Cocktail is a great app for scheduling those maintenance tasks that will keep your Mac humming like a drowsy bee. Once downloaded and installed, you’ll have to enter an administrator’s password to get it open, because Cocktail just does that much next level stuff. Click the Pilot tab all the way to the right, and choose Scheduler.
With the help of this app, you can easily manage your task, sub-tasks, projects and sub-projects on Mac. To-do list offers a neat user interface primed for task management. You can easily manage your tasks for a day or week. Users can also keep an eye to the deadlines with the due dates and the recurring dates. Cocktail is a great app for scheduling those maintenance tasks that will keep your Mac humming like a drowsy bee. Once downloaded and installed, you’ll have to enter an administrator’s password to get it open, because Cocktail just does that much next level stuff. Click the Pilot tab all the way to the right, and choose Scheduler. Dec 09, 2019 The app offers a wide array of features—just about everything you might want or need in a digital journal. You can create journal entries in just one click on the Mac from the menu bar, use templates to make journaling easier, and automatically add metadata, such as location, weather, motion activity, currently playing music, and step count.
This year has been a literal dumpster fire, but we all still have lives that we need to live, as hectic as they can be. We know — you have meetings, appointments, events, errands, and so much more on your plate, and managing everything can be quite difficult. That's why it really helps to have a digital calendar to help you track everything on your schedule. Here are some of our favorite calendar apps on Mac.
Fantastical
Fantastical has been around for several years now, and even though it has switched to a subscription model, it remains the favorite calendar app for many of us here at iMore.
With Fantastical, you are getting a fully functional desktop app that also has a menubar version for quick access. You can customize your views for daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly, and your agenda of events appears in the side bar as well. If you are running multiple calendars at once, things can get gnarly — Fantastical lets you customize sets of calendars to view at once, and they can even be location-based, so things don't get too crazy when viewing. For example, you can have work calendars viewable while you're at work, but personal ones when you're at home.
The natural language input is also top-notch, as the app easily understands and fills out all of the appropriate fields while you type out something as simple as 'Have lunch with Mom at In-N-Out on Tuesday at 2 p.m.'
While Fantastical does have a subscription model now, previous users of Fantastical 2 get most of the features unlocked, so it's still very functional. If you're new to Fantastical, there is a trial to test it out to see if you like it before deciding on a subscription. The free version has restricted features.
Fantastical 3
Fantastical has a beautiful interface that's easy to use and plenty of robust features.
Source: Busy Apps FZE
Another great option is BusyCal. This app automatically syncs up with any accounts that you're using with the Mail app on Mac, and everything will be up-to-date. The design of the app itself is simple and clean, but there are plenty of powerful features as well. One of those is the Smart Filter, which lets you create rules for what events are shown. For example, you can set a filter to only show birthdays or repeating events. BusyCal also lets you have multiple Smart Filters set up at once, making it easier to organize your hectic calendar.
Other features of BusyCal include a menubar app, travel time, natural language input, and a ton of customization options including font face, size, colors, time format, and much more. If you don't like Fantastical's subscription model, BusyCal and its one-time cost is an excellent alternative to consider.
BusyCal
BusyCal packs in a ton of useful features and is highly customizable. It also has a single, one-time cost.
Source: Qbix
Mac App That Does Daily Tasks Get
If you are satisfied with the default Calendar app on Mac, but just want a companion app to go with it in the menubar, then Calendars is worth a look. This free app lives in your menubar, acting as a viewer for the calendars that you've set up in Calendar. It serves as a quick way to see your schedule and agenda in a single glance, so you aren't able to add new events from this app. There is an optional subscription that gives you more features, like adding Google Calendar accounts and backgrounds.
Calendars
Calendars lives in your menubar and serves as a companion to the default Calendar app.
Source: Fanatic Software
Need your calendar app to be more than just a calendar? Then Informant is the one you're looking for. This powerful app rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes into one, giving you everything you need in a single glance. The task manager element of Informant is also very flexible, working with you, whether it's GTD, Franklin Covey, or a simple and basic task list. Informant also has support for multiple filters, so you can easily switch and access the important stuff whenever you need to.
Informant
Informant rolls your calendar, task manager, and notes app into one.
Source: Higher Bar LLC
If you want your calendar to live in your menubar, but need a bit more functionality than Calendars, then InstaCal is worth considering. This app also lives in your menubar, so it's not a full blown app like the others. However, it keeps your calendar a click away, so you can view your events, agenda, and even tasks, as well as having the functionality of adding new events and tasks directly. InstaCal works with any of the calendars that you already have set up in Calendar, or you can manually add unlimited accounts from Google, Office 365, and Outlook. It also has Dark Mode support, customization options, and more.
InstaCal - Menu Bar Calendar
InstaCal lives in your menubar but still gives you plenty of functionality, including the ability to add events and tasks.
Source: AntLogic
Do you want a calendar app that is simple and lightweight? Mini Calendar fits the bill perfectly. It gives you access to your calendars three ways: on the desktop, from the Dock, and from the menubar. When it's on the desktop, it is always-on and sits above the wallpaper. From the Dock, you just need to click on the icon and it will bring up the calendar as a popup. Mini Calendar is configurable in terms of color, shortcut keys, and it can show you sunrise and sunset times too. It's just a light and fast way to get to your calendar when you need to.
