This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/apple by /u/thievingfour on 2024-08-25 13:58:52+00:00.
๐ Hi everyone,
I'm the solo creator of an app called Monarch. It's a tool that helps you handle various tasks on your Mac (see below), without getting in your way or overwhelming you with complexity. It launched in February 2024 and has received tons of updates and new features suggested by users! Many users I talk with weekly to get ideas and discuss feature development in real time, so I hope to end up talking with you!
First things first:
There's no account required, no subscription (one-time payment), it works completely offline, and it collects absolutely no data and no telemetry, and it's currently 33% off for lifetime free updates.
What is Monarch?
Monarch functions like Spotlight Search, but it goes beyond just searching apps and files. Throughout my day there are so many little roadblocks or moments of friction that make doing one task or another just a little bit harder than it needs to be. Not much harder, just about 2% or 4%. Once per day would be no big deal, but multiple times per day throughout the week and you find yourself losing a lot of time, focus, or momentum.
Monarch is a collection of super useful tools and functions combined into a single app. It's designed to eliminate those tiny moments of friction throughout your day and help speed you along and prevent context switching wherever possible.
Best of all, Monarch is 100% user-supported. There are no VCs involved in Monarch and there never will be. If you are familiar with the Stop Killing Games movement, I am a big believer in developer responsibility and so the app is set up so that a rug pull is not possible. This means that Monarch will always work, now and forever!
Here are many of the key features:
โจ๏ธ App launcher for opening, switching, and quitting apps with ease
Use Monarch to open, switch to and quit apps. A nice UX touch here is that when you are about to quit apps with the "quit" command, Monarch shows you how much memory quitting the app will free up.
๐งฎ Powerful calculator with natural language and unit conversion
Never open a browser tab for a quick calculation again. Here are some calculations you can try in Monarch yourself:
"$10/month x 7 years"
"$50.36 / (2lbs / 27.5g per mug)"
"time in tokyo"
"time in new york"
"3 weeks from now + 4 days"
And that's just the beginning! If you decide that you want to shorten your typing, you can create variables such as "wfn = weeks from now" and "d = days" and then you can change the last example to: "3 wfn + 4 d". Very handy, especially when offline!
๐ Clipboard history
No more losing data you copied, or having to send yourself links, or having a scratch note to keep track of things you might need later. Monarch keeps track of what you copy and allows you to retrieve it later. You can filter by content type, application, pin items, rename items and even search the text in screenshots. You can turn clipboard history on or off at any time and it automatically filters out content from password managers like Keychain and 1Password.
๐ Superlinks - Connect Monarch to anything
Superlinks allow you to create a link between Monarch and any other app or website. You can specify dynamic fields, control how links open in browsers, and even reorder the parameters as you see fit. Superlinks make it so that you can be anywhere on your computer and immediately access your favorite apps and tools! You can check out Monarch's user manual to see what I mean!
๐ Emoji & Symbol picker
Easy access to emojis by opening Monarch and typing ":" You can rapidly select emojis by holding the โ key or simply copy them to the clipboard to use later. Emojis and symbol names can be next to impossible to remember, so Monarch allows you to rename anything with โ+R, making emojis easier to use than ever.
๐ Note capture
The fastest way to take notes on Mac. You can even be in fullscreen watching Netflix, or in a zoom screenshare listening to a lecture and Monarch will appear on top of anything, allowing you to quickly take notes and get back to what you were doing without changing workspaces. Notes can also be written in markdown for easy formatting and the notes are 100% local and stay on your computer.
๐ง Audio controls
Connect to your favorite audio devices without touching your mouse (or do use the mouse). Save input and output combinations as presets to access them even faster. Save individual devices with โ+S to have them appear in the main search results so you can connect even faster.
๐ Blazingly fast file search
Start typing the name of a file and see much more relevant results than with default spotlight. This is because configuration and library files are excluded from search in Monarch by default. Find files quickly, then drag and drop them to send them to someone or upload them.
๐ Navigate file system via Monarch
Press the ">" key on any folder to enter into it and search the contents of that directory. This is useful for when you want to find configuration and library files, as well as hidden files. Press the right arrow key on any file or folder to activate Instant Send, and perform a wide range of relevant actions on that file or folder.
๐ค Quickly search your contacts from Monarch
Search for and open your contacts from Monarch. Pretty self-explanatory.
๐ Browser Bookmarks
Search and find your browser bookmarks directly in Monarch. You can set Monarch to track the bookmarks of all of your browsers. Hold the โ key while searching for bookmarks to easily launch them in any browser at any time, much more easily than ever before.
๐ง Apple Reminders
Integration with Apple Reminders so that you create, edit, and delete them using Monarch. You can also see your most urgent reminder at a glance whenever you open Monarch. You can mark them complete or incomplete directly in Monarch's UI.
Custom Themes
Change Monarch's look to suit your personality using the built in theme editor.
That's a good start! There's much more to the app, but surely this is enough to get most started with. New features and improvements are being added constantly, and some people are even seeing their suggestions being heard and then implemented in a matter of days.
To start using Monarch, you can download the app from the Monarch website or you can install it using homebrew by running brew install --cask monarch if you prefer it that way.
You can purchase the app to support the mission via the website. I genuinely love getting feedback from users, so please share your perspective!
Frequently asked questions:
What's the difference between Luna/Freya licenses?
Luna license is a lifetime license that will have access to all versions of Monarch from 1.0 to 2.0, 3.0 and beyond, for 0 upgrade costs for the rest of ever. Freya licenses will be similar to CleanShot X licenses in that you can optionally upgrade for a small fee. Luna license is lifetime because it's my way of saying thank you for supporting so early!
EDIT: Thanks for the award whoever gave that!