a mess right now. 

Did you know there is an app to help you out with that? PowerPhotos is here to the rescue.

PowerPhotos works with the built-in Photos app on your Mac, providing an array of tools to help you get your photo collection in order. Find and eliminate duplicate photos, split up your library into smaller ones, merge libraries together, open libraries in separate windows, export photos/albums, and more. 

If you’ve got old iPhoto and Aperture libraries, PowerPhotos will convert those for you. There are a ton of features in version 2:

– Convert your old iPhoto or Aperture library to an equivalent Photos library
– Advanced export of photos/albums
– Full support for iCloud Photos
– New visual duplicate detection engineLibrary groups
– Global menu bar item
– Multiple windows 

PowerPhotos adds all the features to Photos that Apple never will. You can download PowerPhotos for free to check it out, and purchasing a license will unlock all the features of the program. MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount with the coupon code MACSPARKY23, and existing iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos 1.0 users can also use their old serial number to receive upgrade pricing, 50% of the normal price.

So make the Photos app work harder for you with PowerPhotos 2.0. You can get it today.

There are a lot of great apps in the Apple ecosystem, but when it comes to doing research, the clear leader is this week’s sponsor, DEVONthink. DEVONthink is the most professional document and information management application for the Mac. It’s the one place for storing all your documents, snippets, or bookmarks, and working with them.

The Integrated A.I. assists you with filing and searching. The search is extensive, with advanced Boolean operators.

DEVONthink features a Flexible sync system that supports many cloud services — or lets you synchronize over the local network too — with everything securely encrypted. This gives you the choice for however syncing works best for you!

It has Smart rules and flexible reminders that let you automate all parts of your workflow and delegate boring, repeating tasks. Let DEVONthink automatically organize your data with rules you define!

DEVONthink’s AppleScript dictionary is one of the largest on the Mac. There’s no part of DEVONthink that can’t be automated. Extend DEVONthink’s functionality with your own commands by adding them to its Scripts menu.

Even templates can have scripts inside and you can set up new documents with data from placeholders, or inserted by your own AppleScript code.

And, of course, there’s so much more, from an iOS companion app, email archiving, scanning, or even an embedded web server for sharing your data securely with your team.

I often get email from folks who are using apps like Obsidian or Craft and trying to figure out document management in those apps. My answer, if you love those apps, is to keep using them, but put all files and documents into DEVONthink. While these emerging PKM apps are pretty great, they can’t hold a candle to DEVONthink when it comes to working with actual files.

On top of all of that, the DEVONthink team just keeps iterating. The most recent version (3.9) give you the ability to embed deep links into text and PDF annotations.

I find DEVONthink’s combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? The code MACSPARKY2023 gets you 20% off any version of DEVONthink (Standard, Pro, or even Server). You can also click this link.