We've mentioned them in passing. Little hints here and there. "Private macOS apps" that solve specific problems. But we've never properly shown them.
We've now received enough inquiries from curious listeners and readers that it feels right to open up: Here are some of the self-built tools that we use throughout our workweek. Focused solutions built for one user—ourselves.
Why show them now?
Because these apps illustrate something important about DigTek's philosophy: Constraint-driven design works just as well when you build for yourself as when you build for others.
Actually, it might work better. When you're your own only user, you can embrace constraints that would be impossible in a commercial product. Hardcode workflows. Ignore edge cases. Focus so sharply on one task that the app becomes perfect for you—but might not work as intuitively for others.
Let us show you nine tools that live by this philosophy.
The Productivity Lab
These nine apps make up our personal productivity laboratory. Each solves one specific problem. None tries to be everything for everyone.
AppStorm
The meta-app that manages all other apps
Resume any app development after a week/month long break as quickly as possible.
A three-panel NavigationSplitView that tracks project status, generates continuation prompts for Claude, and provides intelligent templates for new projects.
One project at a time. No multitasking, no distractions. When you open AppStorm, you see your entire portfolio—but choose which app to continue work on then-and-there.
AppStorm documents itself using its own documentation standards, tracks its own development status, and uses its own templates. It's simultaneously the tool and proof that the tool works.
Lightroom Analytics
Reveal hidden patterns in your photography
Photographers accumulate thousands of photos but might not know which gear, settings, and timing actually produce their best results.
Analyzes Lightroom catalogs to surface objective insights. "Hit Rate Analysis" shows which lens actually gives you the highest percentage of good photos (≥3 stars) at what time of day and what season throughout the year.
Retrospective analysis only. No real-time monitoring, no automatic suggestions during shooting. Just pure data on what has worked.
"Which lens should I bring today?" gets answered with data, not excluding the option to of course go by gut feeling from time to time.
MeetingFlow
Smart meeting management with automatic follow-up
Teams have recurring meetings where action items fall through the cracks. You lose track of who was supposed to do what, and what actually got done.
Tracks meeting series over time. Incomplete action items automatically appear in the next meeting. Visualization and analytics show meeting effectiveness.
Built for recurring meetings, not one-offs. Understands that real work happens between meetings, not during them.
"What didn't get done?" automatically becomes "What needs attention?" without any manual copying.
Photo Batch Culling
Professional photo culling with modern UX
Professional photographers need to review hundreds of photos quickly after a shoot. Photo Mechanic is the industry standard but costs $150+ and has a dated interface.
Modern SwiftUI app with keyboard-first workflow, complete multi-status culling system (pick/reject/rate simultaneously), and seamless Lightroom XMP integration.
Culling only. No editing, no organizing beyond pick/reject/rate. One tool, one job, perfectly executed.
Hundreds of photos per hour, completely keyboard-driven. When you're in flow, the app disappears—only your images and decisions remain.
Photo Batch Renamer
Professional photo import with session-aware workflow
Photographers import hundreds of files from memory cards with inconsistent naming. Expensive software like Photo Mechanic is overkill for most.
Universal camera support with intelligent EXIF parsing, session management spanning multiple import batches, professional reporting.
Session-based workflow. Not just individual files or dates—entire photo sessions as conceptual units.
Session management that no other import tools offer. Perfect for event photographers working with "Wedding Smith" or "Corporate Event Q4" as organizational units.
TextPure
Premium text reading with ASCII art intelligence
Existing editors either strip ASCII art formatting or require manual font switching. Technical documentation and creative text suffer.
Intelligent content detection. Plain text gets premium reading typography, ASCII art sections get monospace preservation, markdown gets appropriate rendering—all automatically.
File-based organization. No database, no import, no "library". Respects your existing file structure completely.
One unique feature—automatic ASCII art detection—justifies an entire application. Sometimes one thing done perfectly is enough.
ToDos
Markdown todo triage for accumulated tasks
Through apps like WorkLogger and MeetingFlow we noticed todos having a tendency to accumulate too fast and fragmented and sometimes overlap. The "todo accumulation problem" requires focused triaging.
