This article was published 9 years ago, therefore the contents of this post may be out of date.

This is the second of my end of year round up of my monthly featured HandPicked Goodies for Designers & Developers, today’s post will be focusing on all the great fantastic Desktop Apps that been released through this year. Please note that not every Desktop Apps plugins that got featured on this blog will be featured as the list is huge anyway and for your ease of reading I will be splitting the best of Desktop Apps into months… so lets start.

January

Desktop Groups – Mac App – $9.99

Desktop-Groups

This app will let you create groups of related files on your desktop and while you can freely move groups of files around on your desktop and add or remove files via drag & drop.  Each of the groups has a title so that you can organize your files any way you like.

Briqs – Mac 10.8 App – Free (but $11.49 to export HTML)

Briqs

Briqs is a Mac app that was made to help those who want to design a responsive websites without coding. This app will let you design websites visually with a great component collection of the popular front-end framework Bootstrap.

Within Briqs it is possible for you to build complete multi-page pixel-perfect website projects from prototyping all the way up to the export of clean, production-ready code or rendered images of the pages (for sharing with team and clients).

Duo – Mac App OSX 10.8 – $4.99

duo

Duo is a dual-paned web browser built for Responsive Web Design that allows you to browse the web in two different views: the first one is your standard ‘desktop’ view as well as the typical ‘mobile’ view.

As it easier to see your site in these two views at the same time, you’re be able to quickly test and work through multiple screen experiences rather than considering them separately.  This apps is great for a designer or a developer, project manager or client as Duo gives you a new tool to make your Responsive Web Design project go more smoothly than ever.

Light Table – Mac/Windows/Linux 64 & 32 App – Free

light-table

Light Table is a new and  interactive IDE that lets you modify running programs and embed anything from websites to games, as it provides the real time feedback that we need to not only answer questions about our code, but also to understand how our programs really work.

February

Smart Screenshots – Mac App OSX 10.9 – $9.99

Smart-Screenshots

Smart Screenshots app allows you to capture, edit and save or share your screenshots or any other images.  As you can clip a Full screen, a Window or a custom Rectangle which you  share any image with your friends with one click and with having Smart Screenshots support dual monitor setups. You can clip the  rectangles or full screen screenshots from any of your monitors and when you have done taking these screenshot, you can use some tools to highlight screenshot details by using a Brush, Arrow, Line, Rectangle or even an Oval.

ThreadOne – Mac App OS X 10.8+ – $4.99

ThreadOne

ThreadOne is a fast, lean private messaging client for App.Net. It’s a gorgeous, native Mac OS X application, giving you the power to chat from the comfort of your desktop.

Pinegrow Web Designer – Mac/Win App – $49.99

Pinegrow-Web-Designer

Pinegrow is a Mac & Windows app that will lets you mockup & design webpages faster. With Bootstrap, multi-page editing LESS & CSS. There is also a free web-based Pinegrow to play around with Bootstrap or to quickly come up with some code and afterwards download Zip archive of your project.

Origam – Mac App – Free

origami

Origami is a free toolkit from the Facebook design team for Quartz Composer that makes interactive design prototyping easy and doesn’t require programming. There are three requirements you need to have to use this toolkit first one is you need to be a registered as a Apple Developer, download and install Quartz Composer then you need to download and install Origami.

Infinit – Mac App – Free

infinit

Infinit is a fast, intuitive and unlimited file-sharing Mac app that was conceived for graphic designers. The app is free to be use and as it is a tool that will drastically simplify the way you interact with your collaborators and clients.

It’s being used by designers around the world as you can use it for any file, any size and any type with a simple design that allows you to pause and resume the downloading or uploading of files due to a lost of internet connection. Your files will be encrypted so only the sender and recipient will have access, this app is so simple you will as you will just drag, drop, type a name and hit the send button and your files will be sent

March

Keep Everything – iOS & Mac App – Free

keep-everything

Keep Everything save web pages to Dropbox and keep it forever, and so you can read later, anytime, anywhere. It can save all or any part of web page and specific data from other applications, such as Twitter, YouTube, Pocket, and ReadKit. It can be used in OS X and iOS and synchronizes by using Dropbox.

IconIon – Mac & Windows App – Free

iconion

Iconion is a Mac & Windows free app that allows you to convert any icons font at any icon size into a fantastic looking PNG icons by adding colour, shadow, background, gradient, stroke and other awesome elements

Recordit – Mac App – Free

recordit

Recordit is free mac app that allows you to record screencasts simply and super fast.

April

NoteSuite – Mac 10.7 App – $6.49

notesuite

NoteSuite helps you to stay on top of everything that is important in one organised place, with this app you can take notes, manage to-dos, clip web pages, read and search documents through this app

Sparkle – Mac 10.9 App – Free

Sparkle-for-Mac-Web-Art-Direction

Sparkle is a visual website builder that you was designed to let you build fully functional websites without knowing anycoding knowledge, in the core of this app is a modern WYSIWYG editor that is very simple to use and is powerful enough for building a static webpage such as a product promotional page or a personal landing page.

Hinder 2 – Mac 10.8+ App – $19.99

hider2

Hider 2 lets you hide, encrypt, and password protect private data on your Mac, making it impossible to find with Finder or Spotlight. It has custom grouping, global shortcut keys, and an array of other organizational features that make keeping track of your hidden data a piece of cake.