Mini Calendar
Mini Calendar is a lightweight calendar app that you can access from your desktop, Dock, or menubar.
Source: Vincent Miethe
Rounding out the list is Calendar 366 II, which is another menubar calendar app. However, it's one of the more fully featured ones, which is quite impressive. With Calendar 366 II, you get full access to your calendar and reminders right from your menubar, and you can change the view to year, month, week, day, agenda, or even list. It has eight themes for light and dark modes, custom colors, calendar sets, custom font sizes, Spotlight integration, travel time, Alfred and LaunchBar support, and so much more. To pack all of the features of a full on application into just the menubar is pretty amazing, and the cost of the app is not too much either, all things considered.
Calendar 366 II
Calendar 366 II is one of the most feature-packed menubar calendar apps there is.
Keep your schedule organized
These are just a few of our favorite calendar apps on the Mac App Store. What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
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If you have recently switched to Mac OS X from a Windows computer, you may be wondering where Task Manager, which was able to stop and manage the tasks your computer did, is.
Fear not: Task Manager exists on Macs, but it has a different name: Activity Monitor. Like Task Manager, Activity Monitor allows you to see, manage, and stop things the computer may doing, from tasks, to applications, to other processes.
You may feel intimidated while trying to understand such an important tool, but in reality, Activity Monitor is very simple to use. These tips should help you understand how to use your Activity Monitor to its fullest potential.
Activity Monitor = Task Manager
One of the most important things to remember if you have recently switched from PC is that Activity Monitor is the exact same application as Task Manager, and thus works in the exact same way.
Most of what you remember from your Windows program will apply to your Mac OS X.
How to Find the Activity Monitor in Mac OS X?
You may remember that with Windows, you could access the Task Manager through pressing Control+ALT+DEL. Accessing Activity Monitor in Mac OS X is somewhat differente.
There are a few ways to launch the application. One way is to open the app within the containing directory. Another is to go through Launchpad. You could also either drag it into the Dock (your home screen), or just use Spotlight for easy keyboard access.
You can first find Activity Monitor by first going to “Applications,” then clicking on “Utilities” from there, and from there, selecting “folder.”
Of course, there is a simpler way to access Activity Monitor on Mac OS X. This is through using the Spotlight keyboard shortcuts, which can be done easily:
1.Press the command key and the spacebar, which will bring up the Spotlight search field.
2.Type “Activity Monitor” into the search bar.
3.Select “Activity Monitor” once it comes up. This should take you to the Activity Monitor app.
The most useful way to sort tasks is by CPU (central processing unit), but they can also be sorted by their individual names, memory usages, or process IDs.
You can also find specific tasks using the search bar in the upper right hand corner by typing in the characters or names associated with those tasks.
When using Activity Monitor, you will see that it not only displays you what apps you have running at that moment, but will also show system level tasks, daemons, kernel tasks, and processes that are being done by other people who use the computer.
Once you are able to access the Activity monitor, you will be able see every single thing the computer is doing. This is why Activity Monitor is so important.
Mac App That Does Daily Tasks Work
How to Stop a Task or Other Activity through Activity Monitor
Once you are in the Activity Monitor app, just select whatever it is you want to end by clicking on it. From there, you will see a large red button that says, “Quit Process” in the left hand corner of the app window.
Mac App That Does Daily Tasks Take
Once you click that button, you will be asked, “Are you sure you want to quit this process?” As long as you have clicked on the task or application you want to stop, click on the “Quit” option that will appear below this question.
If the app is still open after you try this, you should select the “Force Quit” option as an alternative, which will immediately end the process and/or close down the application without any warnings or questions.
How to Get System Stats, Memory Usage, CPU, Network, and Disk Info through Activity Monitor
You can get all kinds of system usage info regarding your Mac OS X by looking at the bottom of the Activity Monitor app window.
There should be tabs along the bottom labeled “CPU, System Memory, Disk Usage (space), Disk Activity and Network activity and usage.”
Simply click on these tabs to see information about the topic it is labeled with.
If you want to keep tabs on live system stats and activity continually, first minimize the Activity Monitor app window by clicking on the yellow icon. From there, you should right-click on the Dock icon.
This will allow various system activity monitors to appear directly on your home screen, and which will present live graphs in place of the standard icon.
You can make these graphs specific to CPU (which is suggested, as it is probably the most helpful for you), network, disk activity, or RAM usage. This can help you keep track of exactly what you are hoping to monitor without any sort of confusion.
Helpful Advice to New Mac Users from the Windows World
If you are a new Mac user, remember that until you are more comfortable with using Spotlight and how your Mac works, it is often advised that you keep the Activity Monitor in your Dock in order to be able to view it easily.
If thinking about all of this monitoring scares you, you will probably be relieved to know that you will not use Activity Monitor very often, because Mac OS X, and the applications that go with it, tends to run much more smoothly than Windows.
That being said, it is always a good idea to make it easy to access, and to know how to use it, just in case something goes wrong.
Usually, if something does go badly, it is most likely because of a sub-process or plugin that has been opened inside of a web browser, like Java or Flash, having some sort of problem, which can cause an app or tab to have trouble and freeze up.
Mac App That Does Daily Tasks Pay
There are many differences between Windows and Mac OS X, but luckily, Task Manager is not one of them. As long as you remember that Activities Monitor is basically the same, it is simple to understand, and you will be a pro in no time.