Import, parse, and triage todos—identify what's actually done, what's duplicate, and what's not a real task.
Triage only. No task management, no planning, no prioritizing. Just: Is this done? Is it a duplicate? Is it even a real task?
Four statuses (pending/completed/duplicate/notReal), four keyboard shortcuts (Space/C/D/X). Zero distractions from the core task.
WorkAssistant
Clipboard manager that reveals attention patterns
You copy things throughout the day and lose track of important snippets. But clipboard history also reveals something deeper: your attention patterns.
Multi-day clipboard management with search, favorites, and tagging. But secondary insight: clipboard history shows when you're context-switching too much.
Stored locally. No cloud sync, no sharing. Full trust through complete privacy.
When your clipboard shows scattered URLs and fragmented sentences, you know your day has become too fragmented. Awareness without judgment.
WorkLogger
Automatic work intelligence from daily logging
Traditional work logging requires manual input: "What did I do today? How many meetings? What needs follow-up?"
Calendar integration combined with natural language parsing of daily entries. Write naturally—the app extracts meeting counts, TODOs, time spent in meetings automatically.
One entry per day. No option for multiple entries, no tasks/projects beyond today's log. Forces focused daily reflection.
Weekly client updates write themselves from accumulated data. Monthly patterns emerge that inform better time management.
The Professional Context
There are also apps we won't show screenshots of, built for specific work contexts. These apps aren't shop-able products—not because they're secret, but because their value is entirely dependent on organizational and user context.
These constraints aren't weaknesses—they're the source of the apps' power-because they assume specific workflows.
What we learn from building for ourselves
Six months of daily use with these tools has revealed patterns that apply beyond personal productivity:
Constraint selection matters more than feature addition
Each app succeeds by embracing specific limitations:
- AppStorm: One project view at a time prevents cognitive overload
- WorkLogger: One entry per day forces focused daily reflection
- WorkAssistant: Local-only storage builds trust and simplicity
- TextPure: File-based organization respects existing structures
Automatic workflows beat manual configuration
The most-used features are the ones that require no decisions:
- Calendar-first navigation in WorkLogger
- Content-type detection in TextPure
- Session-aware workflow in Photo Batch Renamer
- Parsing of to-dos from different contexts in ToDos
External tool integration beats replacement
Enhance what people already use instead of forcing tool migration. Photo Batch Renamer and Culling respect existing Lightroom workflows. Lightroom Analytics reads Lightroom catalogs directly. ToDos works with markdown files you already have.
Progressive enhancement scales better than progressive disclosure
Adding capabilities as needed feels natural. Hiding complexity behind menus feels like work.
Why not commercialize them?
The value lies in the learning, not the licensing. Each app taught us something about productivity software design that influences DigTek's iOS development:
- Constraint as liberation (from AppStorm's template discipline)
- Automatic intelligence over manual configuration (from seasonal detection and natural language parsing)
- Ecosystem enhancement over replacement (from Lightroom integration)
- Adaptive design over fixed layouts (from responsive scaling)
Perhaps more valuable than the apps themselves is the documentation of what works and what doesn't. Future productivity tool developers can learn from these experiments without building their own versions.
What this means for DigTek
The hidden macOS apps validate DigTek's constraint philosophy from a different angle. While the iOS apps demonstrate constraint through simplicity, the macOS apps show constraint through focus—each solves exactly one problem excellently.
The pattern: Whether you're building simple iOS tools or sophisticated macOS utilities, the principle remains the same: Choose your constraints intentionally, then excel within them.
This approach produces both the minimalist beauty of NoteToSelf and the specialized power of WorkAssistant. Different problems, different solutions, same underlying philosophy.
The Future: These personal tools might not become commercial products, but the patterns they've validated will influence everything DigTek builds going forward.
Sometimes the most important software development happens in private—tools built for an audience of one that teach lessons valuable to many. The hidden macOS apps represent six months of productivity experimentation, each teaching something different about how thoughtful constraint can create powerful solutions.