May

StartNinja – Mac OSX 10.7+ App – Free

start-ninja

Macs don’t have a built-in way to mute or silence the system start up chime. If you’re in a library or coffee shop you don’t always want that start up chime to play. Now you can silence the Mac OS X Lion start up chime with StartNinja. It is a free and simple desktop utility that silences the start up chime and will resume previous sound level after logging in.

June

Fenix – Desktop App – Free

fenix-web-server

Fenix is a simple static desktop web server for developers. as you can work on multiple sites simultaneously and serve any number of HTTP projects side by side with Fenix. With Fenix you can view JSON, XML, and other webhook payloads with the request browser.  You can create, stop, start, and share Fenix servers from the command line with the free Node.js console app. Now you can turn your desktop into a public web server by sharing a link. Let collaborators/reviewers “touch and feel” the site.

July

myTuner Radio – Mac OSX 10.9+ App – $7.99

myTuner-Radio

myTuner Radio is easy to use, has a great design and it sits on the menu bar for you to use whenever you like. It’s the best way there is to listen to the radio on your Mac. With this app you can record the music that plays on the radio, so you can listen to it later. You can even separate the files, so you can listen to each individual music later.Never miss out on the opportunity to listen to that music that you love…

Hemingway App – Mac & Windows App – $4.99

hemingway-app

The Hemingway Editor for Mac and PC highlights common errors. Use it to catch wordy sentences, adverbs, passive voice, and dull, complicated words.

August

5iler – Mac & Web App – Free

5iler

5iler (pronounced ‘filer’) is a notepad for the rhythm of your mind as you can organise your files using colours and customisable labels, and re-purpose them to fit the contexts relevant to you at a given time. Unlike most other text editors, 5iler’s working space is limited (so things remain maintainable).  There are two ways to use 5iler: as a web app or as a mac app and as for right now, it doesn’t have a backend or user accounts. Unless you setup Dropbox syncing, as it keeps your data 100% private by only storing them locally in your browser’s local storage.

Scribbleton – Mac/Windows/Linux App – Free

Scribbleton

Scribbleton is your own personal wiki, where you can store everything from quick notes, to detailed checklists for work, to the outline for that next bestseller novel.

September

Gravit – Mac/Windows/Linux/Chrome/In your browser – Free (in Beta)

gravit

Gravit is the a cutting-edge design app that will take your creativity to new heights. Gravit offers the creative possibilities of a full-scale design suite but in a snug app-sized package. It’s powerful yet easy-to-handle, as it has been custom designed from the ground up with an emphasis on versatility, fluidity and elegance and with complex design tasks are made simple through its robust suite of tools and highly responsive smart work environment.

Day One – Mac App – $9.99(Mac)

dayone

Day One is a journaling app for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Record life as you live it. From once-in-a-lifetime events to everyday moments, Day One’s elegant interface makes journaling your life a simple pleasure.

October

Grid – Mac 10.7+ App – $1.99 (Limited Time)

grids
Grids is an Instagram client app for Mac OS X, users can view their feed, profile, liked photos, popular photos and nearby photos as well as like, comment and save photos/videos, and more. It’s user interface works both at full screen and in widget-sized window.

Affinity Designer – Mac OSX 10.7+ – $64.99

Affinity-Designer
Affinity Designer is the fastest, smoothest, most precise vector graphic design software available. Whether you’re working on graphics for marketing materials, websites, icons, UI design or just like creating cool concept art, Affinity Designer will revolutionize how you work.

It takes full advantage of OS X technologies such as OpenGL, Grand Central Dispatch, Core Graphics and is fully optimized for 64-bit and multi-core processors to squeeze every ounce of available performance from your hardware – so it’s seriously fast. Whether it’s a 100 megapixel image or the most complex vector drawing with thousands of curves, you still pan and zoom at 60fps, move objects in correct z-order and see live views of all adjustments, brushes and effects as you’re working with no compromise.

Packer – Desktop App (Various) – Free

packer
Packer is a tool for building identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration. Packer is easy to use and automates the creation of any type of machine image. It embraces modern configuration management by encouraging you to use automated scripts to install and configure the software within your Packer-made images.

November

Monodraw – Mac App – Beta

monodraw

Monodraw allows you to easily create text-based art – like diagrams, layouts, flow charts and visually represent algorithms, data structures, binary formats and more. Because it’s all just text, it can be easily embedded almost anywhere.

Mischief – OS X 10.8+ – $24.99

Mischief

Mischief is a revolutionary, infinite canvas drawing app that allows you unlimited freedom to sketch, create and explore.  Mischief’s unbelievable responsiveness delivers a natural drawing experience, like actually sketching with pen and paper. Create authentic feeling pencil roughs and silky smooth line work that scales beautifully.

December

Hot Shots 2 – Mac OSX App – $3.99

hot-shots-2

Hot Shots 2! is an even better way to browse Dribbble shots from amazing designers and developers on Dribbble.com. It’s been updated to use the new Dribbble API – you can like shots, follow players, and browse shots of a player.

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The Best HandPicked Goodies of 2014: Desktop Apps Edition